AmazonSmile is a charitable-giving program where Amazon donates to your favorite charity every time you shop, at no cost to you.
You can choose from nearly one million organizations to support.
To shop at AmazonSmile simply go to smile.amazon.com, rather than amazon.com. Eligible products are marked “Eligible for AmazonSmile donation” on their product detail pages. (Recurring Subscribe-and-Save purchases and subscription renewals are not currently eligible.)
On your first visit to AmazonSmile, you need to select a charitable organization. From then on, the AmazonSmile Foundation will donate 0.5% of the purchase price from your eligible purchases.
Update December 5, 2015: This article previously mentioned the Church as one of the charitable organizations you could choose. However, the Amazon Smile campaign is not an approved Church fundraising initiative. There have been individuals and wards that have set up Church-related accounts, but these are not approved.
Thanks for listing The Foundation For Apologetic Information And Research. I love that group.
How do we verify the legitimacy of the charity we’re naming in Amazon Smile?
By legitimacy I mean, for example, how do we verify the donation is actually going to LDS Philanthropies or whatever other group we specify?
I heard that you can also choose to donate to your local BSA troop. What I’d really like is to donate to the Perpetual Education Fund. Maybe they’ll add that one later.
You can also donate to The Interpreter Foundation this way. Headed by Daniel C. Peterson, the Interpreter Foundation publishes Interpreter: A Journal of Mormon Scripture and other resources on the scriptures. See MormonInterpreter.com.
Where did the church go? Did they remove it????
Jonathan,
Good question. When I search now for “The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints-LDS Philanthropies,” I don’t find it. However, I added it previously and it still shows as my choice.
Looks like its been removed 🙁
It looks like LDS Philanthropies, The Corporation of the Presiding Bishop, LDS Business College, LDS Family Services, and BYU are no longer on the list. Anyone heard why that is?
OK I asked LDS philanthropies about it, and got this:
“Thank you for the inquiry. The Amazon Smile campaign is not an approved Church fundraising initiative. There have been individuals and wards that have set up Church related accounts, but these are not approved.”
So I guess you can’t donate this way to them.
However I did find you can donate to the provo food and care coalition (“friends of the coalition”) from smile so I’m doing that now. 🙂
I just got notified that my smile donation choice is no longer valid. Here is the message today…
We’re sorry. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints is not currently eligible to receive donations from AmazonSmile.
Please select a new charity to support. If you have made purchases in support of organizations that are no longer eligible for AmazonSmile, Amazon will apply donations based on these past purchases to the new charity you select.
I am curious exactly how much money has been donated and how much have I donated? Wish there was transparency in these amounts because I am sure it would be loved to be known. Having spent thousands with Amazon due to the promise of charitable contributions without proof or records seems to present a potential problem. From my spending I would suspect over 800
Received the same notification? We can’t donate to the LDS Church now?
What is the best place or team to contribute to instead? FamilyHistory?
I have the same question as Jonathan, since I also received this notification recently.
I received an email today saying Amazon can no longer donate a portion of my purchase to the Church because the Church no longer meet their requirements. After some sleuthing I discovered what may be the cause: Amazon may see the Church as no longer abiding by their Participation Agreement, quoted in part below.
“Eligible Organizations are those charitable organizations that we determine:
are qualified under Section 501(c)(3);
are public charitable organizations and not a private foundation;
are not supporting organizations, unless identified specifically as a Type I, Type II, or functionally integrated Type III supporting organization;
are headquartered in the United States (the 50 States and the District of Columbia)
are in good standing in their state of incorporation and in the states where they are authorized to do business;
do not engage in, support, encourage, or promote:
intolerance, discrimination or discriminatory practices based on race, sex, religion, nationality, disability, sexual orientation, or age;
hate;
terrorism;
violence;
money laundering;
other illegal, deceptive, or misleading activities; and
are otherwise not in violation of the terms of this Participation Agreement.”
Maybe it’s the recent policy change about children of same-sex couples?
I don’t think so. Looking at the timestamps on these comments the LDS Church has long resisted accepting money from this program.