I would love to see Best Buy, B&H Photo, or similar site run with this idea. They would get great marketing and help the world out, even if just a little bit.
Amazon Closing AmazonSmile
481–490 of 581 posts
Re: Amazon Closing AmazonSmile
#482I would love to see Best Buy, B&H Photo, or similar site run with this idea. They would get great marketing and help the world out, even if just a little bit.
It’d be a great add to a store or store adjacent credit card. 1% cash back and we’ll match to a charity or something like that.
Re: Amazon Closing AmazonSmile
#483I've twice done tech work for charities (the second being my current contract) and this is going to affect some charities, particularly the ones that rely on donors, over others that rely on grant money.
Though the sums were tiny, weren't they? I mean, it was $400m in 9 years, spread over a million charities in the end. To get a significant amount of money through that program, you'd need to be a big name that a lot of people would choose to donate to ... at which point you're a big name that probably gets a lot more money through regular donations.
One was an international charity, and tiny sums definitely matter. 12 cents buys a de-worming pill that helps keep kids free of intestinal parasites for 6 months. $35 bucks plants 20 trees in a village. Their main focus was a brick and wire based stove that prevented unnecessary deaths and blindness by reducing smoke, built locally from local materials for pennies.
Big charities tend to focus on where they can have the most impact. Smaller charities tend to focus on making an impact in a place that needs it.
My current charity work is as as Dev and Technical Consultant for a company that basically helps organizations do online evidence based mentoring and support in both urban and rural communities, using an app they developed. Founded basically by a professor to implement her research, than passed on to a new CEO when it took off. They work with a lot of Big Brothers Big Sisters chapters.
My contract runs out in Feb and I'm not sure what I'm going to do after that, given all the local layoffs. It's not like the stuff I'm working on is at Scale or uses Machine Learning or requires K8 or whatever is going to make some hiring manager's eyes light up now.
Re: Amazon Closing AmazonSmile
#484> "our ability to have an impact was often spread too thin" If that's the supposed reason, I call bullshit. Could've just reduced the number of charities.
They could increase the impact by giving a larger percent of the sale. Amazon sends an email every so often telling you how much you've "donated" via Smile, and I'm always surprised how sadly small that number is. I've been in the program for many years and I buy a lot of shit from them.
The local gas station gives me 5% off for using their card AND 5% to a local charity.
Re: Amazon Closing AmazonSmile
#485Re: Amazon Closing AmazonSmile
#486Earlier quoted context omitted.
But smaller organizations will be missed entirely. My charity is a cat shelter in St. Louis. I’d rather they get my cut than a larger charity that means less to me and has bigger fundraising machinery.
Yes and small charities like this are generally volunteer-run and a very high percentage of their income goes to their charitiable purpose. Large charities leech off the existence of the problems they are claiming to solve. If they actually solved them, they wouldn't be needed any more. Name any large organization that has ever worked itself out of needing to exist. And their executives make a lot of money.
> Name any large organization that has ever worked itself out of needing to exist.
This is an interesting take, but got me wondering, what organization _period_ has ever worked itself out of needing to exist? I'd love to hear examples.
Re: Amazon Closing AmazonSmile
#487Earlier quoted context omitted.
Unpopular opinion, but charities are like carbon credits. Most of the money goes into people’s pockets and very less percentage of the donations actually make it towards helping the cause they run on. Very few legitimately use the money in the way we expect it to be used. So I’m okay with them losing $400M.
That's truest of the big ones, imo. "Power corrupts" etc., even when that power is a non-profit. I upvoted you since the sentiment is correct. The nice thing about AmazonSmile is that you could pick from the small ones you know well and trust. Now, Amazon will donate to the biggest ones without our choice, which is definitely worse.
Exactly. Nobody is getting filthy rich off bobs dog shelter but people certainly do milk the big charities. Often the tiny ones that benefited from Smile were run by volunteers and all funds raised were used for non-salary expenses.
Re: Amazon Closing AmazonSmile
#488Re: Amazon Closing AmazonSmile
#489Earlier quoted context omitted.
Though the sums were tiny, weren't they? I mean, it was $400m in 9 years, spread over a million charities in the end. To get a significant amount of money through that program, you'd need to be a big name that a lot of people would choose to donate to ... at which point you're a big name that probably gets a lot more money through regular donations.
One was an international charity, and tiny sums definitely matter. 12 cents buys a de-worming pill that helps keep kids free of intestinal parasites for 6 months. $35 bucks plants 20 trees in a village. Their main focus was a brick and wire based stove that prevented unnecessary deaths and blindness by reducing smoke, built locally from local materials for pennies. Big charities tend to focus on where they can have t…
Oh sure, you can do good things with small amounts, I meant it more like: if you're a small charity where every penny counts, you probably didn't get thousands of dollars from Amazon because you didn't have the reach (and arguably, the time dealing with amazon may have been spent better doing something else). And if you're a big name, you're not relying on a few tens of thousands from Amazon because you're taking in millions in donations and grants each year.
I assume it can be hard to transition between charity and for-profit work. Are charities following with the hiring-freeze? Wouldn't freelancers be more welcome in these times, given that they're easy to let go? Good luck in any case.
Re: Amazon Closing AmazonSmile
#490Earlier quoted context omitted.
Where's the reference to grade school coming from? It wasn't in the original post.
Do high school kids need macbook airs?
I don't know if high school kids need macbook airs, but I also don't see how that answers the question of where "grade school" was in the original comment