After running Tripadvisor for 22 years, I was searching for my next passion project when I learned that Amazon was pulling the plug on AmazonSmile, its popular charitable program that donated a percentage of eligible purchases to nonprofits.
Astonishingly, the press release blamed a lack of impact, as the average charity only got a few hundred dollars. Despite raising nearly half a billion dollars for charities between 2013 and 2023, Amazon publicly stated it wasn't having a big enough impact. The company instead pledged to donate billions to fund housing equity, computer science scholarships for underserved communities, disaster relief, and other areas where it felt it could have a bigger impact.
