Opinion: Smiling in the face of commercialization

Christmas is over commercialized.

That’s not an earth-shattering statement. I’m pretty sure my parents said the same thing a couple decades ago.

But it never stops.

Each year, the advertisements are louder, the gifts are bigger, the wrapping paper is more glittery and the pressure to spend skyrockets. You’re just not doing Christmas morning right if mom, dad, the kids and the dog don’t have on matching fleece pajamas – available in five different patterns from the fine folks at Target. Stand just right for the Instagram photo, kids.

There’s just one nagging fact threatening to knock me off my bedazzled soap box – I love to shop. I love browsing the glittery paper, hunting for the perfect gift and feeling festive in my reindeer-themed fleece.

Then I was reminded of AmazonSmile. Since launching in October 2013, the program has donated $37.9 million and counting to over a million charities across the United States. It’s the crossroads of commercialization and philanthropy.

How does it work? According to Amazon’s website, “AmazonSmile is a simple and automatic way for you to support your favorite charitable organization every time you shop, at no cost to you.”

Cut through the fluff: You buy stuff on Amazon, and the company makes a charitable donation. The world’s largest online retailer donates 0.5 percent of eligible purchases to the charity of your choice. If a charity accumulates $5 worth of donations in a quarter, it gets a check.

I looked up Springfield and found 38 pages of 501(c)(3) organizations ready and waiting, from Pregnancy Care Center to the Foundation for Springfield Public Schools and Convoy of Hope to Enactus – and that was just the first page.

Seems perfect, right? I’ve discovered not everyone likes the idea of AmazonSmile as much as I do. The internet is littered with articles such as, “Does Amazon’s charity put a smile on anyone’s face but their own?” and “Why Amazon is smiling and charities may be losing.”

CNNMoney interviewed Sandra Miniutti, vice president of marketing for Charity Navigator, an organization that evaluates and rates philanthropic organizations. Miniutti says the obvious downside of AmazonSmile is 0.5 percent of your purchase most likely won’t amount to a substantial donation. In order to contribute just $25 to your favorite charity, for instance, you’d have to spend $5,000 on Amazon. The consensus: generating meaningful donations through AmazonSmile requires a ton of shopping.

I can see the argument: Why buy on Amazon when you can just make a more substantial donation to the charity itself? But think about that for a second, when’s the last time you made a charitable donation? Now, when is the last time you bought something on Amazon?

See what I mean?

While half a percent may not seem like much, it could add up for charities. A few days ago, I bought a Christmas gift on Amazon. Had I gone through AmazonSmile, 25 cents could be in the coffers of a local nonprofit where it could do some good. And I’m just one person, one checkbook. It could add up over a year, across a city.

As a supporter of shopping local, I’m not supposed to advocate for shopping on Amazon. But truth be told, we all do it and it’s not going away anytime soon. According to the National Retail Federation, 122 million people purchased something online this Cyber Monday, that’s up by a million over last year. PricewaterhouseCoopers’ annual Total Retail Consumer Survey released in February found 54 percent of global consumers make online product purchases weekly or monthly.

AmazonSmile isn’t going to stop anyone from donating to charity, but it could make my purchase of Tide Pods more useful than just cleaning a pile of dirty reindeer-themed fleece pajamas.

Christmas may be over commercialized, but at least we can face it with a smile.

Springfield Business Journal Features Editor Emily Letterman can be reached at eletterman@sbj.net.