Amazon promotes 1-Click for holiday charitable giving

Amazon.com has taken some hits for being stingy with philanthropy. Perhaps with that in mind, the ecommerce giant is announcing a holiday program that lets people make donations to various charities, including the American Red Cross, UNICEF, and Greenpeace, using the credit card information they have stored at Amazon.com.

Amazon isn’t announcing any donations of its own, but instead offering its 1-Click payments platform to facilitate online giving. Along with the charitable nature of the program, there’s a sales subtext as well. The company has been trying to interest nonprofit groups in its payments service and other tools.

“With Amazon Payments, nonprofit organizations now have a simple and cost efficient way to process online donations while leveraging the fraud detection and risk management controls that Amazon Payments provides as part of the service,” said Mark Stabingas, general manager of Amazon Payments, in a statement.

Other charities taking part in the holiday program include the Nature Conservancy, Feeding America, Heifer International, Autism Society of America, International Fund for Animal Welfare, Children’s Miracle Network and United Way of King County.

Amazon has made its 1-Click payments available to charities before. The company puts an American Red Cross button on its homepage during natural disasters to solicit donations. The program has generated more than $35 million for global relief programs since 2001, according to Amazon.

Amazon got slammed by Slate earlier this year, which dubbed the online retailer “The New Scrooge” for its dismal record of charitable giving. After that, Amazon spruced up its community support page and made some new grants to literary-minded non-profit groups. – TechFlash

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