Tags
Amazon's Smile Program, Charitable Giving, Ellen Miller, Money and Politics, Open Govenrment, Open Secrets, Public Campaign, The Center for Responsive Politics, The Sunlight Foundation, Transparency
Have I got a deal for you!
If you use Amazon for on-line shopping, you can have them automatically support your favorite charity (their participating charities now number almost one million). They will contribute 0.5% of your eligible purchases to the charity/charities you so designate.
So at no further cost to you than what you are already spending, why not take the simple step of having them contribute this small portion of your purchases to a group you support/would like to support?
You can go to About AmazonSmile to read about the specifics of this program.
The ‘Shameless Promotion’ to which I refer in the title of this post is my suggestion that you designate The Sunlight Foundation as one of the charities you consider supporting.
As many of you know, my wife Ellen (Miller) has been involved for more than 30 years in a non-partisan effort to understand and to report the role of money in politics and to shine ‘sunlight’ (the best of disinfectants) on this issue.
The first organization she built and headed for many years was The Center for Responsive Politics, an organization whose mission is tracking the effects of money and lobbying on elections and public policy. It’s OpenSecrets.org website is still one of the most authoritative and respected online database information sources on this subject.
The second organization she founded was Public Campaign, whose mission was and continues to be a non-partisan effort for campaign reform that aims to dramatically reduce the role of big special interest money in American politics.
Her current efforts are through her third organization, The Sunlight Foundation, where for the past seven years she has directed a campaign “to use the power of the Internet to catalyze greater government openness and transparency.”
(You can learn more about each of these organizations by clicking on the links in the paragraph above. Also, there is an earlier MillersTime post (How Come She Doesn’t Give Up?) where Ellen talks (12 minutes) about her efforts at making our government more open and transparent.
The pitch: If you want to support Ellen and Sunlight’s work, Click on This Link, and you will be able to have 0.5% of your eligible Amazon purchase(s) contributed to The Sunlight Foundation, with no cost to you. It is a one time set up that will only take you a few moments to complete and will result in continuous giving (to Sunlight or to whatever charity you so designate).
Thanx.
Bob T said:
This is nice but let’s encourage folks to get books at Politics and Prose and other independent book stores whenever possible.
My 2 cents.
Ben S said:
I agree with Bob T. I’ve seen too many bookstores gone, and on top of that, what we’re learning about Amazon’s preactices as an employer, all has led me to try as hard as possible to avoid using Amazon, despite my human desire for immediate rewards — awaiting the delivery drones!
Richard said:
I absolutely agree with Bob T above concerning purchasing books through our wonderful Politics and Prose Bookstore. You can also purchase books on-line through them and e-books too.
However, I know that there are many folks who use Amazon for many purchases, not only books, and each purchase you make over the next year can benefit the charity of your choice.