Using your desktop or laptop system’s browser, or using your mobile device’s browser (but not your tablet’s or smartphone’s installed amazon.com mobile app), go to the smile.amazon.com website. After you log into the smile.amazon.com website for the first time, it will ask you to designate the nonprofit organization that you wish to receive your donations. If you enter “Milpitas Historical Society” as text, it will search for it in the official GuideStar database of recognized charitable organizations and ask you to confirm by choosing the one located in Milpitas (hypothetically assuming there might be several such organizations of identical name in different locations). Once designated, your recipient will remain recorded in your AmazonSmile account until such time as you designate a different organization to receive donations derived from your shopping.
The Milpitas Historical Society and
The AmazonSmile Charitable Donation Program
Frequently Asked Questions:
- How do I register my donation choice if I already am an Amazon.com customer?
- How do I change my donation choice if I am already enrolled in the AmazonSmile program?
- Do I have to shop differently than I do now at Amazon.com?
- What products that I might purchase are eligible in the AmazonSmile program?
- Before I sign up, what is the AmazonSmile program?
How do I register my donation choice
if I already am an Amazon.com customer?
How do I change my donation choice
if I am already enrolled in the
AmazonSmile program?
Referring to the picture above, from your desktop or laptop’s browser, go to organization you currently are supporting (shown under the white search box). Now
click on CHANGE to begin the process of designating your new choice.smile.amazon.com and when logged in, click the down arrow at the end of the charitable.
Do I have to shop differently
than I do now at Amazon.com?
Yes, but it is very simple. Using your desktop or laptop system’s browser, or using your mobile device’s browser, go to and log into the smile.amazon.com website. The two websites share common information, such as any items you have stored in your SHOPPING LIST or information about the status of any items you have ordered, so there are no annoying inconveniences resulting from “two” websites maintaining separate records.
Do all your subsequent shopping at smile.amazon.com; the searching and shopping process is the same as you previously experienced at the original amazon.com website.
What products that I might purchase are eligible in the AmazonSmile program?
Eligible products generally are products sold by Amazon directly rather than those sold by one of Amazon’s alliance partners, but in any case all eligible items are clearly identified to you with the notation illustrated at the bottom of the snapshot image below. If that notation is missing, then the product still can be bought without a hitch, but it does not generate the 0.5% of price donation (or $1.99 in this case) to the Milpitas Historical Society. Simply shop and purchase items as your normally would; the Society will receive a donation for all purchases that qualify in their AmazonSmile program, for which we are very grateful.
Before I sign up, what is
the AmazonSmile program?
AmazonSmile is a website operated by Amazon that lets customers enjoy the same wide selection of products, low prices, and convenient shopping features as on Amazon.com.
The difference is that when customers shop on AmazonSmile (smile.amazon.com), the AmazonSmile Foundation will donate 0.5% of the price of eligible purchases to the charitable organizations selected by enrolled customers.
The customer pays the same price for products purchased through smile.amazon.com as they would if purchased at amazon.com. Also, the customer incurs no service charge for making these donations, and the recipient charitable organization also pays no service charges for receiving the donation. The AmazonSmile Foundation administers the program and disperses on a quarterly basis the collected amount of contributions (from the Foundation’s own charitable donation treasury) to the charitable organizations designated by all the customers enrolled in the program.
So far the AmazonSmile Foundation has donated over $105 million to charitable organizations.
A donation of only 0.5% (one-half of one percent) of an eligible item’s price may not seem like much money, but aggregated over the course of 12 months, depending on the number of shoppers enrolled to the Society’s benefit and depending on the amount of money spent annually by them, as the Society’s Treasurer I can state that it will benefit the Society financially. It is additional money (the AmazonSmile Foundation’s money) that would not have been donated to the Society by other means.
Please know that the Milpitas Historical Society appreciates your financial support very much.
(posted January 2019, Joseph Ehardt, Treasurer)