EDMOND—Philadelphia Church of God members and contributors in the United States who shop on the Amazon.com retail website can have the company donate part of its profit to the Philadelphia Church of God. When shoppers use Smile.Amazon.com instead of Amazon.com, the company donates 0.5 percent of their purchase amounts to the charity of their choice.
The Smile.Amazon.com website is identical to the main Amazon.com website, and the products and prices are the same. It does not appear to be available outside the United States.
“The PCG first looked into this in early 2017,” said department head Andrew Locher, “and it took a little effort, but we finally got Amazon to not categorize us as ‘Protestant.’” The PCG has been registered with Smile.Amazon.com for about two years.
“So far, we’ve received $2,467.14 donations from Amazon Smile,” said comptroller Jason Hensley. “Since so many people regularly use Amazon for their everyday purchases, we believe this amount can substantially grow if people just get in the habit of making sure their Amazon purchase is on the Smile.Amazon.com website.”
Smile.Amazon.com can benefit the Church without costing you anything, if it is used wisely. For example, if you buy a $100 item on Smile.Amazon.com, it will cost you the same amount as if you had purchased it on Amazon.com, but 50 cents will be donated to the PCG. These small amounts can add up to a significant contribution, Hensley said.
However, it does not make sense to pay more for items on Smile.Amazon.com just for the sake of making a 0.5 percent donation to the PCG. If the same item can be purchased for $95 on Walmart.com, Ebay.com, Jet.com, another retail website or at your local store, it would be better to buy the item at the lowest price and put a dollar or two aside to add to your next PCG contribution, rather than buying the same item for $100 on Smile.Amazon.com.
If you do use Amazon.com, and it does offer you the best price and value on a given item, you can help the PCG at no cost to you by switching from Amazon.com to Smile.Amazon.com as indicated below.
How to Use the Site
To begin using Smile.Amazon.com, use the following steps:
- Open your Internet browser and type: smile.amazon.com
- Log in using your regular Amazon username and password.
- In the search bar at the bottom right corner, type “Philadelphia Church of God Inc.”
- Many organizations have similar names. Select the organization with Edmond, Oklahoma, as its location.
- On the right-hand side, click the yellow Select button.
- On the next screen, click the Yes checkbox to agree that you must log into Smile.Amazon.com rather than Amazon.com in order to donate.
- Click the yellow Start Shopping button.
- Continue shopping as normal.
Donate.pcog.org
Interested in another free way to support the PCG financially? Consider using https://donate.pcog.org for your contributions.