Rick Simonson

Amazon add-on and ...
August 8, 2007

Two small items to add from last week's post about Amazon.com and its lack of corporate philanthropy (does any public company making money have a record of less givng?).

The first, that while mention was made here of board members trying to stir, albeit without results, something up, it should also be pointed out that a number of Amazon employees are active in the community this way, serve on boards, etc. I don't know if he was a board member of 826 Seattle, the local spin-off of the young people's writing centers that Vendela Vida, Dave Eggers, and company, have helped spawn, but there was a lovely house party fundraiser for 826 Seattle at an Amazon person's house a few years ago. (I know most of us wouldn't classify Amazon as. uh. just a bookseller ... but will say that the house and spread in question, while not ostentatious, was not that of your average bookseller ...). And Seattle Arts & Lectures, whose party was cited at the start of last week's note, has an Amazon person on its board, as indeed do others. Only too bad that there's no corporate matching program in place; that board member's x-thousand dollar annual contribtuion would, in most similar company's plans, be matched by that company. These out-in-the community Amazon folk do discuss and talk about this, though somehow the discussion and talk is only that when it comes to resulting in anything.

The second item, a this-just-in kind of thing, from this past Monday's business page of  the Seattle Post-Intelligencer: an item that Jeff Bezos (this is himself personally acting, not Amazon) recently gave shares of stock in Amazon.com to a non-profit. The shares - 4,532 of Bezos' 101,000,000 shares - presently would be valued at $348,058. Okay, that's something. But ... this is one nonprofit? It isn't named. Do we wonder if the organization knows?

Posted by Rick Simonson on August 8, 2007 | Comments (2)