20 Things You Can Do Today to Make The World a Better Place

Treat yourself and help a good cause at the same time! (Photo: NBC)

Shop with Amazon Smile

Want do to more to support charities and causes you care about but feeling too financially strapped? Here’s an easy way to help: Use the Amazon Smile program. This allows you to designate a particular charitable organization as your personal beneficiary. Then when you start your Amazon shopping trips at http://smile.amazon.com, a portion of every eligible purchase you make will be donated to that group. And this works every time you shop, free of charge.

There are almost one million available organizations to choose from, including everything from the Red Cross to Operation Smile to the ASPCA to Girls Who Code. You can also search for local organizations, such as the public media station or animal shelter in your community. So you have lots of options, and the odds are high that your favorite group – or at least something very similar – will be on the list. It’s also very easy to change your designated charity, if you want to support more than one group as you shop throughout the year.

The total donation works out to be something like 0.5% of your purchase price per shopping trip. So, this probably work out to a life changing amount of money. (Unless you’re an extremely aggressive Amazon shopper, I guess.) But it’s a nice and easy way to support an organization you like, through shopping you were already planning to do. And every little bit helps.