Seattle is home to the largest book retailer in the world.
Amazon.com may have spread its
catalog to engulf lawn mowers, potato chips, diapers,
and—literally—kitchen sinks, but, as its recent push for
the Kindle e-book reader has proven, the company still wants to retain
a major presence in book sales. And Amazon is staying in Seattle for
the foreseeable future: In December it signed a deal to move from its
Beacon Hill headquarters to a brand-new six-block, 11-building campus
in South Lake Union in 2010.
It’ll be sad when Amazon isn’t based out of the looming Pacific
Medical Center building anymore. Its weird, sulky omnipresence mirrors
the company’s relations to Seattle. It’s obviously there and
recognizable, but it seems aloof, apart, like a kid who has taken his
ball away from the other children on the schoolyard but still lingers
on the edge, unable to fully extricate itself.
Most Seattle companies contribute a lot of money—a
lot of money—to the Seattle arts scene. It’s considered
being a good neighbor. It’s not mandatory, but it is, at the very
least, polite, and it’s a necessary kindness, because taxpayer funds to
the arts are slim and most arts organizations wouldn’t be able to
operate without these giant windfalls from corporate philanthropy.
Attend virtually any play and before the curtain rises, you’ll hear
a long list of major contributors that include companies like
Microsoft, which has given to the Seattle arts scene for decades now.
Boeing, though its corporate headquarters have moved to Chicago, is
still one of the biggest contributors to Seattle arts events, and it
also has an employee matching donation program, much of which goes to
the arts.
Starbucks doesn’t do quite as much as Boeing or Microsoft, but the
corporation still contributes thousands on thousands of dollars to
Seattle Theatre Group and Seattle Parks and Recreation and other
nonprofits. The Starbucks Foundation, too, has contributed $22 million
in grants to promote literacy and small entrepreneurs worldwide. Alaska
Airlines contributes thousands of dollars to organizations in Seattle
and Alaska.
Amazon, which posted a $476 million profit last year, has refused to
return repeated e-mails and calls from The Stranger about the
company’s seemingly nonexistent contributions to the Seattle arts
scene. Internet searches for any sign of philanthropy on
behalf of the company prove fruitless. Lists of donors for
organizations like the Paramount Theatre, the Seattle Art Museum, the
Pacific Northwest Ballet, and the Experience Music Project read like a
who’s who of local corporations: Every major bank is represented and
even national chains with a significant local presence like Macy’s are
major contributors.
Amazon.com isn’t on any of these
lists.
No head of any arts organization is willing to talk on the record
about Amazon.com‘s miserly tendencies.
One president of a charity that funds the arts prefers to remain
anonymous because “hope springs eternal,” and he continually approaches
Amazon.com for funds. For years now,
he has been refused every time.
Nobody with connections to the company, it seems, is willing to
speak on the record: Rick Simonson, the readings coordinator for
Elliott Bay Book Company, wrote about Amazon.com‘s uncharitable track record on Mist
Place, his Publishers Weekly blog, in August of 2007. Simonson
claimed that at least two people on Amazon.com‘s board of directors want the
company to do more charity work, but that they “have gotten nowhere in
inquiries” into their own company’s stinginess.
So what is Amazon.com‘s problem?
The company does have a program in which organizations can put a link
to Amazon.com on their website. A
portion of sales purchased through that link will then go back to the
referring nonprofit, but this seems less of a benevolent corporate
contribution and more of an advertising deal.
The dot-com boom that birthed Amazon.com wasn’t known for its philanthropy,
but as the company has moved forward into secure profitability, it
seems to have adopted all the trappings of a 21st-century business:
layoffs at the first sign of economic trouble, a tendency to hire temps
so that the retailer won’t have to pay benefits, and a fear of
controversy that’s preprogrammed to keep middle America happy.
Philanthropy would seem to be the logical next step, if just for
public-relations and tax-sheltering purposes.
Perhaps Amazon.com is afraid that
it won’t get enough publicity for its charitable contributions to the
arts. If that’s the case, here’s a modest proposal: Seattle hasn’t had
a general-interest book festival since Northwest Bookfest collapsed in
2004. A yearly Amazon Book Festival, bringing hundreds of authors from
around the world to Seattle for a week, would fill a gaping hole in the
city’s cultural scene, reassert Seattle’s pride of place in America’s
literary community, and provide truckloads of positive press for a
retailer that moves further and further away from the heart of
Seattle even as it physically shifts even closer to its downtown
core. 
Does anyone know if Microsoft is still paying out at $15/hour (or something like that) to non-profits that their employees donate their time to? I know this was the case a couple years ago, but I’m curious if this program has been yanked along with various other MS spending in the last few months.
I think it’s stupid that there’s some sort of chastising going on here for NOT contributing to a given charity. The whole idea behind philanthropy is that it’s ELECTIVE. I don’t care who earns what; there should never be any pressure to donate anything. It’s a slippery slope; who decides what to donate? How much is the ‘right’ amount? Frankly, I think Amazon is doing more for the community by staying in line as a profitable organization that can actually employ people, rather than some of the banks & department stores lauded for their charity- these organizations that don’t seem to do a good job of managing their own finances. Rock on, Amazon!
I work at a Human Services Non Profit in Seattle — practically in their backyaard, and not only do they not donate, they make you go through voicemail hell before you get to the right extention in marketing which is a recording saying that they don’t donate, when calling back to speak to a live human, they were so rude and elitist! Booooooo Amazon!