Amazon Donation Request: What Nonprofits Can Actually Get After AmazonSmile (2026 Guide)

Amazon does not accept donation requests from nonprofits. There is no Amazon donation request form, no gift card program for fundraisers, and no one at Amazon to ask for a raffle prize. What Amazon gives reaches nonprofits in two ways: surplus products distributed through Good360, a nonprofit that redistributes donated goods, and grants and cloud credits from Amazon Web Services (AWS). AmazonSmile, the program most people remember, ended on February 20, 2023. If you need an in-kind donation for an event, ask a retailer that takes requests instead. About 20% of Target donation requests tracked on TheShareWay succeed, with a median response time of 15 days.

Does Amazon accept donation requests?

No. Amazon's community giving, described at aboutamazon.com/impact/community, covers disaster relief, food bank deliveries, affordable housing, STEM education, employee volunteering and the communities around its headquarters and data centers. Amazon runs those programs with partners it selects, and the page offers no application, contact form or email address for nonprofits seeking support.

In practice, Amazon will not respond to a letter asking for products, gift cards or a sponsorship for your event. The routes that do exist are below, starting with the one most nonprofits are looking for: Amazon products.

How to get Amazon products through Good360

Amazon donates inventory it can't sell, and it says it donated, or helped its sellers donate, 216 million items worldwide in 2025. In the U.S., the route open to nonprofits is Good360, a nonprofit that collects surplus goods from retailers and brands and distributes them to its member organizations. Amazon fulfillment centers schedule pickups of surplus pallets through a Good360-run portal, and Good360 assigns a nonprofit partner to each participating facility.

You don't apply to Amazon for any of this. You join Good360, and Amazon goods are part of what moves through its network.

Who can join. Good360 membership is free. U.S. organizations must be registered 501(c)(3) public charities in good standing with the IRS. Good360 lists public charities, private and charter schools, faith-based organizations, members of Voluntary Organizations Active in Disaster (VOAD), and 501(c)(3) group exemptions as eligible. Faith-based organizations without their own 501(c)(3) can qualify with an IRS LTR4163C letter or group exemption documentation. Registered Canadian charities with a CRA "RR" business number are eligible too. Public schools have their own registration form, which asks for the school's NCES ID, and a PTA or PTO with its own 501(c)(3) status can register as a public charity.

How to register.

1. Gather your organization's contact details, mission statement, website, shipping and billing addresses, and proof of 501(c)(3) status, or your NCES school ID if you're registering a public school.
2. Choose the 501(c)(3), public school or Canadian form at catalog.good360.org/marketplace/registration and complete the online application. Once you're approved, you can order from Good360's online catalog.
3. Order what fits your programs, from a single box up to a full truckload. Good360 charges an administrative fee on goods to cover warehousing, transportation and handling, so budget for it even though the products themselves are donated.

What to expect. Once you're a member, you can order Amazon goods directly. Good360's catalog has an Amazon BULK section of first-quality Amazon returns, packed by the pallet and roughly sorted into categories such as softlines, toys and crafts, housewares, and beauty. Because the sort is quick, expect some items from outside the category or damaged. You order at least two BULK items at a time, and they ship by freight 4 to 8 business days later. Pallets need a forklift or pallet jack to move, and if you have no loading dock or forklift, you can add liftgate delivery for a small fee.

Full Amazon truckloads go only to members approved for Good360's truckload program, and Good360 doesn't publish a way to become a fulfillment center's assigned partner. Plan on Good360 for program supplies. For a raffle prize or gift card, the retailers further down this page are a better fit.

Amazon also screens excess and returned inventory from its third-party sellers for donation through its FBA Donations program, which passes eligible items to select U.S. nonprofit partners. That program doesn't take applications either.

Amazon grants for nonprofits

The Amazon grants that nonprofits can apply for are AWS technology programs and one program for literary organizations.

AWS Imagine Grant

The AWS Imagine Grant funds nonprofit technology projects. The 2026 cycle offered three awards:

• Pathfinder Award: up to $200,000 in unrestricted funding plus up to $100,000 in AWS Promotional Credit, for projects built on generative AI, agentic AI or autonomous systems.
• Go Further, Faster Award: up to $150,000 in unrestricted funding plus up to $100,000 in AWS credits, for innovative cloud projects that use advanced services such as AI, machine learning or IoT.
• Momentum to Modernize Award: up to $50,000 in unrestricted funding plus up to $20,000 in AWS credits, for foundational projects like moving servers to the cloud or modernizing applications.

Any U.S.-based nonprofit with registered 501(c) status can apply, whatever its budget size or cause area. Educational institutions are excluded.

Applications for 2026 are closed. Round One ran from March 19 to June 5, 2026, Round Two was by invitation only, and AWS plans to notify applicants in mid-November and announce winners on December 1. AWS hasn't posted dates for the next cycle, so sign up for email alerts on the AWS Imagine Grant page and have your project plan ready early; this year's Round One opened in March. TheShareWay's grant proposal template is a good starting point for the written proposal.

AWS credits through TechSoup

If you need cloud credits rather than cash, the AWS Nonprofit Credit Program offers up to $5,000 in AWS Promotional Credit. It's open to 501(c)(3) organizations, several other 501(c) types and eligible public libraries. U.S. organizations request credits through TechSoup, and each organization can make one request per fiscal year (July 1 to June 30).

Amazon Literary Partnership

Literary nonprofits have one more option. Through the Amazon Literary Partnership, Amazon gave $1 million in grants to 102 literary organizations in more than 25 states in 2026, announced in July. Amazon hasn't published dates for the next round; save TheShareWay's Amazon Literary Partnership grant page to keep it on your list.

For grants beyond Amazon, browse TheShareWay's popular grants.

What happened to AmazonSmile?

AmazonSmile let shoppers direct a small share of eligible purchases to a charity of their choice. Amazon wound the program down by February 20, 2023, and gave participating charities a one-time donation equal to three months of what they had earned through it in 2022. The old smile.amazon.com address now redirects to Amazon's homepage, and Amazon has not launched a replacement that shares purchase revenue with charities.

When it closed AmazonSmile, Amazon pointed charities to wish lists instead. Any nonprofit can still create an Amazon wish list of the items it needs and share the link with supporters, who buy the items and have them shipped to you. It's a fundraising tool you run yourself, not a donation from Amazon.

Whole Foods Market, Amazon's grocery chain

Amazon owns Whole Foods Market, which handles community giving separately from Amazon and is listed in TheShareWay's directory. For how Whole Foods giving works and how to apply, see Whole Foods' TheShareWay page and the Whole Foods donation request guide.

Where to ask instead: retailers that take donation requests

If you were hoping Amazon would donate a raffle prize, gift card or product for your event, these retailers take requests directly, and TheShareWay tracks how those requests turn out.

Figures as of October 2026, from applications tracked on TheShareWay.

Costco approves about 27% of the donation requests tracked on TheShareWay, but it is also the slowest of the group, with a median response time of 31 days. Publix and Trader Joe's have the best odds: about 39% and 37% of their requests tracked on TheShareWay succeed, and both respond in a median of under two weeks.

Each company's TheShareWay page has its application link and requirements, and our guides to Target, Costco, Walmart and Publix walk through each process. For more options, browse popular in-kind donors, the list of 1,000+ companies with online donation requests, or raffle basket ideas with 87 donation request links. When a company asks for a letter, start from TheShareWay's donation request letter template.

Cover photo by Christian Wiediger on Unsplash