Amazon donation to Seattle schools has HQ2 implications

Amazon is setting aside $2 million for public schools in Seattle.Getty/Elaine Thompson

• Amazon announced a new grant for Seattle Public Schools on Monday.
• The e-commerce giant set aside $2 million for the Alliance for Education to create the “Right Now Needs Fund.” It is designed for the “schools with the greatest needs” and can be used to buy anything from a “raincoat to school supplies.”
• The grant is another example of Amazon responding to critics and investing in initiatives to give back to its local community.
• From a political standpoint, it might be easier for municipalities to welcome Amazon to their neck of the woods for HQ2 if the company is seen as a good citizen.

Amazon is becoming a better neighbor.

The company announced a new grant for Seattle Public Schools on Monday. It set aside $2 million for the Alliance for Education to create the “Right Now Needs Fund,” which is designed to help students at the “schools with the greatest needs,” according to a press release. The grant can be used to buy anything from a “raincoat to school supplies” and is designed to be flexible. 

The donation is the latest example of Amazon giving back to its community. 

Amazon has been a longtime supporter of Mary’s Place, a Seattle-based homeless shelter. In 2017, it committed to building a shelter for the nonprofit into one of its office buildings.

Also that year, Amazon donated money and real estate to nonprofit FareStart, which focuses on providing on-the-job food service training for a population struggling with poverty, homelessness, or addiction.

Donations like these seem directly related to criticisms lobbied against Amazon and how it has grown in its hometown of Seattle. Some members of the local community have said that Amazon doesn’t do enough to mitigate some of the problems it exacerbates, like traffic and high rents.

It’s also something that experts and cities on the company’s HQ2 short list are surely watching, and it will certainly factor into the political calculus that these city and local governments use to try and lure the online-shopping giant into their neck of the woods.

If Amazon is seen as a taker and not a giver, citizens might balk at the large tax incentives being offered to the company. The most recent donation could help put some minds at ease.