Toronto Community Centre Hacks Amazon to 'Bill It to Bezos'

The Jane/Finch Centre (JFC) has taken an innovative approach to their fundraising, asking people to donate money to their community centre by taking advantage of a loophole in Twitch (the gamer streaming service owned by Jeff Bezos and Amazon). 

It’s the '2022 Robin Hood' story of a local community centre, combined with a never-before-done tech twist vs. one of the most powerful men and companies in the world. 

Everyone with an Amazon Prime subscription is entitled to $3.50/month that they can give to their favourite streamer on Twitch, but for the most part, this money gets unused and reverts right back to Amazon (and Jeff Bezos). By subscribing to the newly created JFC stream on Twitch, JFC will be the first ever to raise money for their community in a way that’s 100% funded by Amazon. It costs the user absolutely nothing (aside from the money they’re already paying for their Prime membership), and they get to donate Jeff Bezos’ money from right under his billionaire nose, in a completely legal way.

“When we heard the idea from the Angry Butterfly team, we were both excited and nervous.” says Michelle Dagnino, JFC’s executive director. “Once we learned more about how the mechanics worked, we realized it was an incredible and innovative way to not only raise money through the platform, but also generate buzz, and in turn raise awareness (and further donations) for the centre.”

“Our task was to help drive donations, but we knew to really help JFC, we needed to think about it in a different way,” says Erin Kawalecki, partner and chief creative officer at Angry Butterfly. “Asking people for money is never easy, so when our team came up with a way to garner donations using a method that’s not only free for the user, but brings in one of the most wealthy and powerful men in the world as a foil, helping to spark a conversation around income inequality, we knew we had the makings of something special.”

The campaign launches this week with videos on Twitch, Youtube, and other social platforms with influencers, with everything leading to the campaign microsite (BillittoBezos.org).