Got two press releases in a row this morning about Amazon.com. Here's number one:

Richard Hugo House is proud to announce Amazon.com’s continued support as the presenting sponsor of the 2010-2011 Hugo Literary Series, the nonprofit center’s annual series dedicated to presenting new works on a variety of themes from writers and musicians. The Seattle-based company made a generous gift of $35,000, helping Hugo House to commission new writing from nationally prominent and emerging local authors and musicians.

And here's number two:

Amazon.com’s newest $25,000 challenge grant to the Clarion West Writers Workshop has been met and exceeded three months before its deadline. When Amazon.com offered the challenge they gave Clarion West until October 31, 2010 to raise $25,000 in donations. By July 31, 2010, Clarion West had received over $30,000 in grants, scholarships, and individual donations, an astounding amount given the current economic climate. Last year Amazon.com offered a $25,000 challenge grant on similar terms. Meeting these challenges has helped Clarion West continue presenting one of the world’s premiere writing workshops, as it has done for over twenty-five years.

Clearly, Amazon has come a long way from the days when they didn't contribute any money to the local literary scene. And good on them for getting behind some great institutions—Clarion West and Hugo House both do great work at helping writers create new, meaningful work. Amazon should be proud of how far they've come. But this $60,000 amounts to a tiny fraction of what Amazon spends on security for Jeff Bezos every year, for example. In short: They could do more.