Apple to Donate $10 to National Park Foundation for Each Purchase Made With Apple Pay at Apple Stores Through August 30

Apple today announced that it will donate $10 to the National Park Foundation for each purchase made with Apple Pay on Apple.com, through the Apple Store app, or at an Apple Store in the United States from August 24 through August 30. Apple is limiting its donations to the first 100,000 transactions of $10 or more.

apple pay national parks
The National Park Foundation, the official charitable partner of the National Park Service, raises funds to directly support, protect, and manage America's national parks.

"Our national parks strengthen our connection to nature, to one another, and to the soul of our nation," said Apple CEO Tim Cook. "We're excited to continue building on our four-year partnership with the National Park Foundation, and to support their work to preserve our parks for generations to come."

As noted by Kyle Seth Gray, there will also be a national parks-themed Activity Challenge for Apple Watch users on August 30. Users can earn the award by completing a hike, walk, run, or wheelchair workout of a mile (1.6km) or longer. The workout can be completed from any location, so visiting a national park is not necessary.


All national parks across the United States will waive entrance fees on August 25 in celebration of the National Park Service's birthday.

Update: In a press release tied to this announcement, Apple has also indicated that it is making special national parks content available in the Apple TV app, Apple Music, and the App Store.

The Apple TV app will feature a national parks highlight on the Watch Now page, including "Aerial America" from the Smithsonian Channel, along with other relevant shows and movies that explore and celebrate the natural world. In the App Store, customers can check out a collection of its most popular apps for safely exploring the outdoors, including AllTrails: Hike, Bike & Run (AllTrails, Inc.), National Park Trail Guide (Adventure Projects Inc.), PeakVisor (Routes Software SRL), and other guides to parks and trails around the world. And Apple Music will feature its updated Nature Awaits playlist, so even if users can't make it out to the parks, they can hit play and let their imaginations wander.

Related Roundup: Apple Pay

Popular Stories

best buy holiday

Best Buy Reveals Black Friday Plans With Sitewide Sales Available Now

Friday November 8, 2024 10:05 am PST by
Black Friday sales are continuing today with Best Buy kicking off early Black Friday deals that will last for the next few days. Similar to other retailers, Best Buy's early Black Friday event includes sitewide savings on Apple products, headphones, TVs, monitors, video games, and more. Note: MacRumors is an affiliate partner with Best Buy. When you click a link and make a purchase, we may...
mac mini thermal architecture feature

New Mac Mini Has Modular Storage, 256GB Model Will Have Faster SSD

Friday November 8, 2024 7:06 am PST by
Apple has returned to using two 128GB storage chips in the new Mac mini with 256GB of storage, according to a partial teardown video shared on social media today. This means the base-model Mac mini with the M4 chip will not have significantly slower SSD speeds compared to higher-end configurations of the computer with 512GB, 1TB, or 2TB of storage, as multiple NAND chips allows for faster SSD...
General Final Cut Pro Feature

Apple Likely to Announce Final Cut Pro Update This Week With These New Features

Sunday November 10, 2024 12:13 pm PST by
In its announcement video for the new Mac mini last month, Apple teased an "upcoming" version of Final Cut Pro for the Mac. Apple will likely announce the update during the annual Final Cut Pro Creative Summit, which begins this Wednesday. The conference is held in association with Apple, and attendees will be visiting Apple Park on the first day. Apple already teased four new features...
AirPods Pro Firmware Feature

Apple Releases Firmware Updates for AirPods Pro 2 and AirPods 4

Monday November 11, 2024 11:28 am PST by
Apple today released firmware updates for both AirPods 4 models (version number 7B20) and the AirPods Pro 2 with both Lightning and USB-C charging cases (version number 7B21). All of these AirPods models were previously on firmware version 7B19. It is not immediately clear what new features or changes are included in firmware versions 7B20 and 7B21, but we will update this story if we find...
Generic iOS 18

Everything New in iOS 18.2 Beta 2

Monday November 4, 2024 12:34 pm PST by
Apple today seeded the second betas of upcoming iOS 18.2 and iPadOS 18.2 updates to developers, and Apple is continuing to refine the Apple Intelligence capabilities. There are also a handful of smaller features that are worth knowing about. Find My Find My has a new option to Share Item Location with an "airline or trusted person" that can help you locate something that you've misplaced....
iphone passcode green

Cops Suspect iOS 18 iPhones Are Communicating to Force Reboots, Making Unlocking Harder

Thursday November 7, 2024 2:20 pm PST by
Law enforcement officials in Detroit, Michigan are warning other police officers about an alleged iPhone change that causes Apple devices stored for forensic examination to spontaneously restart, reports 404 Media. iPhones that are undergoing examination have apparently been rebooting, which makes them harder to unlock with brute force methods, and Michigan police think that it's due to a...
iphone 6 thickness

iPhone 17 'Air' May Not Be Much Thinner Than iPhone 6

Monday November 11, 2024 5:18 am PST by
Next year's iPhone 17 "Air" model may not be as thin as Apple planned, according to a rumor originating in Korea. According to the news aggregator account "yeux1122" on Naver, citing industry sources, Apple has run into problems making the new iPhone 17 model sufficiently thin. The device's reduced thickness is apparently dependent on manufacturing a battery with a thinner substrate, but...
maxresdefault

Hands On With Apple's New M4 Mac Mini

Friday November 8, 2024 12:21 pm PST by
Apple launched the new Mac mini, iMac, and MacBook Pro models with M4 chips today, and because the Mac mini is the only one of the machines that got a design update, we thought we'd check it out to see how it compares to the prior version. Subscribe to the MacRumors YouTube channel for more videos. The 2024 version of the Mac mini is much smaller than the previous M2 model, so it takes up...

Top Rated Comments

dguisinger Avatar
55 months ago
Or they could just donate $1m..... I hate all of these stupid "do this and we will match" or "do that and we will donate" promotions. They don't make me feel better about a company, stop doing them.
Score: 10 Votes (Like | Disagree)
aforty Avatar
55 months ago
A better way of writing the headline would have been: Apple donates $1 million to the National Parks Foundation

Which when you put it that way isn't a lot of money but the PR effect is done for them with headlines like that.
Score: 7 Votes (Like | Disagree)
cmaier Avatar
55 months ago

Why do companies do it this way instead of donating a straight lump sum? Is it for financial, accounting or tax reasons? Is it for PR purposes?
My wife used to work for a charity. She explains that charities actually like this sort of arrangement because in addition to the money they get from the corporate sponsor, it raises awareness and results in more money coming in from other sources, and creates a “long tail” of continuous (but diminishing) donations.
Score: 4 Votes (Like | Disagree)
citysnaps Avatar
55 months ago

Posting a press release on their website is Apple “making a fuss about it”? Or is that actually zero fuss?
Sadly, some people can't feel good about themselves unless there's an opportunity to rag on some company or person.
Score: 3 Votes (Like | Disagree)
citysnaps Avatar
55 months ago

Apple is quick to declare a strong opinion on racial and gender issues, which are very important. But when Big Sur (which is what the new OS is named after) and Big Based burn to the ground not a peep about donating to wildfire fighters.
Relax.

It appears you missed the story five days ago where Apple donated money to aid wildfire efforts in California.
Score: 3 Votes (Like | Disagree)
C DM Avatar
55 months ago

I mean.... 2 trillion dollars and "please come spend $10 or more with us..... and we **might** donate up to $1 million"..... please.....

Because it’s cheaper than advertising and surely tax-supporting. Straight up donations are done quietly.
Apple also donates a lot directly.
Score: 3 Votes (Like | Disagree)