At Mailchimp, we’re focused on doing our part to support our employees and their families, customers, and the greater community during the COVID-19 crisis. Here’s an overview of Mailchimp’s COVID-19 response.
What we’re doing for our employees
Our employees are required to work from home, and we’ve paused all business travel, non-essential events, and office visits. It’s always been our practice to pay hourly workers, including our office’s security and janitorial support staff, even when the office is closed, and we’ll continue to do so during this period. We’ve also given all full-time employees a $1,000 stipend to outfit their work environment or help with any other financial needs during this time.
To ensure employees are able to focus on their health and the health of their families, we’ve broadened our sick time policy, given all employees 5 additional sick days, added up to 4 weeks of full-pay emergency leave and other options for caregivers, and made other employee policy amendments. We’re also providing more resources for parents and caregivers, as well as mental health resources for all employees. Our CEO also signed on to the #StoptheSpread campaign, pledging to take bold action in combating the spread of COVID-19.
What we’re doing for our customers
Mailchimp Announces $10M Price Relief Fund to Support Small Business Customers
We’re giving $10 million in Mailchimp service to our small business customers who want to continue using Mailchimp’s platform but need some financial support during the COVID-19 crisis. Current customers who have 25 or fewer employees in categories including restaurants and hospitality; brick and mortar retail; travel and leisure; entertainment; health, beauty, and wellness; and other select Main Street businesses are eligible for price relief. If you have questions about the Relief Fund, log in to your account to contact our Support team.
As an additional response to the crisis, Mailchimp will invest up to $100M to help drive new and ongoing business for our small business customers through price discounts, product upgrades, add-ons, and more. Our Support team is committed to working with our customers who are experiencing financial hardship. See details here.
Free Standard Mailchimp Accounts for Eligible Public Service Organizations
On March 17, 2020, Mailchimp began offering free Standard service to eligible groups sending critical public health information about COVID‑19 through June 30, 2020. We saw an increase in Mailchimp activity from local governments, schools, healthcare providers, nonprofits, and other organizations that are sending critical public health information about COVID-19 to their communities. We want to support their efforts and know that cost can be a burden during these times. See details here.
Mailchimp is Giving Away Free .coms for 5 Years
Mailchimp is helping small businesses get up and running online quickly during the COVID-19 crisis with custom domains free for up to 5 years, along with our free website builder, until June 30, 2020. By giving away custom domains free for 5 years, we can take on a small piece of the financial stress small businesses are feeling and allow them to pivot their businesses quickly. See details and search for your free .com here.
Mailchimp Announces Price Relief Fund for COVID-19 Vaccine Distribution
Mailchimp is helping eligible groups involved in COVID-19 vaccine distribution by providing free Standard plans for 6 months. Even after multiple vaccines were developed and authorized—one of the most significant scientific breakthroughs in a generation—availability, accessibility, and distribution remains a pressing challenge in the United States and around the world.
There’s an urgent need to make credible information about COVID-19 vaccines available to the public, and a demand for people to know when, where, and how to protect themselves and their families with the vaccine. That means some of our customers could see rapid growth of their audience size and an increase in their monthly bills as a result. We’re prioritizing independent clinics, physicians, and pharmacies, public health non-profit organizations, and local government agencies for support—we don’t want costs to get in the way for these groups working on the front lines of public health. Learn more here.
We know many of our small business customers are struggling and working to find new ways to sustain their business. While we don’t have all the answers, we’re dedicated to sharing useful and relevant resources to help our customers through the days ahead via a COVID-19 resource page here.
What we’re doing for our community
$500,000 for Unrestricted Response and Recovery
Mailchimp is also focused on how we can help our community during this time. In early March, we went ahead and made all of our grants unrestricted for current partners, so they can use the money however they see fit through this crisis. We’ve also announced $500,000 in new, unrestricted funding to organizations spearheading COVID-19 response and recovery efforts. We’re granting $100,000 each to these organizations to further enable the important work they’re doing: the Brooklyn Community Foundation’s COVID-19 Relief Fund, the Center for Civic Innovation, Goodr, Keep Oakland Housed, and New Story Charity.
We took a pragmatic approach to our funding strategy and chose organizations that were overlooked in the initial philanthropic response to COVID-19, but that are well positioned to help a large number of families through direct service. The organizations we chose to support address immediate concerns like food security, emerging needs such as housing assistance, and long-term recovery for the ecosystem of organizations that serve our communities.
In addition to these grants, we’ve also supported several smaller relief projects. We helped C4 Atlanta launch a Lost Gig Fund for artists to receive cash assistance for cancelled work. We’re also joining with a few local funders to help Atlanta Volunteer Lawyers Foundation scale up their Eviction Defense program.
SXSW #SupporttheShorts
In an effort to support the creative community impacted by the cancellation of SXSW, we're licensing most of the short films scheduled to premiere there and creating a new digital home for them on our streaming platform, Mailchimp Presents, so these independent filmmakers don't lose their biggest opportunity of the year for their work to be seen.
What we’re doing for public health
Supporting the ZOE Covid Symptom Study
Mailchimp is excited to support the ZOE Covid Symptom Study, which was developed by the health science company ZOE in collaboration with scientists and physicians at King's College of London and Massachusetts General Hospital. The Symptom Study app has already identified a loss of taste and smell as one of the key symptoms which predict positive COVID-19 results. The app is running the world's largest clinical study to predict COVID-19 using AI and identifying COVID hotspots sooner through machine learning. The symptom study is open to participants in the United States, United Kingdom, and Sweden through a smartphone app. Learn more about the app and the study, as well as how you can participate, on their website.
Partnering with the World Health Organization
We’ve also been working in partnership with the World Health Organization to identify ways our platform can support the goals of connecting people to accurate, timely, evidence-based information about COVID-19. Our program offering free Standard plans to public service organizations has supported the wide dissemination of critical public health information to millions of people. In addition, we’ve also enhanced our normal compliance enforcement to monitor for and remove verifiably false or misleading information that could cause harm. If you’ve seen inaccurate, harmful, or deliberately false information shared by one of our users, please report it to abuse@mailchimp.com so we can investigate and take action.
We’ll continue prioritizing the health and safety of our employees so we can serve our small business customers without interruption. While the scale of impact is still unknown, we’re here and committed to working on additional ways we can help now and in the long term. Meeting the needs of this moment will require patience, compassion, and creativity, and remembering that we’re all in this together.
This page will be updated regularly with more information for our customers and community. For more resources on the latest public health information, we recommend following the updates and recommendations made by credible public health organizations such as the World Health Organization and your local health authorities.
Published March 17, 2020. Last updated on February 8, 2021.