AdThrive community, our hearts are heavy as each and every one of us struggles with how to process and respond to what is happening in the United States right now.
We are outraged at the murders of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Ahmaud Arbery, and the tragic number of other Black people who preceded them. We condemn the systemic and pervasive racism that has blotted our nation’s history and still causes incalculable harm to every person of color and to our society as a whole.
Black Lives Matter.
As a company and as a community, we want to support efforts to address racial inequality and promote opportunity. We are hopeful that the strong protests that are happening across the country can lead to change in hearts, minds, and policies across our society.
Over the last week, we have been listening. And we have been looking for ways to participate in what our community of publishers and AdThrive team members are already doing.
To our Black publishers, we know you pour your heart and soul into your craft and your work. We are honored to serve you and want to be an even more effective advocate for you in the advertising industry.
To those of you who are already speaking out, sharing resources, taking action, and donating your time and money, we are eager to join you. Let us know what we can do to help.
The AdThrive Community Matching Fund
As a first step, we are establishing a $100,000 matching contribution fund for organizations that are fighting for racial justice, opportunity, and reconciliation.
Publishers and AdThrive team members can make a donation to ANY qualifying 501(c)(3) organization that you believe in. Let us know the amount you donated and where, and we will match donations dollar for dollar up to a combined total of $100,000 with a donation to one of the following organizations:
Moreover, you will get to choose which of these organizations you want our matching grant to go to.
To participate, simply share a few simple details about your contribution (made any time between May 25 and June 30, 2020). It will be added to our total, helping our community have an even larger impact.
We won’t share who contributed, or how much, or to what organizations with anyone. But we will aggregate info, so we can share the results at the end.
We know that in the scheme of things this is a relatively small gesture but it signifies our commitment to contribute to solutions and to come together as a community.
July 2020 update: The AdThrive community of publishers, their readers, and AdThrive team members submitted qualifying donation receipts for a total of $74,806!
Ultimately, our company decided to contribute the entire $100,000 we had set aside for the Community Matching Fund, bringing the combined total to $174,806 donated to organizations committed to fighting for racial justice.
We were blown away by our community’s passion and commitment to taking action — thank you for joining us.
Next steps for our company
Words matter and symbolic gestures can be powerful but we also want to strive for actions that have a more systemic impact.
Over the next two weeks, we’re asking each team member to take a day off to reflect or spend the day taking action in their community.
We are also establishing an ongoing initiative to increase the number of Black, minority, and diverse employees on our team. We have made extensive and growing efforts in recent years, but we aren’t where we want to be. We can do better and we will be working hard to address this important gap in our company, and our industry as a whole.
We are also in the early stages of exploring additional ideas that can better support the rich diversity of our publishers and the larger community of high-quality independent creators.
We welcome your ideas and feedback!
Our hope for our community
We hope that each and every one of us is able to take stock, at this historic moment, and think hard about what we can do to move us towards a more just and fair society. If there was ever a time for us to push beyond our comfort zone to make things better, this is it.
Racism and prejudice deserve no place in our world. You are the leaders and the beacons of the open web, a space more critical than ever to our society, and we need diverse and amazing creators to have their voices heard.
We hope that this moment in time can be a genuine catalyst to long-term change at every level of society:
How we conduct ourselves personally.
How corporations and institutions and policies evolve and change.
How we ensure that every person has an equal opportunity to make the most of their potential and lead a great life.
Thank you for allowing us to be part of your story. And thank you for allowing us all to grow as a community.
