Hi all. I’d like to update you all on our efforts with regards to the conflict in Ukraine. The situation is evolving rapidly, and we will have more updates to announce soon - however, our greatest focus right now is on new support measures for our Ukrainian Author community.
But before that, let me clarify our position, and remove any doubt. As we noted in our community update last week, Envato opposes war of any kind, and all forms of violence, tyranny and oppression. We oppose the aggressive invasion that has been initiated by the Russian government. Our thoughts are with the innocent people affected by these acts and we hope that peace can prevail soon.
Envato has a thriving global and diverse community: a significant number of our Authors are based in either Russia or Ukraine, and many more live in neighboring countries. All have been affected by the conflict we are seeing play out.
Our primary focus so far has been on supporting our creatives in Ukraine who have had their lives disrupted by this conflict. In direct response to this, we have set up an Envato Relief Fund, which will provide immediate assistance to our Authors in Ukraine. These measures include:
- A once-off Relief Grant payment for active Authors in Ukraine, equal to two weeks of their average earnings.
- We are also providing Guaranteed Earnings for all active Ukrainian authors, Twenty20 contributors and Studio service providers. This will maintain earnings at current levels for the next three months, to give some peace of mind to our community there.
Envato will also match donations by our global team up to $100,000, to registered humanitarian charities.
This $1M USD package will start to roll out over the next two weeks, and we’ll review the Guaranteed Earnings program in three months. All Ukrainian Authors will receive an email early next week providing more details of how these measures will operate - we’re aiming to process the Relief Grant payments on March 20th.
We have also have made a number of changes to our day-to-day operations to respond to the crisis, simplifying our processes to support Ukrainian Authors in using our products. These include:
- Pausing eligibility requirements for the Elements Content Bonus for all Ukrainian Authors. If you have been eligible for this bonus during the past month, you’ll retain this without needing to meet upload targets.
- Pausing the AuthorID verification process for Ukrainian Authors.
This is a rapidly changing situation, and we continue to closely monitor the legal restrictions and sanctions we are required to abide by. We have already begun to implement a number of these sanctions relating to financial institutions based in Russia, and we are well aware that these restrictions will impact many of our Authors and customers who are based there. Please be assured that our teams across the business are actively listening to our community as we respond to these issues, and will stay in touch with our community throughout the coming months.
We remain incredibly proud of the community members who make Envato what it is. We’ve already heard stories that reflect the spirit and strength of our community, from authors wanting to transfer their earnings directly to their peers in Ukraine, to others running donation drives or reshaping their own businesses to be involved in humanitarian efforts along bordering countries.
Our hearts go out to our Ukrainian members and the wider Envato community who have been impacted by recent events, and we will continue our commitment to support our community through this conflict.
Thanks for your support Envato! Hope all this surr stuff will end soon!
