Our commitment to COVID-19 relief efforts

Our commitment to COVID-19 relief efforts

April 15, 2020

Trust & Safety

We're pledging $250M to support front line medical workers, educators, and local communities deeply affected by the global crisis

Further commitments include $25M in ads to help trusted organizations deliver crucial public health information and $100M in ad credits as businesses look to rebuild

By Alex Zhu, President, TikTok

TikTok was created to bring joy and inspiration to our community. That idea has come to life through the playfulness of our creators who've brought dance challenges, funny performances, creative memes, and delightfully unique moments. It's been largely about having fun.

COVID-19 is giving all of us a new perspective, and in the face of this unprecedented crisis, we are collectively seeking moments of joy and inspiration. Sometimes that means dancing and having fun where we can. Sometimes that means experiencing the comfort and warmth that comes through simple human connection in the face of adversity. The TikTok community is uplifting one another, caring for one another, and lending a hand to one another. This may be a serious time, but on TikTok it can still be joyful – and deeply inspiring.

We are committed to playing our part in that global outpouring of mutual support and giving. We want to magnify all we are seeing across our community and translate it into concrete relief for those most affected by this crisis. 

Among the efforts TikTok will be supporting with cash contributions are:

Health care workers are the heroes of this global battle, and deserving heroes within the TikTok community. We are passionate about our small role in supporting their efforts through the provision of $150M in funds toward medical staffing, supplies, and hardship relief for health care workers. These distributions will be focused on local organizations to support local health workers. For example, we're partnering with the CDC Foundation to donate $15M toward supporting surge staffing for local response efforts through state and local health departments. We're also looking to assist global health workers, including our $10M contribution to the WHO COVID-19 Solidarity Response Fund. Our employee matching program will deliver aid to organizations including Direct Relief and the Red Cross. And we are working with global and local partners to distribute masks and other personal protective equipment to hospitals across India, Indonesia, Italy, South Korea, and the US, among other hard-hit countries.

We are all operating in uncertain times, and vulnerable communities have been deeply impacted by the health and economic damage caused by this crisis. To provide critical relief to these communities, TikTok will allot $40M in cash to local organizations that serve groups representative of TikTok's diverse user communities, including musicians, artists, nurses, educators, and families that have come together on our platform. And since we’re all in this together, we will be further matching $10M in donations from our community to support the community. Through this fund we're supporting programs like After-School All-Stars, where we have already donated $3M to provide food for families who rely upon school lunch programs affected by school closures across the US, and $2M to MusiCares to support artists, songwriters, and music professionalswhose livelihoods have been severely impacted as a result of cancelled performance and gig work.

With tens of millions of students around the world out of school, educators and parents need help facilitating ongoing learning from a distance. The same is true for the millions of creative professionals, from nonprofits like museums to those in the wellness industry, who were suddenly forced to find new ways to connect with people who depend on their services. Creative educational content on platforms like TikTok can help, and we will be providing $50M in grants to educators, professional experts, and nonprofits whose real-world skills and expertise can help spread educational information and useful course material in an accessible, distance learning format.

We are also supporting our community through initiatives that include:

As economies largely cease activity to encourage social distancing and protect public health, small and medium-sized businesses, which are key to community employment, are uniquely at risk. We are committed to helping SMBs weather this crisis, and we will be providing $100M in ad credits to help companies get back on their feet once economies are able to restart normal activity. The program will begin rolling out to markets in the coming months, depending upon the decisions of public health authorities around the world regarding when and how to restart business operations.  

Around the world, health authorities are working to inform the public as quickly as possible on a range of issues, including the importance of social distancing or proper hygiene. To facilitate that education, we are providing $25M in prominent in-feed ad space for NGOs, trusted health sources, and local authorities, enabling them to share important messages with millions of people and meaningfully engage the TikTok community. We've also hosted educational livestreams from representatives of the WHO, IFRC, and popular voices for public health and science, like Bill Nye the Science Guy. In addition, we've created a range of in-app resources, educational livestreams, educational hashtag challenges, and more which can be found on the COVID-19 Resources Page on our Safety Center.

Suffice it to say we're all feeling the impact of this global crisis, and the uncertainty, fear, and stress can take a toll on our emotional well-being. Cherished patterns of life are being disrupted; in-person contact with friends, family, colleagues, and communities has been altered or ceased altogether; and we're united in our concern for loved ones who are working hard on the front lines of the global health battle. There is no easy way to overcome the hurt this causes, but we are intent on supporting our inspired users who are already producing imaginative and joyful content to unite and provide comfort through efforts like #HappyAtHome, a theme helping our community engage their minds, lift their spirits, and make the time at home feel just a little less daunting

Looking ahead, TikTok will be actively seeking more ways to contribute, including identifying the most effective ways to allocate these remaining funds to support ongoing relief needs. We understand that these are challenging times for everyone. Alongside businesses, governments, NGOs, and ordinary people across the globe stepping up in this critical moment, we are committed to offering the very best that we can to help out humanity. Together, we will persevere through this time of crisis and emerge a better community and part of a world that we fervently hope will be more united in common purpose than it was before.  

This article was originally published in the TikTok Newsroom on April 09, 2020