Giving at Etsy

A big donation to reimagine business education

In 2015, Etsy launched Etsy.org with a seed donation of 188,235 shares of common stock plus $300,000 of the proceeds from our April 2015 IPO. The non-profit organization aims to build business education programs that foster the confidence, clarity, and compassion needed to work in ways that regenerate our lives, our enterprises, and our communities.

In the pilot cohort, 23 entrepreneurs from small-to-medium sized local businesses participated in a 16-week program with curriculum focused on personal development and the interconnectedness of systems, as well as textbook business skills.

Employee-driven giving

Etsy is a marketplace fueled by people’s passions, and a deep respect for individual passions is core not only to our product but also to our culture and to our philanthropic giving. A meaningful percentage of Etsy’s giving is distributed via two programs that incentivize employees to give to what is most meaningful to them. We support our employees’ philanthropic interests by offering paid time-off to volunteer, and by matching donations dollar-for-dollar up to $500 USD per employee.

In 2015, 11% of employees participated in the volunteer time-off program, taking hours (and in many cases, days) out of the work week to contribute to organizations and causes that matter to them. In total, Etsy employees volunteered 2,305 work-time hours with qualifying non-profits, volunteering on average 24 hours throughout the year.

13% of employees took advantage of Etsy’s donation matching program, collectively giving $20,143, which Etsy matched dollar for dollar. Participants in the program donated on average $188 dollars throughout the year.

Our 10th anniversary volunteer day

Employees at Etsy’s Brooklyn office mobilized to volunteer across the city in celebration of Etsy’s 10th anniversary in June 2015. Donning “Empowered by Etsy” t-shirts, 230 employees volunteered across six projects, logging nearly 700 hours with neighborhood organizations. The impact wasn’t limited to Brooklyn: many of Etsy’s other offices hosted similar volunteer days. Read more here.