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COVID-19 Resources

WTIA COVID-19 Communications

We’ve been publishing recommendations to member company leadership on COVID-19 response. Keep up to date with our past communications here:

April 10, 2020 Update

March 31, 2020 Update

March 16, 2020 Update

March 12, 2020 Update

March 10, 2020 Update

March 3, 2020 Update

Missed these communications in your inbox? Subscribe below and we’ll send you any new COVID-19 updates and recommendations when we have them.

Employer Resources

Washington State COVID-19 Response “New Normal” Planning

Back to Work Toolkit

Resources for Washington state Businesses & Workers Impacted by COVID-19

Startup Runway Survey Summary

We conducted a survey from 5/1 to 5/7 among more than 140 startups, covering the Greater Seattle Metropolitan area. The purpose of the survey was to determine the capitalization and liquidity of the startup ecosystem in order to assess where public and private institutions can support the startup job and economic growth engine. Read the results of that survey here.

Tech Sector Response to COVID-19

It is clear we’re living in an unprecedented time, and one which calls for an unprecedented response. We continue to be inspired daily by the efforts taking place far and wide across the state. Companies large and small are galvanizing around this cause, supporting our community and using creativity to problem solve and alleviate the impact of COVID-19.

These contributions run the gamut from cash to manufacturing supplies, from mental health support to offering educational solutions for kids and adults. Whether directly or indirectly affected by COVID-19, Washington residents should take comfort in the efforts made by the tech sector today and their continued impacts tomorrow.

The total in-kind and cash contributions approach $100 million in our region alone.

WTIA is also contributing to this community activism. We’ve been helping startups find resources to bridge the gap to funding, we’re vetting health tech applications created to help manage the crisis, and we are actively working with industry leaders and government officials to steer efforts to help restart our economy. Another example of teams of volunteers from tech is All In Seattle — a coalition of tech, business, and sports leaders from across our region who collectively raised more than $30 million to help people affected by the COVID-19 outbreak.

  • Alphagraphics is providing essential services to state and county agencies, medical, and social service entities.
  • Amazon
  • Amperity
    • Helped build a website for The Plate Fund, supporting out-of-work restaurant workers in King County.
  • Apprenti has compiled a list of free or low-cost learning tools for those exploring new career opportunities in tech.
  • AT&T
    • Announced three months of free wireless service for frontline nurses and physicians nationwide on the FirstNet network.
    • Created a $10 Million fund to support parents, teachers, and students throughout COVID-19 school closures. Also, AT&T donated $5.5 million to meal support to World Central Kitchen, Feeding America, the Salvation Army, and Team Rubicon as well as a $100,000 donation to the United Way King County Community Relief Fund.
    • Issued a 20% bonus above the regular hourly base rate of pay to bargained-for employees for all time worked in the field, office, or at home.
    • They launched six new Command Centers that are enabling the fast delivery of increased bandwidth, new circuits, and unified communication services.
    • Through June 30, 2020, for residential or small business customers who notify AT&T that they are unable to pay their bills due to disruptions caused by the coronavirus pandemic, AT&T will:
      • Not terminate any postpaid wireless, home phone or broadband residential or small business account.
      • Waive any late payment fees for postpaid wireless, home phone or broadband residential or small business, U-verse TV or DIRECTV customer.
      • Waive domestic postpaid wireless plan overage charges for data, voice or text for residential or small business wireless customers.
      • Keep their public Wi-Fi hotspots open for anyone who needs them.
    • They are redirecting more resources to provide communication services and tools for first responders, health care professionals, educators and other essential customers.
    • Click here to learn more about AT&T contributions.
  • Boeing
    • Relief effort assistance: 3-D printing of face shields, Dreamlifter loaning to the federal government, donation of hospital equipment.
    • Employees have provided 3.2 million lbs of food to families in need.
    • Click here to learn more about Boeing contributions.
  • Catalyst has compiled a list of ways both individuals and companies can directly support those affected by COVID-19.
  • CenturyLink
  • Challenge Seattle and Washington Roundtable, working in partnership with the Boston Consulting Group (BCG), have developed a set of recommendations for employers as they plan for the easing of “Stay Home, Stay Healthy” measures.
  • Charter Communications
    • Offering free Spectrum Internet and WiFi access for 60 days to households with students and educators, who do not already have an existing Spectrum subscription.
    • Continuing to offer Spectrum Internet Assist, a high-speed broadband program available to eligible low-income households
      Opened WiFi hotspots across our footprint for public use.
    • Spectrum does not have data caps or hidden fees.
    • Spectrum will not terminate service for residential or small business customers who face difficult economic circumstances related to the pandemic.
    • Will not charge late fees for those customers facing difficult economic circumstances related to the pandemic.
    • Permanently raising our minimum wage for all employees to $20 per hour. The initial increase will be implemented immediately for frontline field technicians and customer service call center employees.
    • Providing all employees an additional three weeks of flexible paid time to be used during 2020 for any reason related to COVID-19.
    • Click here to learn more about Charter Communications contributions.
  • Cirkled In
  • Clark Nuber has created a website with COVID-19 information and resources for businesses, nonprofits and individuals.
  • Cloud Paper regularly donates toilet paper to Food Lifeline. During the COVID-19 crisis, the startup has pledged another 10,000 rolls to help those in need.
  • Code Fellows is offering a 50% tuition scholarship to anyone who has had their income put at risk due to COVID-19.
  • CodingDojo launched a volunteer program to help small businesses.
  • CoreStack is offering online education solutions.
  • Comcast
  • Convoy is paying the freight for businesses to donate truckloads of food to their local Feeding America food bank.
    • Convoy will book a carrier in their network to haul the freight and pay the truck driver for their services, at no cost to the shipper.
    • Land O’Lakes, one of the first businesses to participate, donated more than 1,300 pounds of mac and cheese to the South Michigan Food Bank in Battle Creek, MI.
    • Click here to learn more about Convoy’s contributions.
  • Crown Castle:
    • Working to expedite installations/modifications of cell towers to meet carrier needs for expanded capacity; and
    • Contributed $25,000 to the Education Equity Fund to support hot spots for 72 families in need for 3 months.
  • Doordash announced a package of relief programs designed to promote the health and safety of DoorDash couriers, merchants and customers while supporting local small businesses to generate up to $200M in additional sales.
  • Electric Pen is offering lower rate design packages to assist companies still needing design during tighter times.
  • Expedia
  • F5 and NGINX are providing one free year of NGINX Plus for those in the education, public, and nonprofit sectors and opening up their core training at no cost.
  • Facebook
    • 4 tons of food to Food Lifeline.
    • 15,000 masks, 50,000 gloves to King County Emergency Operations Center.
    • $40M in grants to 10,000 U.S. small businesses, spanning 34 cities. Part of the $100M grant program.
    • Click here to learn more about Facebook contributions.
  • First Row Partners along with their partners have created The $1k Project, where people can donate to help families affected by layoffs and furloughs caused by the COVID-19 pandemic.
  • FlowPlay
    • $15,000 total donations to Northwest Harvest, STG, and the UW Medicine Coronavirus Emergency Fund
    • Beginning a program to provide 120 meals per week to UW Medicine front line staff.
    • Working in association with that American Cancer Society to raise approx $40k to provide hotel rooms for frontline healthcare workers who are separated from their families due to the risk of exposure.
  • Fresh Chalk is maintaining a running list of Seattle businesses and how they are responding to the outbreak.
  • Future for Us is providing FREE professional development digital programming for womxn of color professionals.
  • Gennev, an online women’s health clinic, launched expanded telemedicine services.
  • Give InKind is a free, community support platform that brings together a Care Calendar, Wishlist, and Crowdfunding into one, easy-to-use tool.
  • Google
    • Pledged $800M+ to support small businesses and crisis response.
    • Established a fund to offer paid sick leave to contractors and temp workers.
    • Donated $250,000 to create the Kirkland Small Business Relief Fund.
    • $50,000 to Plymouth Housing for supplies and other needs.
    • $50,000 to Communities in Schools via Sea.Citi to provide distance learning tech access for disadvantaged students.
    • $50,000 to the Plate Fund to support displaced restaurant, cafe, and bar employees.
    • $125,000 to GiveDirectly which provides direct cash grants to SNAP federal food assistance eligible families.
    • Provided ad grants to the state Department of Health to support public service announcements promoting social distancing and stay at home measures.
    • Click here to learn more about Google contributions.
  • Intentionalist launched a takeout and delivery directory to make it easy to find and support businesses in and beyond your local community.
  • Jeff Bezos has committed to a $100M donation to Feeding America, which supplies food banks nationally, including several in the greater Seattle region.
  • LERNER Consulting is providing business and “friendly ear” counseling across a spectrum of businesses and entrepreneurs on remote work/teams, startup and startup board consulting, leadership and being there as an impartial third party just to listen.
  • Madrona alongside the Seattle venture community, leading tech, retail and aerospace companies in the region and the Seattle Metropolitan and Bellevue Chambers of Commerce, have developed a toolkit for reopening the office and getting back to work.
  • Microsoft
    • Mobilized its global supply chain to secure and distribute medical supplies to healthcare workers.
    • Offering education and resources to families including financial support to help remote learning around the state.
    • $1M to help launch the Seattle Foundation’s COVID-19 Response Fund.
    • Over $400,000 in direct community grants.
    • Nearly $2M in combined employee giving and matching funds.
    • Working with Adaptive Biotechnologies to study the immune response to COVID-19.
    • Click here to learn more about Microsoft contributions.
  • Minecraft is offering free educational content in their marketplace.
  • Moz is offering free SEO training through May 31 via their Moz Academy.
  • Mystery has developed Mystery Night In, a personalized evening from the comfort of home that supports small businesses affected by COVID-19.
  • Pidge Post is providing card care packages to help people stay connected while social distancing. Pidge curates cards to customers’ needs, includes a stamp for each card, and donates a percentage of profits to Food Lifeline in Seattle.
  • PopSmartKids made their edtech story writing app available at just 99 cents so kids can stay engaged meaningfully.
  • Redfin has suspended in-person open houses but has a list of tips for selling your home while abiding by social distancing.
  • Religica is providing resources in the form of podcasts, blog posts and information via social media for faith and civic leaders to better help people in this time
  • Ridwell, a recycling startup, has turned its attention to collecting supplies that are needed by those who are especially vulnerable during the COVID-19 crisis.
  • Salesforce
    • Offering new free solutions to help companies stay connected.
    • Free tools and support for 90 days: Employee and customer support, small business tools, health solutions, philanthopy platform, app and partner ecosystem.
    • $10,000 grants for a total of $5M commitment to support small businesses.
    • Click here to learn more about Salesforce contributions.
    • Smartsheet created free templates that can be used by other organizations to build their own coronavirus preparedness dashboard.
  • Simply Augmented, Khronos Group, and the Smithsonian are teaming up to provide free augmented reality models of Smithsonian exhibits for at-home learning.
  • Skopos Labs developed a resource hub for tracking federal policymaking related to COVID-19, compiling legislative and regulatory activity from over 200 federal agencies.
  • Sprint is doubling their 1Million Project’s data allotment from 10 GB to 20 GB per month through June 30, 2020.
  • Tableau
  • The SnapBar launched Keep Your City Smiling — care packages that support local businesses.
  • T-Mobile
  • TimeXtender is bringing their powerful simple platform for quickly building a data warehouse with few resources to bear in the effort to drive effective response to the COVID-19 pandemic, especially for government agencies and healthcare providers and are providing 6 months of licensing and support services at no charge.
  • University of Washington
  • Uber
    • Committed to providing 10M rides and food deliveries to healthcare workers, seniors and people in need, free of charge.
    • JUMP is offering free rides in Seattle and is giving free 30-minute rides to essential workers. Companies can email SeattleSupport@Jump.com to get ride codes.
    • Committing 300,000 free meals on Uber Eats to first responders and healthcare workers in the US and Canada.
    • Click here to learn more about Uber contributions.
  • Verizon
    • Is tripling data allowance for Verizon Innovative Learning schools and offering high school students and their teachers nationwide with free access to NYTimes.com.
    • Donating up to $2.5M to support businesses impacted by COVID-19 as part of Pay it Forward Live! and $9 Million to health and relief organizations.
    • Policy changes including the following: waived late fees and overage charges for residential and small business customers impacted by COVID-19, free international calling for consumer wireless and home voice customers to CDC select countries.
    • Click here to learn more about Verizon contributions.
  • Vulcan
  • Wave Broadband
    • Will offer free internet and WiFi for 60 days to all qualifying low-income households, especially students in low income households who do not already subscribe to their internet service and who enroll in the Internet First program. The Internet First program includes 25Mbps high-speed internet service at $9.95 per month and is available to all eligible new residential customers who do not currently have Wave service.
    • Installation fees will be waived for eligible students and new customers.
    • Will not terminate service to any residential or business customer because of their inability to pay their bills due to disruptions caused by COVID-19.
    • Will waive internet data overage fees for customers without unlimited internet access plans.
    • Will waive any late fees that any residential or small business customer might normally incur because of their economic circumstance related to COVID-19.
    • Click here to learn more about Wave Broadband contributions.
  • Wyze
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