eBay support to fight systemic racism and support looted SME stores

As a global business with around 14,000 employees, eBay naturally have a diverse workforce with employees drawn from just about every country, race and sex across every nation on earth. Add on to eBay employees the tens of millions of sellers and hundreds of millions of buyers, and the eBay community is close to being just as diverse as the entire world population. So it’s no surprise that eBay are committed to the fight against systemic racism and injustice. This naturally extends beyond race to equality in sex, religion, disability and every other aspects of humans which add together to make the colourful backdrop of humanity that comes together as eBay. But at the moment it is the BlackLivesMatter topic which is at the forefront of people’s minds.

Knowing that many people of color make their living selling items in the music category, eBay donated all fees that they collected on the 2nd of June from items sold in the music categories on eBay.com to charities that support equality in America. They also dropped in a donation of $1m on top of the fees.

eBay also noted that due to the demonstrations, some businesses brick and mortar stores have been impacted directly and have put out an offer of support to get these retailers back in business.

As luck would have it, Damien Hooper-Campbell, the first ever Chief Diversity Officer at eBay, just jumped ship to Zoom and this probably couldn’t have happened at a worst time just as systemic racism hits the headlines. Jordan Sweetnam, SVP + GM Americas at eBay has stepped up to the plate and issued the following statement:

“eBay has never been more committed to living our purpose: enabling our diverse community of small businesses to succeed and grow. I posted on Monday about how eBay in the U.S. responded to the events taking place across the country. In support of Blackout Tuesday, we pledged to donate fees from the music category that day to charities that fight for equality, which equaled $300K. At a global level, eBay announced today we will donate an additional $1M – for a total amount of $1.3M – to organizations that work, day in and day out, to fight systemic racism and injustice.
 
Staying out of the conversation isn’t an option; this is about equal rights and making sure that folks feel seen. There is no place for hate or violence in our community, and we will do whatever we can to affect change. This is who we are as a brand, and we have a long history of offering financial support to those who need it most and reflect our cultural values.
 
We know that some of you have had your brick and mortar operations impacted by the recent demonstrations, and we’re here to help. If you have personally felt the effects, please contact us at [email protected]. We are finding ways as an organization to help you get back to business. Please know that eBay will always advocate on behalf of our sellers to build a stronger community and more inclusive world.
 
I’m most proud of eBay when I witness first-hand your compassion and desire to help fellow sellers and assist those in need. Together, we can do more and create opportunity across the board for our sellers and small business community.
 
As always, thank you for selling on eBay.”
– Jordan Sweetnam, SVP + GM Americas, eBay