Team,
As I just shared with you in our town hall meeting, we are restructuring our operations and today will be the last day for 94 of our colleagues or approximately 12% of our overall team.
In this note I will repeat what I shared in our town hall regarding how we’re approaching this and detail the steps we are taking and why.
This is the hardest decision I have had to make in my time at GoFundMe. I deeply regret that we have to part ways with good people who have played meaningful roles in advancing our mission to help people help each other. We have sought to approach this situation with the utmost care, thought, and consideration.
Those who are affected will, by 10am PT, receive an invite for a meeting today with their leader and People Partner. Those who do not receive a meeting invite are in roles that are not impacted by the restructuring. The meetings, which will all be individual conversations, will happen by the end of the day today for US employees, and by end of day tomorrow internationally.
We need to take this difficult action because the GoFundMe business has changed substantially this year. As we’ve discussed in our company meetings over the last few months, we’ve seen donations decline as people struggle with reduced budgets as inflation has increased. In the face of this major macroeconomic shift, some of our efforts to encourage and enable more people to help each other have not been as successful as we had expected.
We’ve also made some big, longer-term bets that still need time. We are reducing those investments for now and we are doubling down on our core business of delivering excellent customer experiences for our community. Unfortunately, as part of this restructuring, we have to reduce the number of people on the team.
We aspire to support our colleagues whose roles have been impacted as much as possible as they move through this transition, and so, working with the board and the executive team, we have endeavored to offer generous support to everyone who will be leaving. In the US, we are offering departing employees a minimum of 13 weeks salary, with additional amounts for those who have been with us for more than 3 years. In addition, we are offering to extend the exercise period for stock options from our standard three months to three years and we are offering pro-rated vesting of stock options for those that haven’t yet met their one year cliff vesting so that everyone has the opportunity to become a GoFundMe shareholder.
We will also pay COBRA premium payments through April 30th 2023 to help ensure their healthcare coverage continues well beyond their employment with GoFundMe.
The process and departure packages for international employees will vary by country, consistent with relevant laws. In addition, all departing employees will be invited to keep a laptop, will receive continued support from Modern Health and Calm and will have access to career counseling services through Randstad RiseSmart including 1:1 coaching, resume writing and job search support through the coming months.
The implications of today are deeply personal as we are saying goodbye to friends and colleagues, all of whom have helped our community and enabled GoFundMe to help tens of millions of people help each other. Thank you to all of you for your support of each other and our community of customers.
Sincerely,
Tim
