Supporting Ukraine: Activating our philanthropy, tools and network for humanitarian relief efforts

This was previously shared on LinkedIn by Michael Froman on March 17, 2022.

Across the world we continue to watch the devastating events unfolding in Ukraine. The people of Ukraine have been affected in ways that most of us could not imagine, and our thoughts continue to be with those impacted, including our colleagues, our customers and our partners.  

As the humanitarian emergency continues to unfold, our first priority has been the well-being and safety of our employees and their families. To support the region more broadly, we are mobilizing the breadth of our assets in support of NGOs, governments and financial institutions and their crisis response efforts; in our work with our partners to direct funding and humanitarian aid where it can provide the greatest impact; and in leveraging our network reach to support and secure transactions on the ground in Ukraine, as well as by Ukrainian customers.

These efforts include:

Humanitarian Relief and Volunteer Efforts

Donated $2 million to support the relief initiatives in Ukraine and surrounding countries welcoming refugees.

• Of this, $1.25 million was allocated to the International Red Cross and $500K to Save the Children, who are on the ground helping provide children and families with immediate aid, such as food, water, hygiene kits and psychosocial support; and $250,000 to our Employee Assistance Fund (EAF), which directly benefits our impacted employees.

Deploying an additional $3 million from the Mastercard Impact Fund to further support humanitarian relief efforts (food, shelter, medical care, etc), as well as aiding the financial security and driving small business programs for migrants’ longer term economic integration.

• $1MM in donations will prioritize local chapters of international NGOs or local, smaller NGOs to ensure local entities have the financial resourced they need to support migrants
• $2MM will be deployed to ensure more medium-term support for refugees as they try to re-establish their economic livelihoods. The Mastercard Center for Inclusive Growth is currently in conversation with other companies about a coordinated philanthropic response to the longer term economic integration of Ukrainian migrants as the scale of the challenge will be too big for Mastercard to tackle on its own.

Engaging our employees who are donating their time and helping to further raise funds by making contributions to relief efforts with a one-to-one match from the company

• As an example of our volunteerism efforts, more than 50 New York employees packed 3,850 pounds of medical supplies and hygiene kits for nonprofit AFYA Foundation to ship to Ukraine. Based in Yonkers, New York, the AFYA Foundation delivers vital medical supplies to those in need around the world.

NGO and Government Support

Supporting NGOs, governments, and financial institutions in their crisis response efforts by contributing our donation technology to fundraising campaigns and providing critical cyber tools to prevent fraud and protect operations.

• We are partnering with merchants to launch point-of-sale round-up campaigns that offer consumers the option to round up their purchase to the next dollar/Euro and donate their spare change to charities. We’ve launched campaigns in Spain with Bonpreu supporting Red Cross in distributing water, bedding, hygiene sets, blankets, and baby products. In France, we are working with merchants Cora and Fnac to raise funds for the World Food Programme for food distribution in Ukraine and refugees in neighboring countries. 
• We have launched a co-branded donations site in the U.S. to mobilize contributions to the American Red Cross and Save the Children.
• We are offering our RiskRecon capabilities free of charge to impacted financial institutions to help them detect vulnerabilities and secure operations.

Helping Ukrainians Access Funds on their Mastercard Cards

Together with PayPal we are enabling Ukrainian consumers to cash out funds from their PayPal Wallet directly to their Mastercard card. This is enabled through our Mastercard Send service for consumers in Ukraine to access funds being sent to them from outside the country. Both organizations are temporarily not charging any fees for this program in Ukraine. 

We remain focused on ensuring the integrity and resiliency of our systems in Ukraine. This includes supporting our Ukrainian customers throughout this crisis with the temporary reduction of interchange fees. Our Cyber & Intelligence and Corporate Security teams are working with governments and partners around the world to ensure the stability, integrity and resiliency of both our systems and theirs. We are committed to active monitoring and rapid response to cyber-attacks, the threat of which is heightened significantly in the present environment. 

There are many challenges ahead and the people of the Ukraine need our ongoing and unrelenting support. We join with so many others in hoping for a more peaceful future for us all.