Since the COVID-19 pandemic hit, Musicians have undoubtedly been among the hardest hit and will continue to not be able to generate an income via bookings for the foreseeable future. As the community struggled Spotify, had been exploring the ways they can help those suffering and make an impact around the world. As it’s model has and will always be, creating connections between artists and their fans, using music and podcasts, they know their support to the community now has never been more important. Today they have revealed their COVID-19 efforts, among them a new initiative to provide much-needed support for members of the music community with the Spotify COVID-19 Music Relief project.

Matched Donations To Music Support Organisations

The Music Relief Project has been created to amplify the efforts of organizations that focus on helping those most in need, beginning with Help Musicians (The Corona Virus Fund), MusiCares and the PRS Foundation. What this means is that Spotify will recommend verified organizations that offer financial relief to those in the music community most in need, and when you donate via Spotify’s portal linked at the end of this article, they will match dollar-for-dollar public donations, up to a total contribution of $10 million (USD).

A New Spotify for Artists Feature For Donations

As artists struggle to find ways to reach their audience and receive donations, Spotify are now working to make this a little easier with the launch a feature that will enable artists to fundraise directly from their fans on the platform during this challenging time. The new feature will give artists the ability to drive listeners to a fundraising destination of their choice on their Spotify artist profile pages.

Artists on Spotify will have the ability to link out to a verified funding page for themselves, another artist in need, or for a worthwhile initiative of their choice. The feature will be optional for artists to use, and for those who don’t wish to take part, no changes will be made to profile pages unless the artist chooses to participate, and Spotify will of course not take a cut of any contributions. If you’re a Spotify for Artists user interested to make use of this feature, you can sign up here to register your interest, and they will email you when it’s ready to be used.

No Fees For SoundBetter and Listener Support, Free Trials For Soundtrap.

For many Artists still able to create music at home, their music talent marketplace known as SoundBetter will be waiving its revenue share for the next 30 days, and their cloud-based audio recording platform Soundtrap will offer extended free trials for educators, and it’s podcasting platform Anchor will waive fees on its Listener Support feature for the next 6 months. The Listener Support feature allows Podcasters to receive monthly subscriptions from their listeners.

Other Initiatives – Free Ad Inventory, News Hub And Donations

As well as matching donations to important organisations, they’ve made contributions to public health organizations and donated significant ad inventory and platform space to Government and medical organisations to be able to help reach people with important updates, share news and health information with it’s users. We’ve also created a dedicated COVID-19 hub providing our listeners with a go-to place for news and information. And importantly, all the while we’re continuing to support the health, safety and livelihoods of our employees. Check out the below graphic for more information—and know that our support will continue to evolve.

To donate, click here and choose one of the organisations and Spotify will match your donations (up to $10 Million): https://covid19musicrelief.byspotify.com/en-us