A message from CEO Kelly Schmitt

January 18, 2023

Today is one of the toughest days in Benevity’s history. 

Demand for our solutions and the appetite of companies to make an impact on social issues have been growing consistently for more than a decade. We have always run the company for growth, both to maximize the social impact we could help to drive as an early B Corporation, and also to meet the market opportunity in front of us. 

In response to that demand, we significantly increased the size of our team, but over the last nine months macroeconomic conditions have changed dramatically, and the demand we expected to see has slowed significantly.

Although we continue to experience healthy year-over-year growth, the hard reality is that as a company we are overbuilt for current market conditions. With that, we have made the difficult decision to reduce the size of our team by 14%, and today we are saying goodbye to 137 passionate Benevity-ites in the process. I am truly sorry that we’ve come to this point, and I take full responsibility for the decisions that led us here.

We believe in the long-term opportunity for Benevity, as the appetite for companies of all sizes to engage their teams and customers around social impact is still strong. Taking the steps now to become a more profitable business will make us a stronger company over the long term, and better position us to fulfill our mission and support our clients and nonprofits to have a positive impact on the world.

Supporting Departing Benevity-ites

It is important for us to see our departing teammates succeed in the next chapter of their careers, and we are committed to doing everything we can to help them. Everyone who is departing will meet 1:1 with a senior leader today to discuss how we will support their transition. Some of the ways we’ll do that include generous severance, consideration for bonus, extension of health benefits, career transition support and ownership of company laptops.  

Supporting our Clients and Nonprofits

To ensure that we support our clients and nonprofits through this transition, we will take a different approach to the changes in our Client Success team, phasing changes over the next 8 weeks. We will also continue to expand our investments in automation, product capabilities and efficiencies that improve the client and nonprofit experience to ensure that we continue to create RFOB’s (Raving Fans of Benevity).

Moving Forward

To our teammates who are staying, we recognize that you too are affected by today’s news and we will answer your questions and discuss our plans for the future over the next week. The world is difficult for many people right now, and it is more important than ever for us to stay focused on delivering scalable solutions that help more companies and their communities tackle the challenging societal issues we all face. 

To our teammates who are leaving today, we are truly grateful for your contributions to Benevity, our culture and our moonshot – we are proud of the impact that we have made together. We have no doubt that you will continue to spread a culture of goodness wherever your next opportunities take you, and you will be missed.

Kelly