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A $10 million matching donation to support refugees fleeing Ukraine

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Key Takeaways

  • Airbnb's co-founders - Brian Chesky, Joe Gebbia, Nathan Blecharczyk and his wife Elizabeth - are today committing to match up to $10 million in donations to Airbnb.org through March, in support of the effort to offer housing to refugees fleeing Ukraine.
  • To date, approximately 14,000 people across Europe have signed up to share their home with refugees since this program launched on February 28.

Key Takeaways

  • Airbnb's co-founders - Brian Chesky, Joe Gebbia, Nathan Blecharczyk and his wife Elizabeth - are today committing to match up to $10 million in donations to Airbnb.org through March, in support of the effort to offer housing to refugees fleeing Ukraine.
  • To date, approximately 14,000 people across Europe have signed up to share their home with refugees since this program launched on February 28.

Two weeks ago, Airbnb and Airbnb.org announced that Airbnb.org will offer free, short-term housing to up to 100,000 refugees fleeing Ukraine. These stays will be funded by Airbnb, Inc., donors to the Airbnb.org Refugee Fund, and the generosity of Hosts through Airbnb.org. 

Today, to further support Airbnb.org’s important work, Airbnb’s co-founders – Brian Chesky, Joe Gebbia, Nathan Blecharczyk and his wife Elizabeth — are personally committing to match up to $10 million in donations to the organization, beginning today through March 31, 2022. 

Brian, Joe, Nate and Elizabeth have been inspired by the eagerness of the Airbnb community to get involved in Airbnb.org’s effort to provide housing to refugees fleeing Ukraine. To date, more than 21,500 people around the world have signed up to share their home with refugees since this program launched on February 28 – including 14,000 across Europe, where the need for Airbnb.org Hosts is currently the greatest. More than a quarter of these people were not existing Hosts on Airbnb.

In the past two weeks, Airbnb.org has also received more than $5.2 million in small-dollar, direct donations from a total of more than 59,000 individual donors across 92 countries.  Airbnb and its founders have contributed $17 million so far to Airbnb.org to help cover costs associated with providing stays for refugees fleeing Ukraine, and Airbnb employees have donated a total of more than $625,000 to support Airbnb.org’s effort as well as other nonprofits working on the ground in Ukraine. The Utah Jazz Foundation is working with Airbnb.org to provide more than 32,200 nights of temporary housing to refugees fleeing Ukraine. 

Airbnb.org is working with partners across Europe to begin connecting refugees fleeing Ukraine to housing, including the International Organization for Migration, as well as the government of Germany.

Anyone who is interested in supporting Airbnb.org’s initiative to help refugees fleeing Ukraine can go to airbnb.org/help-ukraine to get involved, including by participating in this matching campaign or offering free or discounted stays.

About Airbnb 

Airbnb was born in 2007 when two Hosts welcomed three guests to their San Francisco home, and has since grown to 4 million Hosts who have welcomed more than 1 billion guest arrivals across over 220 countries and regions. Every day, Hosts offer unique stays and one-of-a-kind activities that make it possible for guests to experience the world in a more authentic, connected way. As the only platform offering hosted travel and the ability to live anywhere on a global scale, Airbnb has become a noun and a verb and most traffic to our platform remains organic. We will continue to invest in innovations that expand the travel market and lead the way in turning travel into a way of life.

About Airbnb.org

Airbnb.org is a nonprofit organization dedicated to facilitating temporary stays for people in times of crisis around the world. Airbnb.org operates independently and leverages Airbnb, Inc.’s technology, services, and other resources at no charge to carry out Airbnb.org’s charitable purpose. The inspiration for Airbnb.org began in 2012 with a single host named Shell who opened up her home to people impacted by Hurricane Sandy. This sparked a movement and marked the beginning of a program that allows Hosts on Airbnb to provide stays for people in times of need. Since then, the program has evolved to focus on emergency response and to help provide stays to evacuees, relief workers, refugees, asylum seekers, and frontline workers fighting the spread of COVID-19. Since then, Hosts have offered to open up their homes and helped provide accommodations to 100,000 people in times of need. Airbnb.org is a separate and independent entity from Airbnb, Inc. Airbnb, Inc. does not charge service fees for Airbnb.org supported stays on its platform.

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