How SMEs are getting creative to help Ukrainian evacuees

SMEs are show­ing how inno­v­a­tive think­ing, speed and agili­ty can be just as help­ful as big cor­po­rate dona­tions in tack­ling the refugee cri­sis caused by Russia’s war on Ukraine.

Soft­ware devel­op­er Chili Piper, for instance, has not only raised more than £170,000 in fund­ing for NGOs on the ground; it has also built Bridge, a dig­i­tal plat­form that helps aid agen­cies to con­nect with organ­i­sa­tions offer­ing resources.

The com­pa­ny has gone even fur­ther by pub­lish­ing an online direc­to­ry of resources to serve as a relo­ca­tion guide for evac­uees. The doc­u­ment, which includes pro­ce­dures for enter­ing new coun­tries and meth­ods of apply­ing for asy­lum, has been viewed by more than 10,000 Ukraini­ans to date. 

Chili Piper’s co-founder and chief expe­ri­ence offi­cer is Ali­na Van­den­berghe. Now based in New York, she grew up in Roma­nia when it was under the con­trol of a bru­tal Com­mu­nist dic­ta­tor­ship led by Nico­lae Ceaus­es­cu. With well over 500,000 Ukraini­ans hav­ing fled here across the bor­der since the Rus­sians invad­ed their coun­try at the end of Feb­ru­ary, she has felt com­pelled to acti­vate all the resources at her dis­pos­al to assist them. The com­pa­ny is also sup­port­ing employ­ees in Roma­nia who are shel­ter­ing refugees.

“This is very per­son­al for me. Hav­ing grown up in Roma­nia, I know what it’s like to go to bed fear­ing bul­lets fly­ing over­head as you sleep,” Van­den­berghe explains. “With hun­dreds of thou­sands of Ukrain­ian refugees trav­el­ling to and through Roma­nia, we have mobilised con­sid­er­able resources to help, part­ner­ing with local author­i­ties and NGOs to pro­tect dis­placed cit­i­zens. I will con­tin­ue using my local con­nec­tions and knowl­edge to max­imise the aid we pro­vide.” 

Boosting financial support for Ukrainian refugees

Recruit­ment plat­forms Grow­mote­ly and hack­a­job both employ peo­ple in Roma­nia who have tak­en in refugees. The com­pa­nies have giv­en them not only finan­cial sup­port but also leave and flex­i­bil­i­ty with their work­loads to help them adjust to life with their new house guests.

Hackajob’s co-founder and CEO, Mark Chaf­fey, has set aside a £10,000 fund that can be tapped by any team mem­ber incur­ring extra costs on vital resources such as food, med­i­cine and trans­port in assist­ing evac­uees. He reports that one work­er used part of this to help 30 chil­dren who had been evac­u­at­ed from a Ukrain­ian orphan­age, for instance. The fund has also proved cru­cial for the five employ­ees based in the city of Iasi, east­ern Roma­nia, who have tak­en in refugees.

“We’re not ask­ing peo­ple to fol­low sev­en steps of com­pli­ance to access the mon­ey or even for proof that they need it. We want to make the process fric­tion­less and deploy these funds as quick­ly as pos­si­ble to the peo­ple who need them,” he explains. “Trust is one of our core val­ues as a com­pa­ny, so this is one exam­ple that demon­strates how we trust our peo­ple.”

Chaf­fey adds that it’s almost as impor­tant that hack­a­job is offer­ing extra leave to any­one who’s pro­vid­ing a haven for refugees.

“We have to be so empa­thet­ic to our team mem­bers. What has made this feel clos­er to home for us is that some of them are based near the Ukrain­ian bor­der,” he says. “There has been a lot of fear about how the sit­u­a­tion could esca­late.”

Long-term thinking 

But just how long the com­pa­ny can keep bankrolling their efforts is an issue of con­cern to Chaf­fey, which is why he’s sought inter­nal sug­ges­tions on how to offer them more sus­tain­able assis­tance.

“Unlike Apple and Google, we’re not sit­ting on bil­lions in cash, so we can’t just keep donat­ing mon­ey for­ev­er,” he says. “So what is the ongo­ing sup­port that we can offer as well as just pro­vid­ing mon­ey? Fun­da­men­tal­ly, the peo­ple here will have a much bet­ter sense of what’s fea­si­ble – we’re real­ly open to their ideas.” 

Chaf­fey con­tin­ues: “This is also about using the busi­ness. We’re experts in tech recruit­ment, so the oth­er thing we’ve been able to help with is get­ting new jobs for peo­ple who’ve been dis­placed by the war by match­ing them up with rel­e­vant employ­ers.”

This longer-term view is shared by Grow­mote­ly, which is sup­port­ing staff based in Romania’s cap­i­tal, Bucharest, who have tak­en in evac­uees. The com­pa­ny also wants to expand its can­di­date pool to include those Ukrain­ian refugees and help them apply for the numer­ous remote jobs it’s adver­tis­ing, in the hope that such work can cre­ate new liveli­hoods for them. 

“There are many super-expe­ri­enced peo­ple from Ukraine work­ing in mar­ket­ing, oper­a­tions and finance. What if they had access to remote oppor­tu­ni­ties that match that expe­ri­ence?” says Growmotely’s co-founder and brand and mar­ket­ing man­ag­er, Theodo­ra Gatin. “As a long-term solu­tion to cre­ate large-scale impact, this has us real­ly fired up about what we’re doing.” 

Based in Bucharest her­self, Gatin took four Ukrain­ian fam­i­lies into her home with­in three weeks of the inva­sion. She cred­its her firm’s flex­i­bil­i­ty in enabling her to help her new guests set­tle in with­out hav­ing to wor­ry too much about work.

To ensure that ded­i­cat­ed resources are avail­able when­ev­er a cri­sis strikes, Grow­mote­ly has even estab­lished what it calls a glob­al emer­gen­cies ini­tia­tive. Last year, for instance, it used mon­ey from this fund to enable the safe and rapid relo­ca­tion of one of its employ­ees in South Africa after riot­ing broke out near her home.