Thrive Market CEO Donates Salary To Fund Groceries For Families Affected By Pandemic

Nick Green, CEO of Thrive Market, an online grocery store, is donating his annual salary for 2020 to Thrive Market’s new COVID-19 Relief Fund which has raised over $350,000 from members and brand partners.

The COVID-19 Fund, Green says, is providing grocery stipends and free memberships to more than 1,600 families affected by COVID-19. And to “ensure that every deserving family who applies for a grant can become a recipient,” Green’s decided to donate his earnings for the year.

Plus, the other two co-founders Sasha Siddhartha and Gunnar Lovelace have also banded together in donating a total of $100,000 to the fund together.

“With the brand’s core mission of making healthy living easy and accessible for everyone, the fund supports medical professionals, first responders, at-risk communities and immunocompromised individuals for whom leaving the house may not be an option, and families or individuals whose health or financial stability has been affected by COVID-19. Every paid membership sponsors one for those in need, helping to provide access for all, one member at a time,” Green explains.

Anyone who wishes to apply for a grant can do so (by sending an email to covid19relief@thrivemarket.com) and describing how they or someone they know has been impacted by the crisis. This can include lost wages, childcare costs, or medical expenses.

“We’re prioritizing grants for families facing financial hardship, health care workers, or those with a positive COVID-19 diagnosis,” Green says.

All grants are also paired with a free one year membership to Thrive Market. So far, they will be able to meet 100 percent of existing applications, he notes. Anyone wishing to make a donation (without placing an order on Thrive Market) can also do so here.

For Thrive Market, the pandemic has created an influx of orders and unprecedented demand, forcing them to have to shut down the website from orders for periods of time. As more Americans have been avoiding the shops, Thrive Market’s online-only model has become a popular destination to get groceries.

That’s created challenges for the business: ones that Green and supply partners are trying to tackle as fast as possible.

“On the inventory side, we’ve seen demand on many products – hand sanitizer, toilet paper, canned beans, etc. – spike by over 10x and some by as much as 80x. As a result, we’ve had to place some of our biggest purchase orders in company history and work directly with our brand partners to make sure we can stay in stock,” he says.

That’s meant quicker turn around times for brands featured on the site to churn out product.

“For the most part, we’ve been blown away by our brands’ willingness to go above and beyond to fill our orders, whether it’s turning around POs in hours instead of days or running midnight production runs to get product out the door faster. It’s been amazing,” Green says.

Orders have been delayed; the average ship time has been extended from a few days to over a week at times on Thrive’s site. But the business is also tackling that by putting more people to work in fulfillment.

“In 5 weeks, we’ve had to increase the size of our warehouse staff by over 70 percent to keep up with orders—-and do it while rolling out dozens of new COVID-19 safety standards like mandatory temperature checks, intra-shift cleans, and staggered breaks, as well as worker welfare initiatives like hazard pay, double overtime pay, and automatic leave approval. We’ve been laser focused on scaling, but never at the expense of safety or worker wellbeing,” Green says.

As this public health crisis wanes on, Thrive Market will continue to accept grant applications and raise funds through the Fund.