Spotify Pledges Up to $10M To Support Artists Amid Coronavirus, With In-App Fundraising Feature to Come

Spotify is rolling out a suite of new features and projects today (March 25) intended to help artists who are struggling financially due to the coronavirus crisis.

“Though streaming continues to play a key role in connecting creators with their fans, numerous other sources of revenue have been interrupted or stopped altogether by this crisis,” the platform notes in a new blog post about its efforts.

First up is Spotify’s new COVID-19 Music Relief project, which helps connect musicians and other music professionals in need of funding to grant-giving organizations, in addition to helping fundraise. To start, Spotify is donating money to the project’s first partners: Nonprofits PRS Foundation, Help Musicians and MusiCares, and will match donations made via the project’s webpage dollar-for-dollar for up to a total Spotify contribution of $10 million.

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Next, Spotify is working to add a new feature to its Spotify For Artists platform that will enable artists to fundraise directly from fans, and Spotify will not take any cut of the contributions. This will give artists on Spotify the ability to link out to a verified funding page for themselves, another artist in need, or any other initiative. Spotify For Artists users who wish to use the feature can sign up to receive updates here.

Finally, Spotify is making temporary changes to several of the tools it owns to better serve creators during the crisis: Music talent marketplace SoundBetter is waiving its revenue share, audio recording platform Soundtrap is offering extended free trials for educators, and podcast firm Anchor is waiving fees on its Listener Support feature.