Gen Z and Millennial Entrepreneurs Step Up to Help Amid Covid-19 Crisis

The moment is not without precedent. A new report from Wunderman Thompson Commerce explores how past pandemics have shifted cultures, institutions and value systems throughout history, leading to innovation brought about by necessity. The bubonic plague, for example, which spread across Europe and Asia in the 14th century, was followed by the Renaissance.

“As feudalism died along with the plague, individual wealth took its place,” the report’s authors write. “Merchants and commerce, banking, property investments and advances in science propelled people forward, and our corporate roots began to grow.”

Now, Gen Z and millennial business leaders are showing their own creativity, from pivoting existing initiatives to building new ones.

Giving back to the community and nationwide

With numerous local businesses forced to close their doors, Jorge Richardson, 24, wanted to help prevent them from staying closed permanently. The solution: gift cards.

In late March, Richardson and his fellow co-founders debuted TogetherCard.org, a search engine for gift cards that allows users to look up thousands of businesses by zip code and go directly to the company’s gift card page. All proceeds go to the business.

“The goal of this, at least for the next few months, is how to send as much help to the local businesses as possible,” Richardson said.

In a similar pursuit, Clemson University student Sudarshan Sridharan, 19, founded Save Mom-and-Pop Shops, a site that connects users with businesses across the country that offer gift cards. The platform also handles online payments for establishments not set up to do so.

“Clemson looked like a ghost town during spring break, and I realized that most of these businesses were going to go under if nothing changed,” Sridharan said. “Within three days, I had the first version of the site built, and it was shared with the community by both Clemson University and the local chamber of commerce. Things just took off from there.”

Making connections to bolster spirits and bottom lines

For those wanting to offer their appreciation and support to essential workers on the frontlines, 6FTCloser provides a way. The site allows users to submit short, personalized videos of thanks and nominate essential workers to receive these messages, delivering them anonymously and allowing the option of responding through the platform.

“I was seeing the tireless effort of our heroes on the front lines, and felt both deeply grateful for their work and increasingly motivated to reach out directly to say ‘thank you,’” said co-founder Noah Friedman, 25. “Watching everybody clap out their windows and bang pots and pans—a beautiful gesture of solidarity—I wondered if there was a way to make the gratitude more personal.”

Within a matter of days, Friedman and his co-founder, Sahil Bhaiwala, 25, had a version of 6FTCloser up and running.

“The entire purpose of 6FTCloser is to encourage us to do that simple act of recognizing another individual so that they know they are supported and loved,” added Bhaiwala. “It costs nothing except a few seconds of time, and it can have a greater impact on someone’s life than we could possibly imagine.”

To bring small businesses together, social intelligence platform Trufan has begun hosting virtual seminars and offering free access for 45 days to its audience segmentation tool, SocialRank, to companies with fewer than 25,000 followers.

More than 80 smalls business owners attended Trufan’s first event, and, so far, over 1,500 companies have signed up for free access to SocialRank.

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