Engineered for impact: it started with a checkout
When we think about Adyen's role in creating impact, we start with one question: where are we uniquely positioned to add value?
Our customers tell us they want to act, but two things get in the way. Global crises are on the rise while traditional funding is under pressure. Meanwhile, businesses and shoppers who want to give, lack easy and practical ways to do it. The intent is there. The infrastructure usually isn't.
This is the gap Adyen can close. We sit at the heart of global commerce, supporting millions of interactions between businesses and their customers. Our role is not to decide which causes matter most. It is to remove complexity for people who want to act, and use our scale to help their actions go further.
I lead our People team and our global Impact work, so I see this from two sides: what we offer our customers, and how our own people can take part.
It started with a checkout
Giving shoppers the option to donate at checkout sounds simple. Making it work across technology, payments, finance, legal, operations, and customer experience is not.
Donating at checkout wasn't a new idea. What was broken was how others did it. The experience was fragmented and hard for businesses to manage at scale, and the donation was bundled into the payment, which made reconciliation a headache for merchants. Our customers wanted an easy way to let shoppers support causes they care about. The existing solutions created extra work.
Payments are what we know best, so we built Adyen Giving to fix those problems directly. Donations stay separate from the payment flow and show up clearly in reporting. That simplicity took teams across technology, payments, finance, legal, operations and customer experience, so that our customers don’t have to take on that complexity. Adyen also absorbs all transaction costs and third-party fees, so 100% of every donation goes to the nonprofit.
Today, Giving lets customers raise funds for nonprofit partners without building any of that infrastructure themselves. Maria Ledous, Head of Sustainability at Uniqlo, describes what that looked like for them: “Donating at the checkout resonated with our customers. They were looking for ways to be part of the solution. And with Adyen, it was just one tap away.” Giving is also the entry point for everything else we do around impact.
What I value most is seeing this work become part of the value we deliver to customers. We got here the way we build most of our business: we listened, found a real problem, and solved it. That is also why the work lasts. It doesn't depend on one leader or one group continuing to champion it. No future Adyen leadership team would sunset a product that addresses a pain point of our customers. This isn’t just an impact side project, this is a value add for our single platform.
Working alongside our customers
Our customers represent every step of the impact journey: some have deep expertise and long-standing commitments to particular causes, others are just starting, and for some this isn't a focus today. We work with all of them. We don't push a cause or a level of participation. Where a customer is already doing meaningful work, we look at how to amplify it rather than pushing them to build something separate.
With co-granting, we invest alongside customers in programs they already support. We focus on education, environment, and emergencies, or on areas where a customer is best placed to respond.
Our work with Spotify and Backline is one example of this work. Spotify knows the music industry and the people in it. Backline provides mental health and wellness resources to the music community. By funding alongside Spotify, we supported the launch of the first dedicated mental health crisis hotline for music professionals and their families in the US. It built on the relationships and expertise our customer already had to maximize impact.
Enabling our people
Our team can make an impact in a few different ways, depending on what they care about: matched donations, funds they can direct to the nonprofits of their choice, paid time off to volunteer, or organizing direct support when emergencies affect their communities.
Increasingly, that also includes professional skills. After a grant to Doctors without Borders, Adyen team members with technical expertise worked with the organization to build an AI chatbot for one of its programs. In another partnership, one of our designers created point-of-service donation campaign materials for UNHCR, supporting a key merchant as it launched Giving across Europe. These are practical contributions, and that’s the point: understanding what an organization actually needs, then looking across Adyen for the funding, technology, expertise, or access that can create a multiplied impact.
The 1% behind it
All of this is fueled by Adyen's 1% Fund. Each year, we allocate 1% of our net revenue to this work. The resources grow as Adyen grows, and the commitment is built into the scaling of our business.
The Fund lets us grant to nonprofit partners directly, match shopper donations processed via Giving, co-invest alongside customers, respond to emergencies, and back employee-led initiatives. It also lets us plan over longer timeframes, which matters most to the nonprofits we work with. Long-term, predictable funding gives partners room to plan and keep programs running beyond a single campaign.
Our customers, nonprofit partners, and people already have the expertise and ambition. We don't need to replicate it. We connect it and back it with resources. As Adyen grows, so does what we can do together with our customers.
Whether you’re a business or a nonprofit, there’s a place to start: discover Adyen Giving.