How to Directly Support Ukrainian Coworking & Flex Spaces

• The global coworking community is supporting Ukrainian coworking and flexible workspace businesses with a new initiative.
• Ukraine Coworking Association is curating a list of coworking businesses affected by the war.
• 70+ coworking leaders, including The Coworking IDEA Project, European Coworking Assembly, Coworking Europe, and others, encourage you to support Ukrainian spaces by paying for something in their apps.

TLDR: Skip to the Make Donation section

As the Russian aggression continues to ruin the lives and businesses of innocent people, coworking and flex spaces in Ukraine are mobilized to actively support local communities. Even under siege, spaces serve as humanitarian aid centers and temporary shelters for refugees.

We combine our normal operation as a coworking space with a refugee shelter set up in our lecture hall. It can accommodate about 25-30 people. We have already hosted many families from Kharkiv, Sumy, Kyiv and Kyiv region.

We also provide humanitarian aid to the Ridni Charitable Foundation. In addition to their usual care for children from low-income families and orphans, they now help transport kids from destroyed and bombarded cities to safe shelters in Western Ukraine and Europe. We buy them food, medicine, hygiene products, and everything they need. — Iryna Hrydova, Coworking Community Administrator at FuturaHub, Lviv

Once the war started, 50% of our residents moved out, so many spaces stayed empty. We decided to use them as a shelter for people relocating from the most dangerous war zones to Poland. So far, in two weeks, our shelter hosted more than 150 refugees, mostly women with kids and old people.

We managed to arrange everything very fast thanks to our responsible community members and volunteers that provide food and basic personal hygiene products. For instance, TechMagic software development company that was one of the first tenants at Startup Depot, helped to arrange sleeping places.

Actually, we rebuilt the operation of our coworking space to match the current situation and be maximally useful to those in need 24/7.

Members that still work in our premises also don’t keep away from volunteer work. For example, our biggest tenant, Lviv IT Cluster runs multiple volunteer projects to support refugees, Ukrainian army, and territorial defense forces.

Companies that don’t come to their offices, such as andcards, still pay for them to support us. This is a huge help as we need to get some income to pay our bills and staff salary.

For teams from Kharkiv and other war zones where people physically can’t run their businesses, we provide 50% discount till the end of the active war phase.

Members and guests can stay at our comfortable bomb shelter during alerts. It offers heating, electricity, warm water supply, and Wi-Fi. — Ivan Dmytrasevych, CEO at Startup Depot, Lviv

From the first day of the war, we began to reorganize WORKIT for the comfortable and safe life of our employees and their relatives. We strengthened the walls, windows and helped everyone who needed it.

We could not stay indifferent to people’s woe and started to help refugees, migrants, and everyone in need.

The kitchen of our restaurant stayed idle, so we started to cook hot lunches for hospitals and just hungry people. Today we cook and deliver 100-150 hot lunches every day.

After the hostilities in Gostomel, Bucha, and Irpen, many people lost their homes and evacuated to the city. WORKIT is quite close to these locations, so we started to help all migrants.

In addition we actively collect, sort, and send clothes for refugees and migrants and raise funds for all victims of the war. — WORKIT team, Kyiv

WORKIT on Instagram / Facebook / Telegram

Imagine building a beautiful coworking space, investing into interior and business development, only to find your business under heavy shelling for no reason. Of course, these businesses need a lot of our support.

 

Here Is How to Help

 

1. Support Directly

Below you see the list of Ukrainian coworking spaces that need your support. Just choose the spaces you like and book a room or a desk, or simply send a donation to help. All links and information are provided by the representatives of each business and vetted by all reputable organizations mentioned in this post, so you can be sure that your money goes straight to the addressee.

The table will be automatically updated as the Ukraine Coworking Association gets more links and info.

 

2. Support Via Ukraine Coworking Association

Send a SEPA or SWIFT transfer to the Ukraine Coworking Association. Once received, they will then distribute these funds to the workspace with the highest needs in the community.

1. IBAN: NL45BUNQ2069307336
2. BIC/SWIFT: BUNQNL2AXXX
3. Currency: EUR
4. Recipient: Ukraine Coworking Association

If you are not sure about something, the link doesn’t work, or you’d like to join the list, don't hesitate to get in touch with Igor Dzhebyan, VP of the Ukraine Coworking Association on Telegram.

This project is coordinated by both Coworking IDEA and the European Coworking Assembly but is led by the team at the Ukraine Coworking Association, so you can contact any of these organizations via their websites.

Let’s unite for the sake of peace and the future and show the power of solidarity in action helping those free courageous people survive the dark times!