#paytoday Small Business Coalition Formed in Response to Coronavirus

This week a cohort of businesses announced the formation of the #paytoday coalition, a union whose purpose is to promote the swift repayment of any receivables due to small businesses. The group, made up by Fundbox, SmallBizDaily, Womply, among others, was formed in the aftermath of covid-19’s rapid spread across the United States.

The coalition was the result of both conversations between the members about the fate of small businesses as well as long-term research, Fundbox Chief Market Office Leslie Olsen told deBanked.

“We’ve been working on it for a couple of weeks, but it’s really based on some pretty deep research that we’ve done over the years, and more recently last year, that exposed this issue that businesses have of paying each other, where there are typically a large number of outstanding receivables in the market at any given day,” Olsen explained.

According to Olsen and the #paytoday campaign, there is currently $900 billion in outstanding receivables owed to small businesses. This mass of unpaid money combined with the pressures of the coronavirus and the info gleamed from their research, such as the stat that nearly 40% of small businesses have 30 days or less worth of cash available, are what’s motivating the group to act.

Currently the collective is running campaigns to get the word out and encourage those who owe small businesses money to pay them. Beyond that, #paytoday hopes to grow in coalition size and eventually branch out with larger partners.

“In our social campaigns, we’re inviting businesses like Target and Walmart, the Fortune 100 and 50, to see if they will join us as well as smaller businesses,” Tim Donovan, a spokesperson for Fundbox noted. “If you think about large enterprises and how many vendors they deal with on a regular basis, it could be thousands. So we’re trying to think about how we can create the biggest impact by having these bigger enterprises join the movement.”

Brendan Garrett was a Reporter at deBanked.