Parents & Kids:
Audible:
Amazon’s audiobook service Audible has made hundreds of titles available for free. The collection is curated to appeal most to younger listeners home from school and in need of entertaining, though adult listeners can find plenty of classics, including Lewis Carroll’s “Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland,” narrated by Scarlett Johansson, and Lucy Maud Montgomery’s “Anne of Green Gables,” narrated by Rachel McAdams. Books are available in a variety of languages, including English, Spanish, German, French, Japanese and Italian, at
stories.audible.com.
Educational Resources:
Adobe
Adobe is supporting educators and students with
free at-home access to its Creative Cloud applications online after thousands of schools switched to online learning to combat the coronavirus spread. Adobe’s current global higher education and K-12 institution customers are able to request at-home access, which will be granted until May 31, 2020. It’s also offering free 90-day access to its web conferencing tool, Adobe Connect, for both current subscribers and non-customers, until July 1, 2020.
Class Central
You can take free online courses from Ivy League universities like Brown, Columbia, Cornell, Dartmouth, Harvard, Penn, Princeton and Yale on
classcentral.com
General Assembly
On March 26, General Assembly is offering a free Intro to Coding class. The livestream will focus on HTML and CSS. Sign up
here.
Guggenheim
The Guggenheim Museum just released more than 200 books about modern art. You can read them online or download them in PDF or ePub formats, free of charge at the
Internet Archive.
Khan Academy/Walt Disney Imagineering
‘
Imagineering in a Box’ is a free online program that is “designed to pull back the curtain to show you how artists, designers and engineers work together to create theme parks. Go behind the scenes with Disney Imagineers and complete project-based exercises to design a theme park of your very own.
LinkedIn
Employees who are now working from home can access
16 of LinkedIn’s online learning courses. The courses cover everything from tips for leading video conferences to advice on how to best work from home.
Service Providers:
AT&T
AT&T
has removed usage caps for its home broadband internet service, which means customers that gold over the old limit will not be subject to overage fees. The company also reminded people that its public wifi hotspots are still open to all.
Comcast:
Comcast
has made its Xfinity Wifi hotspots accessible for free to everyone, including non-Xfinity Internet customers. You can view a map of all Xfinity hotspots
here. Once you’re in a hotspot’s vicinity, find and select the “xfinitywifi” network name in the list of available hotspots.
Along with a host of other data providers, Comcast is giving all its customers unlimited data for the next 60 days.
For the company’s Internet Essentials program, which services low-income families, new customers will have access to the program for free for 60 days. The program normally costs $9.95 per month. Comcast has also permanently increased the base Internet speed for all existing and new Internet Essential customers. Find out more about eligibility and applying for the service
here.
Sprint:
As of March 18, Sprint is upgrading customers with existing data plans to unlimited data for 60 days. Customers will also have access to an additional 20GB of mobile hotspot data for free.
As of March 17, Sprint had waived per-minute toll charges on long-distance calls to countries the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention have designated as Level 3 because of the spread of the coronavirus. You can find a list of those countries
here.
T-Mobile:
T-Mobile is upgrading customers to free unlimited smartphone data for the next 60 days if they already have a phone plan that includes data, the company announced in an
open letter.
Internet:
U-Haul:
U-Haul is
offering 30 days of free self-storage to anyone with a college ID to aid college students who were forced to move out of dorms and head back to their hometown to start online classes. The offer is based on availability at your local U-Haul owned and operated facility.
Small Businesses: Private & Nonprofit Companies:
Facebook announced a
$100 million grant for small businesses impacted by COVID-19 and launched the
Business Resource Hub, which features recommendations to help small businesses stay connected to customers and stay on track.
JPMorgan pledged $50 million to help struggling customers, and
$8 million in aid to small businesses, specifically.
Kabbage launched
an online hub to help boost sales for U.S small businesses impacted by COVID-19, including a system through which businesses can sell gift cards to consumers for use at a later date.
MainVest, a crowdfunding platform, announced its new Main Street Initiative: a
$2,000, zero-interest, 120 day loan for restaurants or other brick and mortars affected by the shutdown, in addition to its normal fundraising offerings.
Opportunity Fund, which specializes in money lending to small businesses owned by women, immigrants and people of color, is collaborating with investors and nonprofits to put together a
coronavirus relief fund that will provide grants and low-interest rate loans to business owners in need.
The Restaurant Workers’ Community Foundation formed a
COVID-19 Emergency Relief Fund for small businesses and their restaurant workers, and is accepting donations.
Yelp CEO Jeremy Stoppelman announced the company is providing $25 million in coronavirus relief for independent restaurant and nightlife businesses in the form of waived advertising fees, and free advertising, products and services.
Federal Government:
The U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA) is offering
up to $2 million in Economic Injury Disaster Loans for small businesses in eligible areas impacted by the coronavirus, in addition to
a resource page detailing eligibility and how to apply.
The Main Street Emergency Grant Program, proposed by U.S. Senators Chris Murphy, Jeff Merkley and Chris Van Hollen, would allow small businesses to apply and receive grants quickly
through the Treasury Department.A
Work from home? Here's a list of Free Tools available:
Zoom: Free video-conferencing tools for K-through-12 schools.
Humu: Free nudges to anyone who wants science-backed advice for how to best work remotely, partner with colleagues who are all over the place, show appreciation for those who don’t have the flexibility to work remotely (e.g. cashiers, medical personnel).
PandaDoc: Free e-sign plan gives companies unlimited users, unlimited document uploads, unlimited eSignatures, and payment processing.
Calendly: Free Zoom and GoToMeeting integrations for their online appointment scheduling software to help remote workers stay connected. These were previously Premium tier features and will be available through June 30. Also Free premium plan access to teams working directly on COVID-19.
Smartsheet: Free templates that can be used by other organizations to build their own coronavirus preparedness dashboard, rich with CDC documentation and other resources, and related sheets and forms.
Support.com: Free tech support to anyone working or studying remotely right now.
Bill.com: Free 90-day subscription for new customers impacted by COVID-19. The cloud-based service helps small and mid-sized businesses to automate the processing of bills, generate invoices, send/receive payments and manage their cash flows.
Workable: Free use of the new video interviewing software for all customers, and access to a library of COVID-19 response content for use by HR professionals and business leaders.
Zoho: Free suite of Remotely apps until July 1. There are 11 apps in all, including ones for online meetings, training sessions, storage, project management and everyday work (in the form of word processing, spreadsheets and presentations).
Google: Free, premium version of its workplace video chat tool until July, to help businesses and schools working remotely due to coronavirus. Those features include having up to 250 participants per call, live streaming for up to 100,000 viewers within a domain, and the ability to record meetings and save them to Google Drive.
Cisco: Free license for new customers of Duo Security’s two-factor authentication tool, and current customers can go above their user limit as their employees increasingly work from home. Same deal for its web security tool Umbrella and its VPN product AnyConnect, which is available until July 1. Cisco is extending services for existing customers of Webex, its video conference platform. The offer includes unlimited usage without time restriction, support for fewer than 100 participants, and toll-free dial-in.
Comcast: Free Xfinity WiFi for everyone, with hotspots available to all, including non-Xfinity subscribers. To access the service, look for the “xfinitywifi” network name in a list of hotspots.
LogMeIn: Free site-wide licensing for 3 months of its videoconferencing solution, GoToMeeting, for eligible organizations (health care providers, educational institutions, municipalities and non-profits).
Microsoft: Free six-month Office 365 E1 Trial, including Microsoft Teams.
Slashtop: Free 60-day licenses to its Business Access remote access software.
Discord: Free, enhanced Go Live streaming service so that it can now support 50 simultaneous users rather than 10.
EZTexting: Free emergency text alert services to schools. Receive 100,000 free outgoing text messages for six months, access to a set of coronavirus message templates, and one-on-one consulting.
Yext: Free, new site search product, Yext Answers, for a 90-day period. Eligible businesses will be able to transform their website into a search engine capable of answering consumers’ COVID-19 specific queries in real time.
Hootsuite: Free access for Hootsuite Professional to small businesses and nonprofits until July Helping to manage social media, and stay connected with your customers and communities.
Amazon: Free online access to sponsored computer science courses in the United States. That’s intended for learners in grades 6 through 12, and teachers who are remotely teaching this age group. Parents can also access this curriculum.
Brit.co: Free DIY classes for the next one to two weeks. Use discount code “selfcare” at checkout.
Zencastr: Free Hobbyist plans will have no recording time limits or limits on the number of people in your recording. Effective through July 1.
Threads: Free access to their collaboration tools and Pro/Team plans for all users through July
Expensify: Reimbursement of up to $50 for essential goods and groceries purchased on your SNAP card.
Wave: Free financial software solutions (accounting, bookkeeping, invoicing) for small businesses to help with cash flow — which becomes increasingly important during economic turmoil. In response to COVID-19, Wave has reduced paid services where possible to active customers, in an effort to provide financial relief during a time of need.
Jamm: Free audio-visual communication tool used by remote and distributed teams. You can quickly record videos or do a live call with your team. Available for 3 months.
Carto: Free visualization software for organizations fighting COVID-19.
Crowdmark: Free access to its online grading and analytics platform until May 31.
Epic: Free remote access of its reading platform to elementary educators and librarians until June 30, with no credit card required. Students may access the company’s digital library, which has 35,000-plus books, read-to-me and audiobooks, videos and quizzes. Teachers and librarians can stay connected to their students by assigning books or collections and monitoring their progress.
ClassTag: Free communication platform available to help districts and schools communicate with their families. The software sends messages through SMS, email, apps and the web and automatically translates them into one of 55 languages. The platform can also be used to post videos, assignments and other resources for students to access at home and allow users to run virtual lessons with a video-conferencing tool.
McGraw-Hill: Free resources for out-of-school learning to help K-12 teachers make the transition to remote instruction.
Scholastic: Free 5 days’ worth of content and 15 additional days is on the way.
Age of Learning: Free at-home access for families at affected schools to ABCmouse, a learning resource for ages 2 to 8.
Listenwise: Free access to the Listenwise platform that supports distance learning by allowing you to roster your students, make online customized written assignments, and assign multiple-choice autos-cored listening quizzes. This will give you and your students the ability to learn through May 31, or until your school reopens.
Peloton: Free 90-day trial of its subscription workout app as more gyms shut down in response to the coronavirus pandemic. The fitness freebie doesn’t require a Peloton-branded bike or treadmill. Users can choose from classes such as yoga, meditation, strength training and more.
TripIt: Free 6-month licenses to their Tripit Pro flight tracking service.
UrbanSitter: Free parent subscription for two months during the COVID-19 outbreak. Parents can find trusted childcare help to support them as they work from home during this period. Every sitter is background checked and UrbanSitter provides parents with as much information as possible to make informed decisions.
Dialpad: Free two months of its cloud-based phone system, Dialpad Talk Pro. This also includes video conferences and UberConference Business.
1Password: Free business accounts for the first 6 months. Manage your workforce from anywhere, and safely share logins and other important resources with remote workers.
Vidyard: Free secure video messaging to enhance internal communications for all businesses.
Cloudfare: Free Teams products to small businesses and remote workers to operate securely and easily. This policy will continue for at least the next 6 months.
Panopto: Free three-month access to capture and distribute video content for businesses, universities, colleges and schools will enable employees and students to continue learning and working remotely.
OneLogin: Free access to the Trusted Experience Platform™️ for educators who are moving to a virtual learning environment in light of health concerns. The free platform, consisting of single sign-on (SSO), multi-factor authentication (MFA) and certificate-based authentication, will deliver secure virtual experiences for all educators K through 12, colleges and universities.
SentinelLabs: Free cybersecurity platform SentinelOne Core between Monday, March 16 through Friday, May 16. SentinelOne’s cloud-based platform seamlessly scales, making it well suited to protect both businesses and employees rapidly transitioning to a work-from-home environment.
Waterfall Security: Free Remote Screen View product licenses available to customers whose vendor personnel or key employees are no longer able to travel to industrial and critical infrastructure sites. Remote Screen View sends real-time images of industrial workstations to a web server that remote vendors can access.
OneClick: Free remote access Basic Starter Package for the next three months to assist those working remotely.
8x8: Free video meetings to all users. Offers 80+ local dial-in numbers (11 toll-free) from 55+ countries and meetings of up to 50 participants without any time restrictions.
Bloomz: Free premium version of its communication service to all schools through June 30. The software allows users to communicate updates in real-time to parents and students; and share lessons, student work and feedback.
HR Acuity: Free version of its SaaS solution to help businesses manage employee issues related to the coronavirus (COVID-19) outbreak. The limited edition provides employee documentation and tracking functionality that will equip businesses to monitor the people impact of the crisis. The limited edition will be available through at least July 1 to businesses with more than 100 employees.
Avid: Free, temporary licenses of creative tools to qualified media enterprise and educational customers. Starting March 16 through April 17, users who must work remotely because their facility has been closed may obtain 90-day licenses free of charge for Media Composer | Ultimate, Pro Tools, Pro Tools | Ultimate and Sibelius | Ultimate. In addition, any student of an institution who uses our products and can no longer attend school and/or access school facilities can receive a 90-day license of the same products.
Adobe: Free home access to Creative Cloud apps is available by request of students and educators until May 31. Adobe also offers free 90-day access to Adobe Connect for web conferencing until July 1.
DropBox: Free DropBox Business and HelloSign Enterprise subscriptions for a three-month period to nonprofits and NGOs that are focused on fighting COVID-19. Organizations working to stop the virus or providing relief to those impacted are encouraged to apply.
Box: Free secure file sharing and collaboration platform for 3 months. The offer is for the Business plan and includes unlimited storage, mobile access, and advanced user and security reporting.
Mailchimp: Free Standard accounts to eligible groups sending critical public health information about COVID-19 through June 30.
SurveyMonkey: Free questionnaire templates written by survey research experts to gather data/feedback from employees, customers and broader groups impacted by the coronavirus.
Salesforce: Free access to technology for emergency response teams, call centers, and care management teams for health systems affected by coronavirus.
