Charyn Pfeuffer, writer with Wyndham Worldwide, recently mulled over what motivates individuals to take volunteer vacations.
Her insight:
“Why on earth would you ever pay to volunteer?” is a question frequently asked in the do good-o-sphere. It’s a perfectly valid query considering some voluntourism opportunities cost upward of $1000 (and more) per week.
In my volunteer experience, I’ve worked with organizations – ranging from free (food and accommodations, too) to $1000+ per week. As to be expected, the experiences have varied greatly – from highly structured, impact-oriented programs to crossing paths with people whom have blatantly misrepresented themselves.
Personally, I’ve savored the projects where I put in a solid work week, but still have some free time to explore my surroundings, and when applicable, get to know my fellow volunteers. While the emphasis is still very much on service, this dynamic strikes the perfect balance between work and play and gives the volunteer an opportunity to step back and get some perspective on the work being done.
Until my recent voluntourism project with Globe Aware, I admit, I had issues with paying to volunteer. I mean, think about it. What is volunteering? At its very core, it’s giving one’s time without the expectation of payment for service. So, I had a difficult time understanding why anyone would pay vast sums of money to help out.
After my Globe Aware experience, the pay-to-play dynamic makes better sense to me. Here’s why: The voluntourism company has put considerable time into researching and developing its affiliations. Once it’s established a relationship, it must define and refine a program, so that the volunteer and the community being served have a smooth experience – from coordinating ground transportation logistics and creating a productive work schedule to incorporating cultural activities. The company also provides a built in safety net of sorts by providing travel insurance, orientation and pre-travel reading material, meals and an onsite point person.
For travelers who want to leave little up to chance, especially in a developing country or a destination where language is an issue, I can see the appeal of paying to leave the logistical legwork up to someone else. Ditto for inexperienced travelers who may be daunted by the possibility of an independent volunteer experience – there’s been very little hand holding at most of my low-cost programs. For families, I can’t imagine a better way to impart learning about the world and giving back to your children than to engage in a voluntourism project together. So despite the sticker shock of paying $1,290 to volunteer for one week in Costa Rica through Globe Aware (paid via a Travelocity Travel for Good grant), I was told that $1,135 of the fee directly went into community support and programs. That’s a much larger percentage than I expected when you consider overhead costs and marketing fees.
Would I do it again? Depending upon the time, place and project, paid voluntourism absolutely has its place. When it comes to my personal volunteer and travel style, I’m more a DIY girl, who will always eschew a guided tour for the possible serendipity of getting lost. But in many cases, especially when it comes to working with local communities, local insights, understanding and direction can be invaluable.
I’ve learned countless lessons about voluntourism along the way, including:
• Whether you pay $1 or $1000 a week to volunteer, a price tag does not correlate with what kind of voluntourism experience you will have.
• Research the organization and specific program as best you can.
• Ask to speak with prior program participants.
• Find out where your fee goes.
• And above all, approach every volunteer program with an open mind.Every experience boasts its pros, cons and a world full of unforeseen variables, and although I’ve yet to find the Little Black Dress of voluntourism programs, I’ve learned so much about myself and the world along the way.
Have you volunteered abroad, and if so, what type of work did you do? I’m curious to hear feedback from women who’ve engaged in both paid and unpaid voluntourism opportunities.
Over the past year I have been looking for ways to ‘contribute something more’ than my work designing residences and galleries in New York. Since I typically close my office for the Xmas-NY holiday, I took this opportunity to try something new, to look beyond my own small world and volunteer my time.
I found a program with an organization called Globe Aware, where I would be working in Cusco, one of the most visited cities in Peru. Given the vast scale of the country, many of the small villages are without schools so children come to the cities to live in homes, called albergues, during the school year while they attend local schools. This particular home provides for roughly 25 kids ages 9-15.
I thought with my architectural training and passable Spanish, I could help with the work to be done there. There were four other members of my volunteer team, from Los Angeles, southern Florida, DC and Atlanta, all with different backgrounds and experience, all fantastic people.
In just a few days the five of us became a team and I learned to work in a very different way, without extensive pre-planning, on-demand materials or specific tools for every task. We continued a project begun by previous groups, building and repairing the structures in the complex, putting in an irrigation system and roofing the greenhouse where they will grow vegetables for the kids’ meals. Just the process of sourcing and purchasing the polycarbonate material for the greenhouse walls became an adventure that included a walking tour to three lumber yards, a pick-up truck for hire to transport the 11meter long sheets and a stop by the Peruvian police as I bounced around in the bed of the truck.
Since returning to New York I continue to look for projects that go beyond what I know. The sustainable housing prototype we designed for the Greensburg/Greentown competition, helping to re-build the Kansas town wiped out by a tornado in 2007, breaks ground next month. I’m also looking at other opportunities to assist with disaster relief and consulting with a foundation interested in building housing in Haiti.
My trip to Peru was a ‘project’ that helped me to get out of my NY comfort zone and to launch me into the New Year with optimism, curiosity and purpose.
Steven Learner, AIA
In a Feb. 23, 2011 article, Toronto-based journalist Aaron Broverman suggests ways to redefine how we approach Spring Break:
Spring Break a Chance to Give Back
Thanks to Joe Francis and movies like The Real Cancun, when people think of Spring Break it’s all about beer, beaches and breasts, but what if it could be about something more?
If you’re not into the typical college vacation scene, the break provides an excellent opportunity to give back, lend a hand and ‘Be the change.’
Volunteering abroad can be an excellent way to make a lasting contribution to an under privileged community, while still kicking it in the sun and sand of exotic locales. Below are just a few of the destinations with a social conscience you may find yourself in during your week away from school.
Start with Your School
Alternative Spring Break [ASB] is a matter of course in the U.S., with close to every college and university offering some kind of international and community exchange program with the focus on lending assistance to communities in need.
Universities in Canada, particularly those in Ontario, such as Carelton, Ryerson and the University of Western Ontario also offer great opportunities. There are also programs offered from Concordia and the University of Winnipeg. Whether it be within the local community or at destinations abroad, the ASB projects change every year.
In 2011, Ryerson students are building a school, teaching students and feeding the homeless in Columbia. Carelton has decided to aid both the local Ottawa community and organizations in Mexico and Guatamala focused on poverty and homelessness. Concordia will be teaching at orphanages in Peru and the Dominican Republic, building houses with Habitat for Huminanity in Louisiana and stocking food banks at home in Montreal. The University of Western Ontario offers the most varied number of locations, including initiatives in Costa Rica, London, ON., Winnipeg, Peru, Dominican Republic, Louisiana and Nicaragua. The University of Manitoba is partnering with the Immigrant and Refugee Community Organization of Manitoba (IRCOM) to help refugees and new immigrants.
All of these programs run during Reading Week in the last week of February at varying costs from $200 to $800 for the trips within North America and $1,500 to $3,000 for the international trips. These fees cover meals, accommodations and flights. But if you cannot afford them, don’t worry. Financial assistance is available with every ASB project. Also, most of these schools offer a second program in the summer, so if you miss your opportunity during spring break, you can apply for the summer program.
Eligibility requirements vary between each university, but for all of them you must be a student of the schools running the program and students who have already been on the trip are ineligible for a return. However, they can apply for leadership positions on their trip.
Organizations Offering Opportunities
Though the Alternative Spring Break movement is primarily an American one with organizations like Break Away hosting trips with schools exclusively in the U.S. Other non-profits like Free the Children and travel agencies like Globe Aware specialize in volunteer vacations abroad all year. One could simply schedule a trip near their Spring Break respite.
Global Aware destinations include countries in Africa, Asia, Latin America, The Caribbean and Eastern Europe, with trips leaving from February to December. They come at a varying cost between $1140 and $2100 U.S. and could be booked by parties of any number — though groups of ten or more from corporate offices, to schools and others, receive a discount.
Though travelers pay for their week-long vacations, Globe Aware’s status as a non-profit organization means the cost of their vacation is a tax deduction. 12% of your expenses go to administrative costs and overhead, while the rest goes to meals, accommodation, on-site travel, donations to the various community projects, your orientation package, volunteer coordination, program development, country manager expenses, community team recruitment, logistical support, medical emergency evacuation, medical insurance and project consultants. Airfare is not covered and is an additional expense. However, Globe Aware will help with finding flights.
Free the Children offers Me to We volunteer vacations for those wanting to give back during the summer in places like Kenya, China, Ecuador, India and along the Arizona-Mexican border.
Trips are available for adults, families, youth and school groups for prices among $2400 and $4995. This covers flight, accommodation, meals, transportation and the cost of the program itself. Free the Children also offers a Joe’s Dream scholarship, named for Joe Opatowski — a former trip leader who was killed in a car accident in 2001, for those young people who don’t have the financial means for the trip.
Beyond these organizations, you can always turn to religion for opportunities to give back through missionary work. Many churches and individuals choose Habitat for Humanity on one of their many builds around the world. Most build trips cost $1,650 for airfare and the rest of the living essentials and insurance, plus another $1,200 for what is known as R&R. These are the cultural activities and tourism that fit between the build days. Only the build – half of the trip cost actually gets a tax receipt — the rest is just a vacation.
Travelocity`s Travel for Good voluntourism grant competition is underway. If you are interested in applying for one of Travelocity`s $5,000 voluntourism grants, click here, to learn more about Travelocity`s eight Signature Trips and choose the volunteer vacation that inspires you.
In 2011, Travelocity is committed to supporting these special projects and helping each achieve its goals. You are also encouraged to vote on the video submissions made by individuals who explain which Signature Trip inspires them and why.
The $5,000 Travel for Good voluntourism grant gives individuals a chance to give back to the communities they visit on vacation–either for just a few days or even for a few months. This grant will fund up to $5,000 for the transportation to, as well as the cost of, a voluntourism trip. Just choose a Signature Trip from one of Travelocity`s partners, including Globe Aware, make a video of two minutes or less, upload it to Travelocity`s site, and then send it around to friends and family for voting.
Contestants must be legal residents of the United States to win the grant.
Kelly Greene, a staff reporter for The Wall Street Journal in New York, considered how individuals can change the world on a limited budget. She notes that one of the the best methods was through a volunteer vacation with Globe Aware. Read the Dec. 20, 2010 article in its entirety:
How to Change the World…
…Whatever the size of your wallet. These ideas, with budgets from $20 to $20,000, can help better the lives of others—and your own.
By KELLY GREENE
Got any plans for next week? Perhaps you could begin changing the world.
Yes, household budgets remain tight. But you don’t have to be a lottery winner to make a difference in your community or halfway around the globe. People who are winding down first or primary careers and looking for new directions are discovering that for the cost of a weekend getaway, they can help change the world. Or start to.
Bob and Jo Link, for instance, retirees in Portland, Ore., serve on a nonprofit board that awards scholarships in Belize. Mr. Link, age 69, also troubleshoots computer problems for African refugees. This after the couple spent two years in the Peace Corps, helped with Hurricane Katrina cleanup, assembled computers for schools in Guatemala and worked with deaf orphans in Peru.
The cost to them? A few plane tickets, some scholarship donations and sweat equity.
“When you do this kind of stuff, you get back more than you really expect,” Mr. Link says. “A lot of people wouldn’t, or couldn’t, put two years into the Peace Corps, but they could afford to spend a week in Peru.”
We decided to look for ways that people, whatever the size of their savings, can change the lives of others—and their own. So go ahead: Pick one of the following budgets and write it on your calendar: “CTW.”
$100 and Under
SERVICE PROGRAMS: In some cases, you actually can get paid while you’re helping to make a difference.
With the help of DonorsChoose, students in a school in New Haven, Conn., received new musical instruments to form a school band.
The Links, for instance, earned $300 apiece each month in the Peace Corps, where about 7% of the organization’s volunteers last year were age 50-plus. Closer to home, AmeriCorps, one of the largest national-service programs, is aiming for 10% of its 85,000 participants to be at least 55 years old—up from 4% in fiscal 2009.
AmeriCorps volunteers receive federal stipends averaging $11,800 for a commitment of 10 months to a year. They can also receive education grants of as much as $5,350, which, starting this year, they can transfer to their grandchildren, says Patrick Corvington, chief executive of the Corporation for National and Community Service, the agency that runs AmeriCorps. Work varies from part-time service in a volunteer’s own community to full-time opportunities across the country. Options include helping to rebuild communities on the Gulf Coast and installing solar-electric systems in low-income California neighborhoods.
BECOME A LENDER: For what you spend today on lunch, “microfinance” allows you to play a big role in jump-starting modest entrepreneurial undertakings around the world—whether it’s boosting inventory at a produce stand in Dar Es Salaam, Tanzania, or providing additional nets to fishermen in Cambodia.
Farmers in Peru, with assistance from Heifer International, are able to afford cattle to help plow and seed their fields.
If you’re interested in lending to an individual entrepreneur overseas, Kiva.org lets you choose the borrower on its website. If the loans are paid back, you can fund another loan, donate the proceeds to Kiva or get your money back. DonorsChoose.org, where you can pick a classroom project to fund with as little as $1, sifts proposals by cost, school poverty level and subject. Requests might include $140 for dry-erase markers or $2,000 for camcorders and laptops for budding filmmakers.
Heifer International, through which $20 buys a flock of chickens or $5,000 delivers an “ark” of animals to a family or village in Asia or Africa, finds that many people age 50-plus seek out the cause around holidays. Then, as they learn more about it, many wind up joining study tours to the communities raising the animals, coordinating fund-raising efforts in the U.S., or working at several Heifer learning centers, says Steve Stirling, executive vice president for marketing in Little Rock, Ark.
$300 to $4,000
GIVING CIRCLES: One way to get more bang for your charity buck is to join a so-called giving circle, a group with a common interest that pools its resources and collectively decides where to put its combined money to work.
In the 1960s, Sally Bookman studied social anthropology at the University of California, Berkeley. Now she leads a Dining for Women chapter with two dozen women, many of them retirees, attending monthly dinners in Santa Cruz, Calif. At each meeting, they eat a potluck dinner and chip in about $30 each to support women entrepreneurs in developing countries.
The national Dining for Women group, based in Greenville, S.C., picks the cause du jour and sends educational materials to local chapters. But the members’ life experience gives the gatherings their flavor, says Ms. Bookman, 67. “At one meeting we were learning about women in a remote village in the jungle in Peru, and one of our members had been to that village for three days with her husband,” she says.
If you join a giving circle, you can choose simply to write checks, or take a more active role researching where the circle’s money might have the most impact.
“VOLUNTOURISM”: Trips on which people do volunteer work, typically overseas, have exploded in number and type in recent years.
How do you choose among the estimated 10,000 trips out there? Ask how the work you do will fit into the overall scope of the on-the-ground project, says Alexia Nestora, founder of Voluntourism Gal, an industry blog. If you’re working with children, ask how what you do will build on what the previous volunteer did. (You don’t want to be the 20th volunteer to teach them to sing “Itsy Bitsy Spider” in English, for example.) Also make sure the operator provides emergency medical insurance and has an employee living in the country who speaks English in case of political upheaval or a natural disaster.
Mark Sanger, a 58-year-old retired transportation engineer in La Grande, Ore., has taken several weeklong trips with Globe Aware, a Dallas nonprofit that coordinates volunteer travel work. In a tiny Costa Rican village, his crew slept in A-frame cabins and helped villagers build housing in hopes of drawing national-park tourists and generating additional income. He also spent time eating meals in local families’ homes, where you could “see how they interact with their kids, what pictures they have on their walls.” He enjoyed his next trip even more, teaching English to children in Cambodia.
“It was like a whole other world opened up to me,” he says. “There’s a sense of adventure…without your life in danger every day. It’s a nice balance of doing something interesting, exciting, different and incredibly rewarding.”
Your room, board and airfare in some cases are tax-deductible if you travel with a nonprofit. Vincent Mirrione, 69, of Newman, Calif., has taken seven trips with Cross-Cultural Solutions, a nonprofit operator in New Rochelle, N.Y., for six to eight weeks at a time. His work at a Guatemala soup kitchen and orphanage, Russian senior centers and a project that Mother Teresa started in India have wound up costing about $300 a week after the tax break, he says.
BACK TO SCHOOL: Retraining, as a classroom teacher, for instance, can jump-start a second career as well as benefit others.
“Green,” of course, is hot. Clover Park Technical College, Lakewood, Wash., offers a number of environmental-sustainability programs, which include classroom study and hands-on field work. The programs last 12 weeks to two years, depending on an individual’s goals.
Pam Kirchhofer, 49, enrolled there in a 15-month sustainable-building program after she was laid off as a personal-finance counselor. The attraction: “You’re helping people save money by conserving energy and resources, and…you’re being a good steward of the Earth,” she says. The tough part: “I haven’t had a math class in 28 years, and we just did an energy audit of this woman’s house using algebraic equations.”
$5,000 to $10,000
JOIN A BOARD: A director on a board? You? Why not?
“Almost half of all nonprofit board seats never get filled. Nonprofits would love to have more qualified candidates, but they don’t know how to tap into really talented people in the community,” says David Simms, a partner with Bridgespan Group in Boston, which advises nonprofits. (One new resource for a board-seat search: The websites where nonprofits place want-ads for volunteers also are starting to post vacant board seats.)
Bonnie R. Harrison, 61, a retired Corning Inc. executive, became involved with Southern Tier Hospice in Corning, N.Y., after serving as her father’s caregiver while he was also receiving hospice services. To join the board, Ms. Harrison asked her father’s hospice nurse to write a recommendation. Shortly after Ms. Harrison retired last year, the hospice board’s chairwoman stepped down, and Ms. Harrison was asked to take her place.
“The challenge of working along with the board, the staff and different organizations has been a great help in making the transition away from a high-pressured job,” she says.
BECOME A BENEFACTOR: So, you like the idea of having a charitable vehicle to help others, but you aren’t Bill Gates. Consider a donor-advised fund, a good tool for people who want to give away amounts starting at about $5,000 a year.
Such funds can be set up through big financial-service companies, like Fidelity Investments, as well as university, religious and community foundations. The fund will invest your assets and make grants based on your guidance. Typically, you become eligible for an immediate tax deduction.
“It might be a little more than you can handle doing on your own, yet you don’t want to set up the superstructure of a foundation,” says John Gomperts, the recently named director of AmeriCorps. “You might go to a community foundation and say, ‘I want to give this money away, and I care about the humane care of animals, so please give me some suggestions and administer this for me.’ ”
$20,000 and Up
START A NONPROFIT: You have a cause you’re passionate about, and nobody seems to be tackling it. So you dream of starting a nonprofit to that end. Expect to spend at least $10,000 to $20,000 on start-up costs, including the legal expenses involved in creating an organization and asking the government to grant you a tax exemption, called 501(c)3 status.
First question: Are you sure there are no similar efforts? The U.S. has about 1.5 million nonprofits, and “many of them are doing phenomenal work,” says Mr. Simms in Boston.
If your idea truly is unique, try to find a community foundation to “incubate your effort so that you can worry about the service you want to provide” instead of setting up the business end, says Christopher Stone, faculty director of the Hauser Center for Nonprofit Organizations at Harvard University in Cambridge, Mass.
Elaine Santore is the 59-year-old co-founder of Umbrella of the Capital District, a Schenectady, N.Y., organization that helps older adults, in part by matching them with retirees-turned-handymen. She and her partner jump-started the program before receiving their not-for-profit status. “I would clean houses if need be, and he would mow yards,” she says. “It’s good to be hands-on at first so you know what it’s like.”
ENDOW A SCHOLARSHIP: What if you win the lottery, or your stock options go through the roof? The sky’s the limit: You could fund scientists trying to cure cancer, build a new stage for your local symphony, or even start your own university and town, as did Domino’s Pizza founder and philanthropist Tom Monaghan.
One of the more popular big-ticket items, though, is creating your own college scholarship. With $1 million, you could set up an endowment that should last for decades, says Becky Sharpe, president of International Scholarship & Tuition Services Inc., Nashville, Tenn., which administers privately and publicly funded scholarships.
Joe Scarlett, retired chairman and chief executive of Tractor Supply Co., Brentwood, Tenn., started a family foundation in 2005 with $2.5 million to provide college scholarships to business students from middle Tennessee, and he hired Ms. Sharpe’s company to run the award program.
“We generate way too few business leaders in our country, so we wanted to focus our scholarship money on business,” says Mr. Scarlett, 67. The foundation now has a balance of approximately $24 million, thanks to additional gifts from the Scarletts and growth in its value, and is expanding its efforts, supporting students in high schools and even preschools.