Mission Statement: Combine great vacations, people-to-people engagement and sustainability campaigns to empower worthy nonprofit causes.
It’s not about changing the world in one “voluntourism” vacation; it’s about using regular, fun vacations to empower worthy causes, little by little. It’s about projects where the heroes are not the volunteers, but the locals working to improve their lives and their communities. This is the philosophy of BeachCorps: “A Little Grain of Sand.” In the wrong place, a little sand can hurt. But lots of little grains of many volunteers, properly placed over time, can help a lot.
The BeachCorps model is founded on sound sustainable development principles and lessons learned from existing volunteer vacations. BeachCorps:
- avoids one-off projects designed to please volunteers, creating instead sustainable projects with real impact;
- knows that the combination of volunteer work and donations has far greater impact than just volunteer work;
- empowers local beneficiaries and avoids a culture of dependency;
- values people-to-people engagement in a mixture of fun activities that give nonprofits great flexibility in designing programs that advance their cause;
- partners with other businesses and government actors to create win-win scenarios and expand sustainability;
- ensures volunteer work supports and does not undermine local employment;
- promotes transparency by clearly separating vacation expenses from donations to a great nonprofit.
The BeachCorps philosophy reflects the principles in the classic book on volunteering “Toxic Charity.“
Photo: @simonrae
Beachcorps Philosophy