We believe in the power of combining great vacations with 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. Our philosophy, “A Little Grain of Sand” embodies these principles. There is power in numbers, and lots of little grains of sand – many volunteers over time – can have a powerful impact. 

The BeachCorps model is founded on sound sustainable development principles and lessons learned from existing volunteer vacations. We are committed to:

• Avoiding one-off projects designed to please volunteers. Instead, our projects are aimed at integrating a sustainable approach with long-term impact in mind.
• Understanding that the combination of volunteer work and donations has far greater impact than volunteer work on its own.
• Empowering local beneficiaries and avoiding a culture of dependency. Our projects are designed in partnership with locals in an effort to create continuous improvement over time.
• Valuing people-to-people engagement in a mixture of fun activities that give nonprofits flexibility in designing programs to advance their cause. We believe travel is transformative, and aim to help travelers become advocates for local causes. 
• Partnering with other businesses and government actors to create win-win scenarios and expand sustainable initiatives. 
• Ensuring volunteer work supports and does not undermine local employment. 
• Promoting transparency by clearly separating vacation expenses from donations to local nonprofits. 

Our philosophy reflects the principles in the classic book on volunteering “Toxic Charity.” Learn more about how we’ve crafted our philosophy and why we ask travelers to donate directly to the nonprofit causes we support:

Our Core Values:

1. Empower great causes through great customers.

Our biggest priority is not only to provide exceptional services to our customers, but also to ensure that our local nonprofit partners are achieving long-lasting results. We believe that showcasing these positive results will make our customers happy too. In a world where too much of voluntourism is focused on work that prioritizes the travelers’ feelings rather than long-lasting impact, we strive to build programs with activities that actually benefit the cause.

2. Thrive on people-to-people engagement.

The real power of volunteering comes through learning and sharing with others. Our programs are focused on opportunities for connecting and gaining a new understanding, knowledge and perspective (rather than executed in a one-way direction where the locals perform for the foreigners). Our aim is to create global citizens who can think globally and act locally. 

3. Embrace the humor and humanity in cultural differences.

We see great value in respecting other cultures, but also remember to not taking ourselves too seriously.  We plan to have fun showing the wonderful differences in perspective of Dominicans and our volunteers.

4. Shine when others shine.

Too much of voluntourism is sold on the idea that the volunteers and the volunteer travel company is making all the difference. We understand that the truly amazing work is done by local heroes and our partners, particularly our wonderful nonprofit partners.  Our biggest goal is to build advocates for the local nonprofits we work with. We’re about more than volunteer selfies – we want BeachCorps volunteers telling their friends about the amazing, in-depth and inspiring work of our local partners on social media.

5. Do the right thing for the cause.

Everything about what we do begins and ends in serving great nonprofit causes.

We were inspired to develop our core values early on because of the core values of G Adventures, the world’s biggest (and we think best) small tour, adventure travel company that grew quickly because its always existed to use travel to make the world a better place, one local community at a time.