The report of Mark Twain’s death might have been an exaggeration, but it seems to all too many of our nonprofits that volunteers are close to being a dying breed in this country. Some organizations, notably Macdonald Youth Services in Winnipeg, have supplemented on-site supporters with virtual volunteers working with them in cyberspace.

Now comes along another idea – get some tourists in to give you a hand. This is not an idea which is going to solve your problem of getting day-to-day programs accomplished while you’re short of staff, short of money, and short of volunteers, but it could be an interesting and creative way to achieve certain specific projects which would otherwise go undone.

It could also, points out David Clemmons, Founder and Co-Director of VolunTourism International, give you an opportunity to spread the message of your cause to new prospective (albeit long distance) donors.

The basic idea of voluntourism is most obviously applicable to charities which operate in underdeveloped countries, such as Foster Parents Plan, World Vision, World Relief Canada, UNICEF, and the like.

Loyal and/or major donors may go in groups or even individually under the organization’s aegis on a vacation to a country where their dollars have made a difference, for example to one of the South Asian communities devastated by the Boxing Day, 2005, tsunami.

If they simply tour the area, then go on to their holiday, this is “fishbowl” tourism, says Clemmons. But if they take some portion of their holiday to get their hands dirty totin’ that barge and liftin’ that bale, ie actually lending a physical hand in the reconstruction work, then they’re true voluntourists.

Voluntourism is multi-faceted. It may comprise a few days stolen from a two- or three-week vacation, as above, or it may be a Peace Corps-style stint of a year or more of living in a foreign environment, working with the people on whatever projects are required to improve the quality of their lives.

Most coverage of the phenomenon tends to focus on the altruism of the international traveller looking for a more meaningful experience than staying in a hotel isolated from the local population, lying on a beach or visiting famed nightclubs.

But Canadian FundRaiser, like most organizations, wants to know “what’s in it for me (ie our readers, most of them domestically-based nonprofits)”?

For domestic nonprofits, taking advantage of the trend for travellers to want to exercise their generosity and donate time and talents while on vacation is more of a challenge than for internationally-involved charities, Clemmons allows.

It’s hard to get on the agendas of travel agencies and tour operators, he says, although it can be done, and he has some suggestions how to accomplish that.

But a more accessible market, he suggests, and one that might not occur to all nonprofits, is the business traveller. Business conventions nearly always feature local sightseeing or other events that give attendees an opportunity to sample the flavour of a city with which they may not be familiar.

Nonprofits who can develop creative projects that meet their mission needs and – ideally – also give the businesspeople some exercises in team building have a good chance of getting on the agenda of the convention or meeting, he says.

The secret is to develop relationships with local Destination Management Companies (DMCs), who take over management of conventions and major business meetings, handling everything from the time delegates get off the plane to the time they debark again, including all their transportation, accommodation, and extra-curricular activities – everything but the business program. (DMCs can be found via www.conworld.net/dmc/countries/Canada.htm.)

He cites one program where business delegates were put to work clearing trash from a park, then were challenged to work in teams to create artworks out of the trash, and won prizes for their creativity.

In another situation, delegates to meetings in San Diego are invited to cobble together beehives for a group of low-income women across the border in Mexico who support themselves with bee-keeping. Provision of the hives is the way the charity for which the visitors work provides micro-credit, instead of using cash.

Another organization that provides palliative care to cancer patients gets groups of volunteers – locals as well as visitors – to come and sew up teddy bears, then stuff them and personally deliver them to both child and adult patients.

“Anything you might do currently that doesn’t fall into the category of, say, office type volunteerism, stuffing envelopes and the like, that’s what you want to offer these people,” says Clemmons. “The more creative the project, and especially the more it is able to provide enhanced value by team building or otherwise meeting the business’s goals, the more likely that you’ll get enthusiastic buy-in.”

He notes as well that many conventions and major meetings feature programs for spouses, where the response to an opportunity to provide social value might be even warmer than from the businesspeople themselves.

Clemmons points out there is a high connect between the profiles of the average volunteer and the average traveller, ie in both cases the majority of people are likely over 50 and likely well educated.

It has also been established that 75% of travel decisions are made by women, he says, and similarly most volunteers are women. So in the leisure travel sector, women are likely to be the ones saying “guess what we’re going to do on our vacation – it isn’t going to be just about us, there’s going to be this social value element.”

And although the business market may be the most directly accessible, the leisure market for episodic volunteers is not non-existent, says Clemmons, just a little harder to get at, perhaps. He recommends developing relationships with travel agencies specializing in group travel and tour operators.

Dealing with individual travellers is pretty difficult, he admits, but points out that, for instance, a tour operator driving 25 people around an area is likely to welcome an opportunity to earn a carbon offset by putting his clients to work in an urban reforestation project.

“You have to do your research, be creative, make a determination that this is a direction you want to go,” he admonishes. “This isn’t something you just pick up one day and drop the next. Ideally, you’ll get a volunteer with experience in event planning or travel or human resources who can do the research and get it going for you.”

In an article reviewing the pros and cons of voluntourism in Energize, a newsletter for volunteers, Susan Ellis notes that there can be some downsides to the trend:

“In general, the biggest gripe about volunteer vacations is that they simply expand the trend of episodic volunteering, in which feel-good bursts of service give the volunteer pleasure but do not result in much useful help for the recipients or the complex cause. ....

“It strikes me as fascinating that at the same time we in the developed world have evolved frantic risk management policies and procedures, particularly the requirement of all sorts of police nd other background checks, it has been possible at the same time to create more and more off-shore volunteering opportunities, seemingly without any screening demands at all.

“Is this a function of paternalism, in which underdeveloped countries are thought to be so needy they shouldn’t worry about formalities? Is it simply an overlooked loophole?

“When important projects with few resources can welcome willing volunteers from far away, the risks may be worth it to both sides. Can this teach us all something about balance? Might we be able to apply this calmer attitude towards risk back home?”

You may or may not see something for you in the trend to voluntourism, and in fact it may not be a trend at all, but simply one of those fads that bubble up in our sector as in other industries, which may fade as fast as it arose. But even if only intellectually, the idea has interest, and possibly potential value for at least some nonprofits.