Volunteering abroad… without paying for it

Published on 4^th June 2009 in Travel.

We were sitting in the living room of the international volunteers’ house, discussing a new arrival.

Chris: “I think she’s arriving next week.”

Andrew: “Why would she arrive a week later? She’d be effectively paying more for each week then.”

Chris: “What do you mean?”

Andrew: “Well, you paid £500 for this, right?”

Chris and I: “Uh… no!”

The notion of volunteering is a noble one. You give up your time, for free, to help someone or something else out. Cost isn’t something I’d associate with volunteering, so when I started looking for somewhere to work in the summer of 2007, I was a bit surprised. Almost all of the of the volunteer positions cost money.

I was particularly interested in marine conservation work, since I’m a qualified scuba diver, but the prices for these were staggering. Six weeks working in Fiji? £2500. Four weeks in South Africa? £1849. That’s how much you have to pay them to work there, with no flights included. At this price point, you might as well go on a normal holiday and not have to work forty hours a week.

After a great deal of searching, I managed to find a volunteer scheme in the USA that was free. The Great Basin Institute runs a program each year where around twenty international volunteers work alongside their American counterparts in environmental conservation projects. In return for working four days a week, you get a place to stay and a $5 food stipend per day.

I went out to the USA and spent eight weeks working as a volunteer in a part of the Great Basin Institute called the Nevada Converation Corps. This was mainly comprised of about 150 Americans who were working as part of the AmeriCorps scheme, which rewarded them with a grant for college. The work was tough at times, but being able to meet so many interesting people made it more than worthwhile. I made some great friends, had an awesome time and would recommend it to anyone.

However, it turned out that not all of the international volunteers had got there by simply going on the Great Basin Institute website and signing up. One person had paid about £500 for the priviledge. As you can imagine, those of us who were there for free were somewhat bemused and the guy who had paid was quite the opposite.

It wasn’t the Institute that had charged him though, it was an separate company, Real Gap. When I found out who he had paid, I was a bit surprised. I used the same company when I went out to Australia and New Zealand to help me find paid work and they were fine. I’ve even been to their head office in Tunbridge Wells. So how and why are they selling volunteer work that you can otherwise get for free?

If you look on their website, you’ll find the exact same scheme I did, labelled as “USA Conservation In Nevada”. Except, of course, that it’s listed as £499-£599. You do get a £50 phone card and travel insurance (worth about £100), but that’s really the only added value they offer. When I emailed Real Gap asking about the cost breakdown, they said:

“The programme fee includes funding that goes to the organisation in Nevada to cover volunteers’ accommodation, food, training and airport transfers.”

So Real Gap (and presumably other companies) are selling the Great Basin Institute’s program and then sending them some of the money for things that they would otherwise provide for free. When you think about this, it doesn’t seem all that bad at first. The organisation has to pay for your food, accommodation and someone to look after you, so the money has to come from somewhere.

However, part of the reason why organisations like international volunteers is that they’re cheap labour. Even with overhead costs, not having to pay people is a huge financial bonus and if you can charge them too, then even better. Selling these places could also discourage people from volunteering altogether. If all you see are programs which cost hundreds or thousands of pounds, then why would you bother instead of a normal holiday?

Whether this practice of charging volunteers is ethical or not is debatable and I’m not entirely convinced that it’s bad in every case. After all, there are certainly organisations out there who can’t operate without the additional exposure and income from willing participants. However, if you are looking to volunteer abroad, make sure you’re aware that you don’t always have to pay. A little bit of research can go a long way.