User:Yukif/Footprints Network

The Footprints Network

The Footprints Network is an online Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) program that raises money from thousands of micro-donations collected as part of another e-commerce transaction. Founded by WorldNomads.com in 2005, it has since grown into a network of like-minded philanthropic travel companies who believe that travellers have a moral obligation to give something back to the communities in which they travel.

History

The 2004 Boxing Day Tsunami provided the initial inspiration to create a program to do this with a simple checkbox on a single web site which invited customers to add $2.00 for a charity to the purchase of a travel insurance policy. Within a few months this had raised $50,000. Based on this surprise success, Footprints was re-engineered so that people could donate to location-specific, project based initiatives which improved collections still further and provided the donor with a tangible connection to their choice of project.

After the success of project-based donations, the team decided if they really wanted to make a BIG difference, they needed to share their technology with other e-businesses: to build a network of e-businesses across the globe willing to raise a lot more money for tangible charitable projects.

And so it was that an API was developed making the technology available — for free — for e-businesses to integrate into their web sites. More partners means reaching more customers and raising more money to fund more projects. All from $2 donations.

As of May 2017, they have raised more than $3.3 million from over a million people and funded 158 projects around the world.

External links

Official Footprints Network web site: