World Nomads’ Footprints program offers travelers a way to give back to the places they visit, one micro-donation at a time. Find out how this program got started and the positive impact it’s had over its 20 years.
Photo © Australian Himalayan Foundation
20 years ago, in January of 2005, World Nomads launched our Footprints program. A groundbreaker at the time, Footprints allows World Nomads and Travel Insurance Direct customers to give a microdonation to a project of their choice when they buy a travel insurance policy. Since its launch, Footprints has funded 274 community development and conservation projects around the world and raised AUD $5.7 million dollars (World Nomads and TID combined).
We spoke to World Nomads and Footprints co-founder Simon Monk about the inspiration behind the program and how it has evolved over the years.
WN: You were a founder of World Nomads in 2002. Can you talk about what inspired you to start the Footprints program in 2005?
SM: Nomads was a couple of years old by that stage – we had a handful employees in a tiny office in Sydney. And, on the news was the huge Asian tsunami that killed over a quarter of a million people. All of us were travelers, and it affected us deeply because we could see all these villages that we’d been to over the years, and they had no means of dealing with anything so catastrophic. So, we said, what can we possibly do?
We decided to use our skill set, which was in internet and travel, to try to raise some funds. That was the genesis of the idea. And then I came back in the morning, and said, “Right, let’s just add a $2 donation as a check box in the purchase path.” And off we went! At this stage, the [money raised] just went into a relief fund for the tsunami.
WN: And you ended up raising quite a bit right away.
SM: Yes, we surpassed [our initial goal of $50,000] pretty quickly, like in a few weeks, I suppose. And we went, wow, we’ve really got something here.
WN: And once you were done funding that cause, the idea was to keep going and continue to support causes around the world?
SM: I suppose what really resonated was that we’d built something that connected with our travelers. It was beyond our imaginings of how successful it would be in terms of engagement. So, rather than just putting $2 into a bucket, we decided to give our travelers the choice of where they wanted their money to go. And that evolved into a process of choosing and funding particular projects. So, you might [set a goal of] $4,500 to fund a school in a particular village. And once that was funded, it would automatically stop, and the next project would kick in.
WN: How did you initially decide which projects to fund?
SM: We originally toyed with the idea of funding schools ourselves, but it’s not our core expertise. And when you think, for example, about digging wells in villages, it seems a very tangible outcome but the more you speak to NGOs in this arena, you discover those aren’t the issues at all. [Through the organization WaterAid we learned] it’s not just providing the water, it’s educating the children about sanitation, in local language. So, we worked in partnership with NGOs who were more experienced in this space.
WN: All Footprints projects are aligned with one or more of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals. What was behind the decision to do that?
SM: You can’t fund everything, so you need some guidelines to choose what to fund. The SDGs provided a really good framework to work within – it’s education, or it’s sanitation, it’s health, etc. Even with less obvious ones, such as environment, we tried to ensure that local people would have a tangible outcome based on those SDGs.
WN: Have you been able to visit any of the projects yourself?
SM: Just a handful. With the best will in the world, I try to stay out of the way and let the agencies get on with it, but occasionally I’ve been invited, and it’s always a pleasure and it’s always humbling. You’re treated to hospitality by people who have next to nothing compared to yourself.
WN: You left World Nomads in 2016. Were you still with Footprints at that time?
SM: I was still on the committee, trying to run it. Structurally, it became a bit difficult. With the best of intent, I handed it over to a team that could keep running it well.
In any program when you raise money, there are governance issues around how funds are allocated. If you say you’re going to raise money for an organization then you need to have the proof you’re actually doing what you said you’re going to do.
WN: 2025 marks the 20-year anniversary of the Footprints program. We’ve completed 274 projects and raised more than $5.7 million from more than 2 million travelers. How do you feel about meeting these milestones?
SM: Slightly surreal, I suppose. 2 million travelers, that’s an awful lot of donors.
I suppose the proudest thing is, when you build a service like World Nomads, you build it to try and take a segment of the market that is like you. Or in this case, like me – I’m a keen, adventurous, independent traveler. I built a service for me and discovered there’s lots of people globally who are of similar mind. And it’s basically the same with Footprints. Most travelers of that ilk have experienced the places and understand the people locally.
WN: I think Footprints really taps into the desire of travelers to give back. When you travel to a place, you take a part of it with you forever.
SM: Yes, Footprints taps into that.
WN: What would you like to see happen with Footprints in the years to come?
SM: If I could pick any one thing, it would be to build on that sense of connection to a place.
We’ve done it to some degree. What happens is you fund a project, and once the goal is reached, it’s closed. And then two years later, you can actually go to the 3,163 people who funded it and tell them what the outcome was! And when we do that, we’ve had extraordinary feedback, going, “Wow! I gave $2 and here’s a detailed report on what my $2 did!” That always makes you feel good.
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