The Wilderness Foundation Africa, Digify Africa, Wildlife ACT, and Africa Ignite will all receive grants from the 2023 Airbnb Community Fund. The donations form part of Airbnb’s Africa Pledge, a $500,000 USD commitment to support economic empowerment, digital access and sustainability across the continent through to 2025.
Created in 2020 as part of our commitment to share our success with our stakeholders, the Airbnb Community Fund will distribute $100 million USD by the end of 2030 to strengthen communities around the world.
Celebrating its third year, the Airbnb Community Fund granted $10 million USD to organizations supporting communities around the world in 2023, including more than 120 nonprofits across 44 countries on six continents. Nearly $8 million USD was directed in partnership with our Hosts, who selected the key themes and identified organizations in the communities they call home.
This year’s Community Fund grants support both larger, national and regional organizations that tackle societal-level issues identified by our Host Advisory Board and hyperlocal, community-based organizations chosen by local Host Club members.
2023 Community Fund recipients in Africa
The Airbnb Host Advisory Board, a group of 23 Hosts appointed to represent the global Host community, as well as local Host Clubs selected African organizations including The Wilderness Foundation Africa, Digify Africa, Wildlife ACT, Africa Ignite, A Rocha Kenya, and Breadline Africa.
Led by volunteer Hosts, Host Clubs are local communities of Hosts who come together to connect with each other and with Airbnb. Host Club leaders worked with their members to identify, nominate and vote on organizations having deep impact in their local communities.
Dr Andrew Muir, CEO, Wilderness Foundation Africa: “Wilderness Foundation Africa is delighted to have been selected as an Airbnb Community Fund recipient. This generous contribution empowers our mission of fostering lasting impacts through innovative and agile conservation initiatives. Whether it is direct action anti-poaching, landscape wilderness management, changing the narrative of inequality in South Africa, or the development of innovative finance solutions, WFA is committed to ensuring positive change and enduring conservation.”
Gavin Weale, CEO, Digify Africa: “The Digify Foundation is incredibly grateful to be selected for a donation by Airbnb to support our work in helping young people create livelihoods in Africa’s digital economy. This kind of financial support will mean that we can extend and improve our reach and impact around specific key programmes, such as Digify Pro, where we are working hard to increase the number of youth we support in work around the African continent. It will also allow us to explore widening our reach to even more marginalized young people, including those who have been displaced by conflict. We look forward to sharing our impact stories and statistics as 2024 progresses.”
Dr Niki Glen, CEO, Africa Ignite: “We are very grateful to have the Airbnb Academy and Community Fund as partners. The value that Airbnb brings to rural destinations and economies is huge and provides an excellent pathway to income generation. Airbnb helps us lower the barriers for our communities to benefit from tourism spend and reduces the inequality still felt between established and emerging enterprises. Thank you for believing in us.”
Colin Jackson, National Director, A Rocha Kenya: “The Airbnb Community Fund grant is a massive boost to the community conservation work of A Rocha Kenya that will both help us support needy children through secondary school as well as protect rare and precious wildlife in the globally important Arabuko-Sokoke Forest. The funds will be primarily used to support our eco-bursary fund, the Arabuko-Sokoke Schools and Ecotourism Scheme (ASSETS), and in particular to increase our capacity to raise sustainable, long-term funds for the bursaries themselves and to facilitate activities such as environmental education in the schools and livelihood improvement with the families of the sponsored students.”
The Airbnb Community Fund in action
To date, the Airbnb Community Fund has distributed more than $25 million USD in grants to organizations in 60 countries, with Hosts providing guidance each year. In 2022, the Community Fund awarded more than $6 million USD in grants to over 20 organizations working to protect our planet and promote environmental sustainability and conservation in 19 countries across six continents.
In its inaugural year, the Airbnb Community Fund supported more than 150+ organizations that met the unprecedented needs brought about by the pandemic. Last year, South African grant recipients included Lapalala Wilderness School, Endangered Wildlife Trust and UNESCO Waterberg Biosphere. These organizations received $215,000 USD collectively to support a more inclusive, resilient and sustainable tourism economy in South Africa, and lower the barriers to becoming a tourism entrepreneur.
Through these initiatives, Airbnb continues to invest in the communities where we operate, empowering our Hosts and supporting causes that matter most to our stakeholders. We look forward to continuing this work in the years to come.
