Passports with Purpose was created by travel bloggers Debbie Dubrow, Pam Mandal, Beth Whitman and Michelle Duffy in 2008 with the goal of using blogging to fundraise and give back to the communities they wrote about. During its first year of operation, it raised $7,400 for Heifer International, an organization dedicated to ending world hunger and poverty.

Passports with Purpose reaches its yearly goals by working with beneficiaries and bloggers to network and fundraise. It recruits bloggers through social media and promotes sponsors’ products or businesses in exchange for a donation. Bloggers and companies can promote prizes bought or created by Passports with Purpose in order to encourage donations. All money raised is donated to that year’s charity of the organization’s choice.

In 2009, Passports with Purpose came up with the goal of raising $14,000 to build a school in Cambodia. It succeeded in raising more than double its goal, raising a little over $30,000. With this money and a partnership with American Assistance for Cambodia, the school was successfully built.

Its next project was to raise $50,000 through its online travel blogging community to build a new village in India. Passports with Purpose encourages travel bloggers to join this community, which enables the blogger to place an official badge on his or her blog page and fundraise for various projects. That year, the community raised $64,128, exceeding its goal by 25 percent.

Passports with Purpose then partnered with Room to Read, a nonprofit working to increase literacy in the world, in 2011 to build and fill two libraries in Zambia. The two organizations raised over $90,000 for this project. The libraries contain titles ranging from children’s books to reference books.

For its fifth project, Passports with Purpose raised money to support water.org, a nonprofit whose goal is to provide clean water worldwide for people living in poverty. From Nov. 28 to Dec. 11, 2012, the Passports with Purpose’s blogging community, along with individual donors, was able to raise $110,000, their largest fundraising success ever. The money was used to provide clean, drinkable water to communities around the globe

In 2013, the organization built a school and created two adult literacy programs in Mali. For this project, it raised over $84,000 to help increase literacy levels in rural Mali.

Its most recent project is working to raise money to support five families through Sustainable Harvest International, which is dedicated to helping impoverished farmers and their families farm sustainably and, in turn, make a living from their work.

– Julia Hettiger

Sources: Passports With Purpose, A Dangerous Business, Wanderlust and Lipstick, Giving Tuesday
Photo: Life Hacker