After four years of unsuccessfully petitioning for 501c3 non-profit status, co-founder and CEO, Casey Fenton, has announced that the popular online traveler’s community, CouchSurfing, will move to embrace the B Corporation model. CouchSurfing (CS) has officially joined the ranks of the social enterprise movement, but Fenton is careful to point out that it wasn’t necessarily by choice.
CouchSurfing is a social networking site that promotes the exchange of cultural experiences between travelers by hosting, surfing, and organizing events in their local communities. An active member of CS myself, I can assure you that no money is involved in the process, yet the US government did not accept hosting and surfing as charitable activities.
In addition, Fenton explains on the CS website, “With the current state of the economy, getting certified as a 501c3 is harder than it has ever been before. In fact, just recently, 18% of organizations that had previously been designated 501c3 lost their certifications.” A bad economy also means that non-profits are forced to become increasingly innovative in their efforts to locate funding. Being a completely free tool for travelers (and therefore eliminating the financial barrier many of us face when trying to access to rest of the world) is a crucial part of the CS core mission. It would be a conflict of interest to turn to their members for money, but under the new B Corporation model, CS is allowed to bring in additional pay-optional features.
Along with their evolving identity comes a familiar face, but new CEO and two major investors to help their growing staff. Co-founder Daniel Hoffer will take over as the new CS President and CEO while former CEO, Casey Fenton will move into a community outreach role. Their two investors, Omidyar, the philanthropic investment firm behind Kiva.org and Wikimedia and Benchmark Capital (Twitter) have a good track record with moving community companies forward.
Couchsurfing is an incredibly diverse community that spans the length of the world, but most of us share the sentiment that CS should continue to be free, positive proof that “another world is possible”. Thus, anything that remotely moves in the direction of capitalism rightfully makes us shudder. ( The word corporation screams a lot louder than just a “B” for Benefit. How beneficial can it be if you don’t even include the whole word in its description?) “Pay-optional features” smell like Facebook and the last thing a traveler with five minutes in an internet cafe needs is advertisements cluttering their CS space. The majority of CS activity takes place offline in the community, not on the web, so creating more features that may keep people online longer seems conterproductive.
However, to combat this potential fear and confusion, Casey Fenton and his co-workers have done an overzealous job of explaining these dramatic changes. Members have received three separate emails in regards to the shift and the CS website has posted five videos with in-depth explanations from the founders, with links to further information on B corporations if desired. Fenton has written about his own perspective on the process and personally solicited member concerns on his blog. His next step is to organize 3-day Couchsurfing conferences in six cities with a strong CS presence to talk about member needs and the future of CS.
For an organization that is moving a lot of tables at once, I must commend them on their transparency and communication. Moving from a non-profit to a completely new business model is a difficult undertaking. It is new territory that must be investigated, implemented, and promoted to your supporters. We’re holding our breath in the hope that it works and that the changes do not compromise the CS mission. The shift from the non-profit to the B corporation realm may become increasingly common if our economy doesn’t recover soon and non-profits want to remain committed to their communities. If this is the case, when it comes to the change-over, CouchSurfing might not be a bad example to follow.
