What’s the difference between Experteering and Volunteering or Voluntourism?

What’s the difference between Experteering and Volunteering or Voluntourism?

Voluntourism involves providing free work to enhance your touristic experience, and often involves a hefty fee. It’s typically designed around the desires of the tourist, rather than the real needs of the community itself - and as a result can end up creating more harm than good.

Unlike voluntourism, Experteering is a proven way to create lasting change. You can think of Experteering as a specific type of volunteering that is skills-based, where the goal is to transfer knowledge and specific professional expertise to help your host organization lay the foundation for long-term growth, rather than creating cycles of dependency.

You can view a full, detailed breakdown of the differences between Experteering and Voluntourism here.


    • Related Articles

    • What’s the difference between Experteering and Voluntourism?

      Voluntourism involves the participant providing free work to enhance their touristic experience, and often involves a “Pay to volunteer” fee. It’s typically designed around the desires of the tourist, rather than the real needs of the community ...
    • Is International Volunteering work ethical? How can I make sure I volunteer ethically/sustainably?

      Yes, but not always. Research shows there is a right and a wrong way to volunteer. Done wrong, it can cause more harm than good. Volunteering your skills, rather than participating in voluntourism, is proven to create lasting change in the most ...
    • What is Experteering?

      Experteering is the word we coined for skills-based volunteering - the combination of the words expertise + volunteering. It is the act of volunteering your expertise, skills, experience, and time with organizations that need it. It's been featured ...
    • What is the cost to go Experteering?

      It depends on which program you go Experteering through. There are three ways for professionals to Experteer through MovingWorlds: As a member of the MovingWorlds Institute Global Fellowship: our social impact and career growth program for ...
    • What does MovingWorlds do, and what is “Experteering?”

      MovingWorlds operates a global platform that convenes partners from all sectors to build a more equitable, just, and sustainable economy by empowering social enterprises, and the people working with — and within — them. One of the ways we do that is ...