Building a non-profit tech org: perspectives from Airbnb.org's product lead

In the tech space, we often marvel at the shiny new toys we can create. News articles these days are dominated by AI-powered apps that can craft memes, new devices for immersive gaming, and SaaS platforms that incrementally improve the lives of the already comfortable middle-class.?

Yet, among these, there's a cadre of organizations harnessing the power of tech not just for novelty or profit, but to make genuine, life-changing impact around the world. Today, we delve into the story of one such organization - Airbnb.org.

As the world’s largest marketplace of vacation homes and condo rentals, Airbnb might already be a household name, but Airbnb.org operates in somewhat quieter circles. This independent 501(c)(3) nonprofit, best known among esteemed humanitarian organizations such as the International Rescue Committee and The Red Cross, allows Hosts to open their homes to those in need, supporting countless appreciative guests who, in times of crisis, have found temporary sanctuary after losing their own homes.

Scott Crider, Product Lead at Airbnb.org, has spent nearly five years as one of the leaders of the 35-person organization. With an ethos rooted in 'Tech for Good', Scott and his team are proving that technology, when wielded with empathy and vision, can scale impact in unprecedented ways.

Since its inception, Airbnb.org has partnered with hosts and nonprofit partners to proudly serve over 220,000 people, a testament to the power of a global community rallying together in times of crisis. In particular, it serves as a unique example of Big Tech establishing a standalone nonprofit to serve the community and focus entirely on its charitable mission.

We sat down with Scott to understand how Airbnb.org works, their approach to building and shipping features, and above all, how they leverage technology to sow seeds of recovery and hope in the most challenging of circumstances.?

This piece should be helpful for tech executives working on impact initiatives, nonprofit professionals leveraging tech inside their organization, as well as any tech leader who wants to know how their skillset might fit the needs of a nonprofit. Let’s begin!

How Airbnb.org is structured

Most of us are familiar with Airbnb. Tell us more about what Airbnb.org is, and about the relationship between Airbnb and Airbnb.org. What degree of autonomy does Airbnb.org have?

Airbnb is a marketplace connecting guests who want to travel with Hosts who can offer them a leisure or work stay.

Airbnb.org is similar, but Airbnb.org supports people who have to travel, including refugees and people displaced by natural disasters.

When a crisis such as an earthquake or a wildfire occurs, Airbnb.org helps connect people who have lost their homes with temporary housing so that they can recover and start rebuilding their lives. It’s incredible to see the healing power that a home can have for people who have been through trauma — a private bedroom to relax in, a kitchen to cook in, a living room where kids can play, feel safe and be kids again.

While Airbnb.org is an independent and publicly-supported 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization that was launched in 2020. It actually operated for many years before that as the Open Homes program within Airbnb and we still get many benefits from working so closely with Airbnb.

First of all, Airbnb covers the operating costs of Airbnb.org, including our headcount costs, which lets all of the money we raise go to helping people in need. We work out of Airbnb offices, using Airbnb-provided computers, and our tech stack is built on Airbnb technology. This lets us be really, really efficient with donor money.

Secondly, we benefit from the technology innovation that Airbnb is constantly delivering. While we customize Airbnb.org for the specific needs of crisis response, we benefit from being built on top of the best housing marketplace in the world. Things like search, listing amenities, trust and safety checks, calendar management, reporting — we get all of that out of the box. One recent example of this is the Flexible Dates search feature that Airbnb released. It sounds simple, but adding a day or two of flexibility really helps our guests in supply-constrained environments. We got that for free just because we are built on Airbnb.

Lastly, our biggest source of strength is the Airbnb Host community. Airbnb Hosts make Airbnb.org possible. Not only do they offer spaces for healing, Hosts often go above and beyond to support their community. Some Hosts provide gift baskets, or connect guests to job opportunities. Others donate a percentage of their Airbnb earnings to pay for guests in need of emergency stays. It was the Airbnb community that inspired the creation of Airbnb.org, and it continues to be the reason we exist today.

Why was Airbnb.org established as a separate entity instead of just being integrated into Airbnb's corporate social responsibility initiatives?

Setting Airbnb.org up as a standalone entity has several financial, governance, and partnership benefits.

Financial - As a certified nonprofit, we can raise money and bring more resources to bear on the causes that we represent. For example, when the earthquake in Türkiye displaced millions of people this last year, the housing need was very local. If I have a listing in Portugal, offering to house displaced people may not be the best way to contribute, so instead I can donate money to Airbnb.org to pay for the stay of someone in Türkiye.?

Because we go through rigorous reporting and auditing, donations to Airbnb.org are tax deductible in certain places, including the United States. This is really important to big donors.

Governance - We have a separate Board of Directors who ensure that we are always living up to our mission and are squarely focused on our impact. The Airbnb.org board is amazing and is made up of experts from across the disaster response, refugee, and travel industries.

Partnerships - Airbnb.org is focused on helping people in need. Being wholly focused on this mission, and having the audited rigor that goes with being a nonprofit, we are often able to get a warmer reception than Airbnb Inc. Sometimes governments, unions, and local communities are skeptical of us and our motives, but as we work together and we demonstrate our clear focus on guest outcomes, we end up building strong relationships that likely wouldn’t have been possible if we were a profit-driven business unit of Airbnb.

User experience

How does the user experience and specific activities (i.e. listing creation, search, booking, etc.) change from the typical Airbnb experience in order to serve Airbnb.org’s use case?

Airbnb.org’s design team has been really thoughtful about designing for people experiencing trauma. Annie Wu, a former Airbnb.org designer, has a great article on this which describes 5 core components: Safety, Transparency, Choice, Mutuality, and Equity.?

For our users, we try to tailor the experience to what we know about their needs. Our custom signup flow specifically highlights amenities we know are important to people experiencing crisis - such as having a washer/dryer and kitchen.

We also simplify the search experience, so that we focus on practical information sharing rather than aspirational experiences (no igloos and tree houses).?

We are really thoughtful about the words we use too. Our content writers are amazing and spend a lot of time making sure the wording we use is clear, not manipulative, and provides context to guests. Also, when it comes to asking for information, we always try to tell people why we want it and how we will use it. These guests can understandably come into new situations harboring a lot of mistrust, so it's important for us to earn their trust early and often.?

What does the booking flow look like for guests coming through Airbnb.org?

The booking flow looks a bit different depending on the crisis scenario we’re responding to. In some cases, such as during the resettlement of Afghan refugees to the US in 2021, we encounter a very controlled government-led process where each guest family has a designated case worker from a non-profit. In this scenario, our non-profit partners were the ones booking on behalf of the guest, so we had to build a third-party travel manager feature on the platform.

On the other end of the spectrum, there’s situations like the Ukraine response. There, millions of people were scattered all over the world, overwhelming response managers. In this case, our partners would intake guests, verify their needs, and pass on their information to Airbnb.org, but the guests would be responsible for booking themselves- using a custom booking flow we have developed.

In either scenario, Airbnb.org pays for the stay and helps provide Hosts with information and support to offer a wonderful stay. At checkout, we also send guests a custom review flow which helps us understand not just the quality of the stay, but also the impact that it had on the guest.

You work with a number of partners such as the IRC. What role do these partnerships play in your operations, and how do you source new partners?

Partners are critical to the Airbnb.org mission. Big partners are great for getting quick intel on the on-the-ground situation. They also help with coordinating housing for large numbers of people.?

Partners also help identify guests, sometimes book for guests, and help manage check-in and check out. We also specifically work to partner with local nonprofits who are more embedded in the community. This builds trust and enables us to reach underserved communities, but these often take some time to develop after a crisis occurs.

To source new partnerships, we have an in-house partnerships team. We also hear about new potential partners through the community, through our existing partners and through government agencies.

Leveraging Airbnb

How does Airbnb.org leverage Airbnb's IP and technology to amplify its impact? In other words, in what ways does this affiliation unlock ways for Airbnb.org to drive impact in ways that independent housing nonprofits might not be able to?

Quite frankly, we could not exist in the way that we do without Airbnb. Here are just a few ways they support us:

Brand/Marketing

We benefit from the microphone Airbnb has. We raised millions of dollars during our effort to house Ukrainian refugees and we would not have had the visibility without Airbnb’s brand and social channels.?

During the effort to resettle Afghan refugees in the United States, Airbnb broadcast our message, ran billboards to encourage hosts, and posted impact stories on their newsroom

Host community

The Airbnb host community is amazing and makes the whole program possible. When times of crisis occur, Hosts often reach out to us and ask how they can help.?

Hosts are also some of our most consistent donors as many donate a percentage of their earnings to supporting Airbnb.org.

We’ve also seen hosts be incredible bridge builders to the community and help combat prejudice and discrimination. They’ve helped guests create networks to find jobs as well as long-term housing.

Tech

We have an engineering team of only 7 people. We couldn’t build a housing marketplace from scratch.

We benefit from all the billions of dollars of tech investment that Airbnb has made.

In the housing space, some of the most important are Trust and Safety systems. During the ongoing Ukraine crisis we’ve seen many well-intentioned grassroots housing efforts spring up, which is great, but it presents potential issues on the Trust and Safety side. Partners who work with Airbnb.org know that every host is ID verified, with background checks run in many geos, and our safety team has a searchable record of who is staying where. This level of rigor is important when you are dealing with people experiencing trauma.

AirCover

Airbnb’s AirCover, which offers $3 million in damage protection, applies to all Airbnb.org stays as well. This goes a long way to helping people feel comfortable hosting refugees or displaced people. Our incident rate is actually lower than the leisure marketplace- people are just so grateful to have a place to stay that they really take good care of the homes. That being said, things do still happen like a hot pan being left on a countertop or something. Airbnb covers that, which is great.

Customer support

Airbnb has built out a world class system for tracking and addressing host and guest check in issues, communications, etc. It may not always feel like it when you are traveling, but it has come a long way and is constantly getting better- the tooling is amazing. Airbnb.org is able to leverage that same tooling, but we have a separate team of agents who are specifically trained on providing trauma-informed care to our guests and hosts.

Approach to product

How is the product org structured at Airbnb.org, and what is the decision-making process for product development?

We have a fully cross-functional product team embedded at Airbnb.org (i.e. designers, engineers, research, etc.). This means that some things can be built autonomously — we just need stakeholders within Airbnb to sign off and provide advice. But we’re also a small team of only seven engineers, so we frequently also need to engage other teams to move things forward (and candidly we like working with other teams across Airbnb to take advantage of the great work they are already doing).

When we are dependent on an Airbnb team to help with a build, we have to be thoughtful on how we message its importance. We can’t lead prioritization decisions based on typical business case metrics (i.e. nights booked, revenue, etc.) since Airbnb.org has housed 300,000 people and Airbnb has housed millions. What we try to do instead is go deeper into the stories behind those we are seeking to help. Sharing stories of impact can help make the problem we’re solving more real.

It also helps that we have an internal champion - Global Head of Hosting Catherine Powell - who sits on the Airbnb.org board. She is in tune with the needs of our organization and can help escalate hosting product development requests if necessary.

Are there any frameworks or approaches to product development that you find particularly unique?

Airbnb’s overall approach to product management is also embedded at Airbnb.org. We strive to envision the ideal outcome, and will do things that don’t scale until we learn the process (editor’s note: Airbnb is a Y Combinator alum, and this is an approach commonly taught at YC).

At Airbnb.org, we are also careful about not being an unaware big dog in a small room. In other words, we don’t want to be in a position where we make the wrong decision because we were overconfident about what we thought was the right answer and chose to do something that wasn’t informed by user research. In our world, there’s much less tolerance for negative outcomes. This makes research, understanding lived experience, and eliminating any friction or risks for our users, much more important.

Given that your work is so tied to global dynamics (i.e. refugee crises, international emergencies, etc.), how do you stay up-to-date on global affairs?

We have an Emergency Response Operations Team that is responsible for monitoring events globally. They are a very accomplished team that bring field experience from the emergency management space. We also work with teams like WorldAware (now a part of Crisis24) for a daily download of all events in the world.

It’s a constant challenge to decide whether to go deep or go broad, and sadly we cannot respond to a lot of emergency events that happen around the world. We’ve developed a strong decision framework for deciding whether or not to respond, and the Emergency Response Operations Team helps drive to a ‘go’/’no-go’. If we choose to support, they also coordinate the response, gather on-the-ground updates, and build relationships with key stakeholders.

Lessons from the for-profit world

Prior to joining Airbnb.org, you were a PM at Autodesk. What initially drew you into the non-profit space and Airbnb.org specifically?

My parents hosted refugees in our house when I was younger, working with an organization called World Relief. When I interviewed at Airbnb.org it was because I believed in the power of the refugee journey- the incredible resilience and bravery that people show to make a better life for their families- and believed that tech could support refugees at scale.?

While interviewing I paid attention to what metrics was the team talking about- was it new host signups for Airbnb? Was it government perception of Airbnb? It wasn’t, it was: how many people have we housed? What has the financial impact been on those families? How can we quantify the psychosocial wellbeing and safety that guests experience when they move out of a shelter and into a home. These are questions that interested me and signaled that it was an org focused on impact.

What were some of the biggest differences you noticed when moving from a for-profit to a non-profit?

Honestly, for me, moving from a big company with a well-established product vs. a smaller company with a new product was the bigger jump.

At Autodesk, I worked on AutoCAD which has been around since the mid 80s, has millions of users, and a really well established code base and development process. We shipped new code roughly twice per year. If we wanted to build something, we asked the users what they wanted, got 1 million replies, told the VP what we were going to build, and then spent 6 months building it. I worked with a team of around 40 engineers just on my one part of AutoCAD.

At Airbnb.org, we’ve always had a small team and everything is fluid. We’ll have strategy talks, identify our goals and metrics we want to influence, and align on projects. But then every two weeks we might be like “is this the right thing, should we tweak it, should we work on something else”. It’s a rigorous and agile process, and quite a bit more stressful, honestly, as a PM. There are much fewer answers and way more questions, with less certainty in what you should do and if it was right.

That being said, because of the nature of the work that we do and who we serve, we can’t be super scrappy and completely agile like a VC-backed startup. Our failures can have very real implications on people’s lives, so we are still really thoughtful about our launches and try to build in lots of time for user research.

Looking ahead

What excites you most about the future of Airbnb.org?

We are still so new and small and there is so much more we can do. There are over 100 million forcibly displaced people around the world and climate change now displaces more people every year than violent conflict.?

We officially launched as a non-profit in 2020. It took us 5 years to house 100,000 people. Then in 2021, we housed 100,000 people in a single year.?

We need to keep growing our impact, while maintaining our focus on quality. That’s something I’m really excited about.

This article was reposted from a blog post by Execs in Tech. You can find the original here.