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CouchSurfing International is a B-corporation: Bona fide or Bogus?
Margaret Wohler (September, 2011)
CouchSurfing International www.couchsurfing.org is riding a wave of success since its August 2011 announcement of restructure, from non-profit public charity, to for-profit C-Corporation with B-corps certification and $7.6 million in funding from Omidyar and Benchmark. The web-based homestay organization has more than 3 million profiles created since 2003: pop the beverages and get the beach party going!
http://www.couchsurfing.org/news/article/144
…or, not so fast: CouchSurfing (CS) has been hit with a tsunami of protest from its own membership over its reorganization. To date, nearly 2,500 CS members have joined an online forum, and a Facebook group, titled “We don’t want CouchSurfing to be a corporation”. The protesters seek to demand limited profits to investors, more control of their uploaded data, legal guarantees of transparency, and an end to organizational intrigue. http://www.couchsurfing.org/group.html?gid=45507
Members are forbidden to use the CS network for profitable gain (ToU 2.i http://www.couchsurfing.org/terms.html) ; why should founders and investors, who are also members, benefit commercially from the community’s hosting generosity?
They also want justice. Volunteer labor and cash built CS under promises of non-profit permanence; members were told that the organization and database would never be sold. B-Lab’s applicant survey requires only 20% of replies to be documented. It conducts annual audits on approximately 10% of randomly chosen B-corporations. The CS protesters fear that the newly-minted for-profit corporation will escape proper scrutiny, of its non-profit past, by B-Lab. Yet is further scrutiny, of a dissolved non-profit entity, appropriate? Their protest provides an early test case of B-Lab’s certification process: can a failed non-profit become a for-profit company and still be worthily characterized as a “socially responsible” B-Corporation? http://www.couchsurfing.org/group_read.html?gid=7161&post=330266#post359529
http://www.couchsurfing.org/group_read.html?gid=7161&post=330266#post333183
CouchSurfing managers are working hard to calm the revolt and repair their image. Founder, and “Chief Inspirational Officer”, Casey Fenton is currently on a world speaking tour of the most active CS cities. He’s visiting members, fielding questions, Skype conferencing, to communicate: CS is justified in having the B-corporation label. I had a 2 ½ hour Skype call with Casey; his enthusiasm for the CS’ mission, “to create inspiring experiences”, is apparent and convincing. http://www.couchsurfing.org/news/article/149
http://www.couchsurfing.org/about.html/mission
Fenton has always used creative methods to solve problems and spread CS ideals. He promoted the exploration of new thinking through social structures and alternative lifestyle experiments. CS early-adopters lived the vision: bunking and working in communal ‘collectives’ around the world and at the San Francisco “Base Camp”, organizing ‘free hugs’ events, having pillow fights at staff meetings, eschewing high salaries for perks of free food, rent, fun excursions and paid airfare around the world. In 2009, nearly 10% of CS’ total income was spent on travel unrelated to website function, yet, nothing for charitable programs. Life devoted to “inspiring experiences” was exhilarating, but costly. By 2011, non-profit CouchSurfing was headed for a wipe-out.
http://www.couchsurfing.org/organization_finances_2009.html
After 4 years, and significant legal costs, CouchSurfing International was denied the 501(c)(3) tax exempt status in August. The IRS defined the CS mission as social, rather than charitable, and the CS non-profit entity was dissolved. Appraised at $1 million, all assets were put into a cultural scholarship fund, now managed by the New Hampshire Charitable Foundation. To remain viable, CS reincorporated and landed venture capitalist funding.
http://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-wd/1125045.pdf
CouchSurfing’s corporate future seems assured. Its current CEO, CS co-founder Dan Hoffer, is possessed of solid business chops and promises accountability and organizational integrity. CouchSurfing will continue to offer, cost-free, its homestay service, social events, and database for scholarly research. http://www.couchsurfing.org/news/article/146 CouchSurfing now has the financial backing to hire top-notch programmers to create premium, creative applications that members will want to buy. If it can resolve questions about its non-profit past, CS has a sunny, for-profit future. Welcome to CouchSurfing 2011: life’s a beach.
Margaret Wohler is a CouchSurfing member since 2007.
Additional sources:
2010 Independent Audit: http://www.couchsurfing.org/group_read.html?gid=7621&post=9830240
Excursion spending and disclosure: http://www.couchsurfing.org/group_read.html?gid=2125&post=2476846
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By Jen Boynton | March 1st, 2013 8 Comments
Many of the companies that supported our Indiegogo campaign are active participants in the sharing economy and we wanted to hear more about their companies and perspective on the sharing economy. We’ve asked each company to answer the same questions and we’ll be rolling out the answers over the course of the series.
Please tell us your name, title and company.
Tammy Hagans, Media Team, Couchsurfing
What does your company do?
Couchsurfing is a free service that connects a global community of more than 5.5 million members in 97,000 cities across the world. The community is made up of people who are eager to share their homes and their lives to promote tolerance, create new experiences and simply have fun together.
Couchsurfing represents a different way to travel for people who value trust, sharing and cultural exchange — regardless of regional, national or political boundaries. Couchsurfers have friends all over the world, even if they haven’t met each other yet.
When were you founded and how big are you?
Couchsurfing began in 2004 as a project built by and for a passionate community of travelers from around the world whose goal was to meet like-minded people in order to foster cultural exchange and share experiences.
How do you define the sharing economy?
A growing trend that advocates the sharing and exchange of goods, services and skills in order to extract additional productivity and value.
How does your company contribute to the rise of the sharing economy?
Couchsurfers not only share their homes but to also plan and share a wide variety of experiences – from simply sharing a beer to attending an art opening to hiking across Europe.
How do you build community?
The Couchsurfing community is built through word-of-mouth and member referrals. Members create local activities for others to attend, which leads to stronger connections and a wide variety of experiences between members.
For example, two Couchsurfing members who meet at a local meetup in San Francisco might discover that they have a common interest in hiking. They may then choose to take a hiking trip through Europe together, at which point they could choose to meet other Couchsurfers at other local meetups in order to find other hikers to join them – or they may simply meet others to share a beer together. This interaction may in turn lead to the beginnings of multiple lifelong friendships taking shape as a result of these meetups.
How does your company reduce consumption and stimulate economic growth?
Couchsurfing members who stay with each other while traveling reduce the amount of resources consumed by traditional accommodations by simply staying in each other’s houses.
People who travel spend money, and those who couchsurf will theoretically have more money to spend while traveling since they’re saving on accommodations.
Can you share a recent milestone your company has achieved?
Couchsurfing recently raised a total of $22.6 million from investors including Benchmark, General Catalyst, Menlo Ventures and Omidyar.
What’s your biggest challenge?
One of our current challenges is the process of updating an outdated technology platform in order to accommodate the 5.5 million (and growing) number of members in the community.
What is your favorite thing to share?
Couchsurfing is all about sharing your life – from sharing your home to sharing day-to-day experiences around town to sharing a weeklong roadtrip together.
▼▼▼ 8 Comments ▼▼▼
Scroll down to see comments.
- ConcernedCSMember
A few months ago I would have promoted this post no end. CS has been a massive, wonderful, inspiring part of my life for over 6 years.
Today, all I can say is they are on a crash course to destroying the community.
Any member who dares ask hard questions or is deemed to be criticising is removed with vague references to safety and security and hiding behind the Safety Team.
The new website has massive safety holes that the management refuse to comment on or fix.
As a traveller and particularly females, unless you understand the risk, I would not recommend Couchsurfing as it stands now. The predators have already very quickly worked out what those holes are and how to use them to their advantage.
The CS Management team are desperately trying to garner good publicity as they slide into a public relations nightmare.
- worried Couchsurfer
If Couchsurfing is all about sharing and promoting tolerance, why are members who ask critical questions and try to improve the website and member safety removed, forum posts censored or made "private", and volunteers silenced under the thread of termination?
- jack
I switched like many to bewelcome.org after the terrible changes in cs..
Hipetyhiphop
CS was great until recently. The recent changes to the website has resulted in the website being flooded by posts and requests from extremely sketchy characters. At the same time the people who have volunteered and built their local CS communities are having their profiles deleted without any explanation. I used to love to host but now even the requests I get are rude beyond belief. I wouldnt recommend CS to anyone. Its basically just frequented by people who are looking for hook-ups and/or a free place to crash without giving a flying fuck about the person they are staying with.
Couchsurfing is a great way to meet friends all over the world especially if you are traveling solo. Just find activities that are going on in the cities you are visiting to meet others.
- CSStaff
- I wonder why the German investor abandoned the project? Is it because CS refuses to abide by European privacy standards? Or is it because the European investors feared they would be held criminally libel for the theft, rape and other crime that CS management has encouraged and participated in.
- worried couchsurfer nr.2
Behind the scenes with Tammy Hagans, Media Team, from 2012.
http://www.couchsurfing.org/ne...
"Do you surf and/or host?
My place is being remodeled, so there is no hosting at the moment. I
participate in meetups whenever I can. I have never surfed nor left the
country — I hope to do that next year. I plan to start in the UK and
travel 7-8 countries with my girlfriend. We will definitely surf and
participate in local meetups."
This is so embarrassing, that can't be true. Tammy. Tammy, what?
- LaughingCat
I wouldn't recommend that anyone plan a hiking trip across Europe using couchsurfing. Their new 'place pages' so mangle the continent's geography that two towns 14 hours journey - by boat! - apart are grouped together in the same location.
Amateurs.
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