Figure 7. The business model of ELIV
4.1.1 Social Entrepreneur
Kevin Cheng set up ELIV to create a new path for Taiwanese to see the world in a way different to traditional travel, work, and study abroad pathways. The new path is international voluntourism (volunteer tourism). While engaging foreign friends, Kevin realized a social problem: People often commit a fallacy of hasty generalization about the people and living conditions in foreign countries, especially developing country, mostly due to steer ignorance. For instance, when people read segmented news concerning a particular country, they often consider the situation depicted in the new article to be representative of the entire country. Kevin also realized this misinterpretation and blatant ignorance about foreign countries was unfortunately widely in Taiwan. Kevin’s ultimate goal is to end ignorance by providing opportunities for people to have experiences abroad that will enlighten them and help build to an extent a more cosmopolitan understanding of the world in Taiwan. To Kevin, people can no longer merely understand a country through its cuisines or tourist spots on the Travel and Living Channel, but they need hand-on experiences in places that locals actual live like schools. Kevin believes that this method is an excellent way to end ignorance and further build global communication and understanding.
Another social problem Kevin found is that people in developed countries cannot feel the urgency of protecting our environment. More simply, people in the developed world are too dependent on old habits that are now considered bad for the environment that they are not willing to change and often cannot deal with their lifestyle. However, understanding how people in developing countries live their life using one cup of water a day or experiencing a desertification first-hand and the effects from it will help people better grasp the urgency of climate change and help them to reconsider their own lifestyle and daily routine. Kevin set up ELIV to operate international volunteering tours for urban citizens to leave their comfort zone and enter places completely different from what they are used to help build understanding for the urgency of climate change and the importance of building global understanding.
Kevin believes the relative affluence of developed countries compared to the deficiencies of third world countries well represents the avarice of man and the inequalities still present in the world. Kevin points out that the fast development of modern societies often coincides with the “acceptability to sacrifice the lives of others,” “the excessive depletion of the resources,” “ignoring.” Kevin started to question the common standard of development and self-realization. Kevin finds himself and many others unsatisfied with these social trends and the continued inequality that exists between developed and developing countries.
Kevin conceived the plan of the international voluntourism program as a method of solving both the above social problems and various inequalities people face in developing countries. Kevin highly esteemed his school days and international volunteering experiences; he wants to continue the passion and sense of responsibility to the world that he had first gained during those years in school. To Kevin, it is important that one can utilize all the knowledge and experience one has acquired from school and work to discover ways in which one can create positive impacts to the society. On the other hand, accumulate wealth should not be a priority. Kevin believes many others have the same idea as he. He believes establishing ELIV is one way in which he can inspire others and bridge the inequality.
Kevin hope through international voluntourism tour, their customers could understand the real appearance of other countries, realize the urgency of making a difference to save the planets and be inspired to bridge the inequality. Kevin bears the distinct characteristics of a social entrepreneur: sets up an innovative business model to solve a social issue he wants to change.
4.1.2 Customer Segments
ELIV serve two groups of customers: those voluntary service tourists and those local service recipients. On the one hand, voluntary service tourists are customer with a purpose to do something good to the society. Customers are interested in various social issues including inequality, environmental protection or humanity. Most of them are unmarried Taiwanese between fifteen to thirty-five years old. Customers are mostly with two types of mind set: the first type of customer wants to get away from routine works and take a break;The second type of customer bear the idea of let me try this trip and see what will happen.
On the other hand, those local service recipients include people in different nations: India, Cambodia, Myanmar, Bangladesh, Vietnam, Mongolia, Gansu (China), Fiji, Tuvalu, Kiribati, Nauru, Cook Islands, Samoa, Tonga, Vanuatu. Customers are weak group threaten by social and environmental issues includes: lack of clean water, poverty, lack of forestation, and need of building eco-village in impoverished areas.
4.1.3 Value Proposition
ELIV stands for Empowering Lives through Innovative Voluntourism. ELIV provides young tourists with the choice of exploring and visiting third-world nations and impoverished areas of the world such as Gansu (China), Cambodia, and Myanmar. During their travels, the tourist would promise to the organization ELIV to also act as volunteers promoting sustainable agricultural practices, teaching dental hygiene, and other volunteer services. The organization provides both a new market of volunteer tourism to Taiwan as well as unique educational and engagement in the third-world and impoverished nations.
ELIV also stands for eco-living, which more specifically means, to live at means which are closer to one’s own heart and more beneficial to the environment, stop anticipating and take responsibility and action over environmental issues; cease excessive consumption, take much concern about global warming; and, last, to endeavor to bring spiritual enlightenment and hospitality to the world.
4.1.4 Revenue Stream
The revenue of ELIV comes from the project fee that voluntary service tourists paid. Table 7 is a list of expected yearly project fee receivable.
Table 7. Expected revenue of ELIV in 2013
4.1.1 Social Entrepreneur
Kevin Cheng set up ELIV to create a new path for Taiwanese to see the world in a way different to traditional travel, work, and study abroad pathways. The new path is international voluntourism (volunteer tourism). While engaging foreign friends, Kevin realized a social problem: People often commit a fallacy of hasty generalization about the people and living conditions in foreign countries, especially developing country, mostly due to steer ignorance. For instance, when people read segmented news concerning a particular country, they often consider the situation depicted in the new article to be representative of the entire country. Kevin also realized this misinterpretation and blatant ignorance about foreign countries was unfortunately widely in Taiwan. Kevin’s ultimate goal is to end ignorance by providing opportunities for people to have experiences abroad that will enlighten them and help build to an extent a more cosmopolitan understanding of the world in Taiwan. To Kevin, people can no longer merely understand a country through its cuisines or tourist spots on the Travel and Living Channel, but they need hand-on experiences in places that locals actual live like schools. Kevin believes that this method is an excellent way to end ignorance and further build global communication and understanding.
Another social problem Kevin found is that people in developed countries cannot feel the urgency of protecting our environment. More simply, people in the developed world are too dependent on old habits that are now considered bad for the environment that they are not willing to change and often cannot deal with their lifestyle. However, understanding how people in developing countries live their life using one cup of water a day or experiencing a desertification first-hand and the effects from it will help people better grasp the urgency of climate change and help them to reconsider their own lifestyle and daily routine. Kevin set up ELIV to operate international volunteering tours for urban citizens to leave their comfort zone and enter places completely different from what they are used to help build understanding for the urgency of climate change and the importance of building global understanding.
Kevin believes the relative affluence of developed countries compared to the deficiencies of third world countries well represents the avarice of man and the inequalities still present in the world. Kevin points out that the fast development of modern societies often coincides with the “acceptability to sacrifice the lives of others,” “the excessive depletion of the resources,” “ignoring.” Kevin started to question the common standard of development and self-realization. Kevin finds himself and many others unsatisfied with these social trends and the continued inequality that exists between developed and developing countries.
Kevin conceived the plan of the international voluntourism program as a method of solving both the above social problems and various inequalities people face in developing countries. Kevin highly esteemed his school days and international volunteering experiences; he wants to continue the passion and sense of responsibility to the world that he had first gained during those years in school. To Kevin, it is important that one can utilize all the knowledge and experience one has acquired from school and work to discover ways in which one can create positive impacts to the society. On the other hand, accumulate wealth should not be a priority. Kevin believes many others have the same idea as he. He believes establishing ELIV is one way in which he can inspire others and bridge the inequality.
Kevin hope through international voluntourism tour, their customers could understand the real appearance of other countries, realize the urgency of making a difference to save the planets and be inspired to bridge the inequality. Kevin bears the distinct characteristics of a social entrepreneur: sets up an innovative business model to solve a social issue he wants to change.
4.1.2 Customer Segments
ELIV serve two groups of customers: those voluntary service tourists and those local service recipients. On the one hand, voluntary service tourists are customer with a purpose to do something good to the society. Customers are interested in various social issues including inequality, environmental protection or humanity. Most of them are unmarried Taiwanese between fifteen to thirty-five years old. Customers are mostly with two types of mind set: the first type of customer wants to get away from routine works and take a break;The second type of customer bear the idea of let me try this trip and see what will happen.
On the other hand, those local service recipients include people in different nations: India, Cambodia, Myanmar, Bangladesh, Vietnam, Mongolia, Gansu (China), Fiji, Tuvalu, Kiribati, Nauru, Cook Islands, Samoa, Tonga, Vanuatu. Customers are weak group threaten by social and environmental issues includes: lack of clean water, poverty, lack of forestation, and need of building eco-village in impoverished areas.
4.1.3 Value Proposition
ELIV stands for Empowering Lives through Innovative Voluntourism. ELIV provides young tourists with the choice of exploring and visiting third-world nations and impoverished areas of the world such as Gansu (China), Cambodia, and Myanmar. During their travels, the tourist would promise to the organization ELIV to also act as volunteers promoting sustainable agricultural practices, teaching dental hygiene, and other volunteer services. The organization provides both a new market of volunteer tourism to Taiwan as well as unique educational and engagement in the third-world and impoverished nations.
ELIV also stands for eco-living, which more specifically means, to live at means which are closer to one’s own heart and more beneficial to the environment, stop anticipating and take responsibility and action over environmental issues; cease excessive consumption, take much concern about global warming; and, last, to endeavor to bring spiritual enlightenment and hospitality to the world.
4.1.4 Revenue Stream
The revenue of ELIV comes from the project fee that voluntary service tourists paid. Table 7 is a list of expected yearly project fee receivable.
Table 7. Expected revenue of ELIV in 2013
Note. Expected revenue of ELIV in 2013 equals 11,677,000
4.1.5 Social and Environmental Benefit
ELIV promotes a new value of happiness – reconcile with the planet, take action to help deprived people, and re-interpret and re-evaluate the value of oneself.
By organizing international voluntourism tours, ELIV helps more and more people gain first-hand experiences within foreign, developing nations, realize the urgency of taking action towards protecting and preserving the planet and be inspired to bridge people of different backgrounds and stop the inequality.
ELIV’s international voluntourism programs create positive impact to and deal with social and environmental issues includes clean water, poverty alleviation, forestation, international voluntourism, and build eco-village in impoverished areas of the world. Table 8 lists the Social and Environmental projects of ELIV.
Table 8. Social and Environmental projects of ELIV
4.1.5 Social and Environmental Benefit
ELIV promotes a new value of happiness – reconcile with the planet, take action to help deprived people, and re-interpret and re-evaluate the value of oneself.
By organizing international voluntourism tours, ELIV helps more and more people gain first-hand experiences within foreign, developing nations, realize the urgency of taking action towards protecting and preserving the planet and be inspired to bridge people of different backgrounds and stop the inequality.
ELIV’s international voluntourism programs create positive impact to and deal with social and environmental issues includes clean water, poverty alleviation, forestation, international voluntourism, and build eco-village in impoverished areas of the world. Table 8 lists the Social and Environmental projects of ELIV.
Table 8. Social and Environmental projects of ELIV
4.1.6 Channel
ELIV reach its customers through two channels: virtual and tangible. The channel of ELIV is listed in table 9.
Table 9. Channels of ELIV
ELIV reach its customers through two channels: virtual and tangible. The channel of ELIV is listed in table 9.
Table 9. Channels of ELIV
4.1.7 Customer Relationship
ELIV’s customer relationship belongs to the category of Co-creation. ELIV engage customers to assist with the operation of volunteering works such as tree planting or orphanage building. ELIV invites customers to do volunteer service and thus create value for local people in need and themselves.
4.1.8 Key Sources
The key resource to make ELIV’s business model operate is human resource. The tour guides of ELIV possess critical intellectual resource— their international volunteer experiences. ELIV is in a “human influence human’ industry, like a cram school, customers are looking for a quality guide or tutor who can give the customers great impact. Therefore, tour guides of ELIV have the capability to inspire their group members. Moreover, tour guide of voluntarism should possess the capability of dealing with emergencies, which are more complicated than emergencies in normal tour, because voluntourism is usually organized in impoverished nations that face extreme situations. Therefore, tour guide of ELIV possess the capability to take good care of their group members and to well-communicate with those local service receivers whose personal and culture value is very different to Taiwanese.
4.1.9 Key Activities
International Voluntourism tour is the key activity of ELV, take the Cambodia project for example:
In the Khmer Rouge rule of Cambodia, lots of Cambodian intellectuals were massacred causing serious fault of agriculture knowledge and technology. Although Cambodia’s land and climates are arable, fertile land became waste ground in Cambodia because famers lacked the basic knowledge and technology to make best use of nature resources. The program in Cambodia sponsored by ELIV helps to bring Taiwan’s basic agricultural technology to Cambodia. Trained volunteers will help the local villagers make better use of fertile land, use organic compost and plant vegetables farming methods, which allot for five to six harvests per year. ELIV devoted to transform the waste lands in an environmental friendly way and alleviate the poverty. In 2011 and 2012, ELIV organized 35 volunteer service tours in Cambodia. Villages served such as Leang Dai were transformed into basic agriculture centers. Once lateritic wastelands are now flourished with spinach.
Through decades of war, the terrors left behinds by the land mines scattered across the country, and other widespread issues such as poverty and a rampant AIDS endemic, Cambodia’s society still faces many issues influenced by the countries’ past. Moreover, Cambodia’s orphan population continues to grow. Without providers, these Cambodian orphans are forced to beg or forage through trash dumps for food and necessities. On the other hand, people on the other side of the world often have excess unused pens, notebooks, and even intact clothes that we no longer wear in our closet. The mission of ELIV is to make good use of these resources and bring necessities to the local students.
ELIV also organize field trip to visit the world culture heritage –Angkor Wat. Participants will be inspired by the sea of change in Cambodia: a once strong civilization journey into an impoverished nation. Participants will also experience the extreme contrast of lively tour groups and local famers lived in the poverty line at the same place. Table 10 is an example of the itinerary of Cambodia project.
ELIV’s customer relationship belongs to the category of Co-creation. ELIV engage customers to assist with the operation of volunteering works such as tree planting or orphanage building. ELIV invites customers to do volunteer service and thus create value for local people in need and themselves.
4.1.8 Key Sources
The key resource to make ELIV’s business model operate is human resource. The tour guides of ELIV possess critical intellectual resource— their international volunteer experiences. ELIV is in a “human influence human’ industry, like a cram school, customers are looking for a quality guide or tutor who can give the customers great impact. Therefore, tour guides of ELIV have the capability to inspire their group members. Moreover, tour guide of voluntarism should possess the capability of dealing with emergencies, which are more complicated than emergencies in normal tour, because voluntourism is usually organized in impoverished nations that face extreme situations. Therefore, tour guide of ELIV possess the capability to take good care of their group members and to well-communicate with those local service receivers whose personal and culture value is very different to Taiwanese.
4.1.9 Key Activities
International Voluntourism tour is the key activity of ELV, take the Cambodia project for example:
In the Khmer Rouge rule of Cambodia, lots of Cambodian intellectuals were massacred causing serious fault of agriculture knowledge and technology. Although Cambodia’s land and climates are arable, fertile land became waste ground in Cambodia because famers lacked the basic knowledge and technology to make best use of nature resources. The program in Cambodia sponsored by ELIV helps to bring Taiwan’s basic agricultural technology to Cambodia. Trained volunteers will help the local villagers make better use of fertile land, use organic compost and plant vegetables farming methods, which allot for five to six harvests per year. ELIV devoted to transform the waste lands in an environmental friendly way and alleviate the poverty. In 2011 and 2012, ELIV organized 35 volunteer service tours in Cambodia. Villages served such as Leang Dai were transformed into basic agriculture centers. Once lateritic wastelands are now flourished with spinach.
Through decades of war, the terrors left behinds by the land mines scattered across the country, and other widespread issues such as poverty and a rampant AIDS endemic, Cambodia’s society still faces many issues influenced by the countries’ past. Moreover, Cambodia’s orphan population continues to grow. Without providers, these Cambodian orphans are forced to beg or forage through trash dumps for food and necessities. On the other hand, people on the other side of the world often have excess unused pens, notebooks, and even intact clothes that we no longer wear in our closet. The mission of ELIV is to make good use of these resources and bring necessities to the local students.
ELIV also organize field trip to visit the world culture heritage –Angkor Wat. Participants will be inspired by the sea of change in Cambodia: a once strong civilization journey into an impoverished nation. Participants will also experience the extreme contrast of lively tour groups and local famers lived in the poverty line at the same place. Table 10 is an example of the itinerary of Cambodia project.
Note. The itinerary of Cambodia project shows the daily operation activities of a n international voluntourism tour.
4.1.10 Key Partner
The key partners of ELIV are local corresponding organizations in the third-world nations where the voluntary service is provided. Table 11 lists the partners of ELIV.
Table 11. Partner list of ELIV
4.1.10 Key Partner
The key partners of ELIV are local corresponding organizations in the third-world nations where the voluntary service is provided. Table 11 lists the partners of ELIV.
Table 11. Partner list of ELIV
Note. *Dalits: a designation for a group of people traditionally regarded as untouchable in India.
4.1.11Cost Structure
Except the personnel cost, the costs of construction material in impoverished nations dominate the main proportion of cost structure in ELIV. The costs of ELIV are sorted in table 12.
Table 12. Cost list of ELIV
4.1.11Cost Structure
Except the personnel cost, the costs of construction material in impoverished nations dominate the main proportion of cost structure in ELIV. The costs of ELIV are sorted in table 12.
Table 12. Cost list of ELIV
4.1.12 Social and Environmental Cost
Voluntourism sometimes incurs a negative social cost: Some local might make the local children dress up poorly in order to win the sympathy of tourists. In this way, the voluntourism might end up impeding the progress of the local village. However, in ELIV’s business model, it avoids this cost by building eco-orphanage, orphanage with its own vegetable garden to provide foods, to shelter those children and enable them to feed themselves to break the vicious circle of poverty.
Voluntourism sometimes incurs a negative social cost: Some local might make the local children dress up poorly in order to win the sympathy of tourists. In this way, the voluntourism might end up impeding the progress of the local village. However, in ELIV’s business model, it avoids this cost by building eco-orphanage, orphanage with its own vegetable garden to provide foods, to shelter those children and enable them to feed themselves to break the vicious circle of poverty.