In-kind Donations (dos and don'ts)

Many people ask us if they can bring things to donate on our tours. While we do not allow participants or staff to give things away in the communities in which we work (as we believe handouts can undermine the success of our long-term capacity building programs) we do accept these general donations to our education programs.

Before bringing any in-kind donations with you to Cambodia, please consider these things:

1. We LOVE the enthusiasm and the passion behind the desire to give, but we want to make sure your efforts are effective and can add to our programs. Please check with our trip coordinator if you have any questions about bringing donations.


2. Most items can be purchased at a cheaper price here than in your home country. In addition, many of the products purchased in your home country were made near here in the first place! Save carbon, save money, and invest in Cambodia's local economy by purchase those items here.


3. When considering donating used items, please remember, if you don't want it, it's broken, and smells bad, it’s likely that people here will not want it either. When shipping items from abroad, the shipping costs alone typically exceed the benefits of the donation and for higher priced items, import "fees" can be even higher than the item's purchase price.


4. Most areas in Cambodia don’t have regular garbage collection let alone recycling facilities! Pretty markers might have been purchased to brighten a child's day but will then end up as a bright pile of plastic on the ground outside their house once they dry up.


5. We do not give items out to individuals in the areas where we work. As such, only items that can be used in our libraries or school programs that can be a shared resource are on our list of current needs. Things which can only be used by one individual (like a backpack) are hard to divide up among 540+ students.

Thank you for considering these 5 tips and thank you for supporting education in Cambodia! If you want to learn more about responsible travel giving, download this brochure created by our friends' at CREST.