For the past 12 years, initially as The Best Travelled and then, since 2017, as NomadMania, we have maintained our status as a non-profit organization. There have been many reasons for this – our community was founded for the love of travel, not to make money from it.
We were founded on the principle of helping others to both learn more about the world around us and be facilitated to achieve their travel goals. Since 2019, NomadMania was incorporated as a non-profit organization in Greece in order to be able to advance its charity aims.
As part of this, we have already given 3 travel scholarships (2 to Rwandans and one to a Ukrainian) to young people who had never before travelled beyond their country’s borders. As a result of our scholarship, we believe we helped make a difference to some people by providing them with the gift of a travel experience – one that many of us take for granted, but which is far from obvious to most of the world.
Challenges
Our status as a non-profit has not been without considerable challenges. As we have grown, so have our operational costs, both for absolutely necessary things such as servers and web-related technology and for human resources costs as our team has expanded with more members – necessary both for progress in terms of IT as well as marketing.
We have attempted to get donations from the community and wish to thank those of you who have contributed to us by becoming our donors. Unfortunately, donations have only been able to cover about 5% of our operational costs and continuing in this way has become unsustainable.
NomadMania OU
In order to be able to continue our operation and to expand in a way consistent with our ambitious vision, we are therefore changing our operational model. As of now, on an organizational level NomadMania is headquartered in Estonia as NomadMania OU.
A partnership of our founder Harry Mitsidis, our managing partner Orest Zub and our IT director Daniel Zagrodzki, we are moving to a profit-based model while not losing site of our non-profit origins, as we continue to focus on our aim of a world where travel becomes more democratic.
What does this imply in terms of you?
Not very much on a day-to-day basis, as NomadMania’s basic offering will always remain free of charge. Nevertheless, you can expect some subtle changes as we move on.
First and most obviously, we will be developing products for sale in a dedicated NomadMania online shop – and we very much hope that we will be able to attract your attention with them. A lot of thought has gone into products which are special for you while at the same time promoting sustainable travel, so stay tuned in the next few months for some great ideas!
We will also be hosting more trips, such as our Conference in Fergana Valley, Uzbekistan with a margin that allows us to continue our operation. All of our trips are out-of-the-box, focusing on unique experiences, destinations that are undervisited or entirely ‘insane’ attempts to visit DARE places where nobody sane has ever gone!
Golan Heights near the border of Syria and Israel
All revenues received will be reinvested in the operation and expansion of NomadMania, so that we can become bigger and better for you! At the same time, we will continue to develop our non-profit scholarship programme. To this aim, we will still welcome donations as well; the more donations received, the more scholarships we can provide so that younger people without the necessary means can experience the gift of travel.
While ‘profit’ organizations are often not seen in such a positive light as ‘non for profit’ ones, our core values and principles remain very much the same and they will continue to advise all aspects of our operation. We will continue to strive for travel that makes everybody happier, with emphasis on everybody, while at the same time making the world a better place. And if we can make NomadMania a better, bigger, financially viable organisation at the same time, then that’s a win-win for everyone!
Thank you for being part of our voyage and we look forward to your support as we embark on a new chapter!
