Building the capacity of nonprofit organizations world-wide one vacation at a time
Mission
Using skilled volunteers with a passion for being of service while traveling abroad, S.E.V.A. helps social entrepreneurs around the globe to achieve greater scale and impact. By sharing our expertise with social sector organizations in low- and middle-income countries, SEVA Travelers’ pro bono consultants, coaches and trainers are empowering the next generation of change agents with the skills they need to succeed.
“The mission of SEVA Travelers is to harness the power of pro bono to build the capacity of the nonprofit sector in the Global South. ”
Organizational Background
SEVA Travelers was founded in 2019 by husband and wife team Morry & Sandhya Rao Hermón as a way to be of service while vacationing abroad with their twin boys Arjun and Kabir. The idea for their nonprofit first came about while traveling to Cambodia. At the time, Morry had a freelance consulting practice serving small nonprofits in New York City and the San Francisco Bay Area. His old colleague from Human Rights Watch Asia reached out to him and suggested that his services could be put to good use among Cambodia’s emerging civil society sector. She connected him with a wonderful NGO called the Angkor Hospital for Children in Siem Reap.
““During my first skilled volunteering trip abroad,” Morry recounts, “I worked closely with the founder, executive director and fundraising staff to figure out how to tap into the immense wealth coming through Siem Reap by establishing partnerships with local businesses. And in exchange for my advice and deliverables, they took me on a tour of Angkor Wat, picked me up at the airport, went out to dinner together—it was so much more meaningful than just being a tourist.””
The Rao-Hermón family continued to do successful “experteering” projects in Bali, Costa Rica, Mexico and India (see Angkor Hospital for Children Sustainable Tourism Program for sample pro bono consulting deliverable).
In 2025 SEVA Travelers partnered with GlobalGiving to identify verified NGOs in the Global South to approach about its suite of pro bono consulting services. GlobalGiving has a well-established and thorough vetting process. Each of their nonprofit partners is required to send quarterly donor reports detailing the impact of their work.
““In the last year, we reached out to 957 GlobalGiving partner organizations in Latin America, Asia and Africa and invited them to apply for a service grant worth approximately $10,000 in free nonprofit consulting. We received over 250 completed forms from nonprofits all over the world hoping to raise more money for their programs (a 25% response rate!). We then selected the top 175 applicants in 29 countries on three continents to participate in the pilot effort (a 70% approval rate). Having met these amazing social sector leaders, I can tell you that they are doing wonderful work and could use our support to take it to the next level.” ”
Are you a SEVA Traveler? Join the high-impact volunteering movement and make a real difference on your next trip abroad!
Our Unique Approach
MovingWorlds calls this unique approach "Experteering" = Experts + Volunteering (see https://movingworlds.org/experteering/experteering-vs-voluntourism for a great description of the difference between voluntourism and experteering).
Unlike voluntourism efforts, S.E.V.A. Travelers believes that the process is as important as the product. Not only do our high-skilled volunteers provide a useful product to the NGOs, but in the process, social entrepreneurs on the ground acquire the skills necessary to do it themselves. For example, in the process of writing a grant proposal for the organization, NGO staff members learn about the ingredients of a winning grant proposal. This knowledge transfer process is an essential element of the S.E.V.A. Travelers model, where seasoned nonprofit managers pass the baton to the next generation of emerging social sector leaders around the world.
To be truly helpful, volunteers also need to be grounded in the unique context of the community served. That's why each pro bono consulting project starts out with a country profile that defines the funding landscape, challenges and opportunities, and fundraising best practices in the region.
SEVA Travelers provides the quality control necessary to ensure that each pro bono consulting engagement is meaningful for both the high-skilled volunteer and their client. Our aim is to make an impact (i.e., skills are built in a measurable way, NGOs receive a product they can use, and when used, gets results, e.g. more funds raised, programmatic performance improves, trust is built with donors, board develops/grows, etc.).