Airbnbbenefit

berkeley business society | Spring 2017

For the spring semester of my freshman year, I was a marketing consultant for Berkeley Business Society, an on-campus consulting organization at UC Berkeley, and my team worked with Airbnb. We conducted lots of research - analyzing a new market expansion strategy and improving user acquisition. We researched the nonprofit sector to determine if it was a business vertical worth targeting, and as a result of our research, I prototyped a new product feature that connects nonprofit organizations to convenient, cost effective housing.

The problem

How do nonprofit organizations connect to affordable and accessible housing during travel? Many nonprofit organizations travel and volunteer worldwide, however, they may not have enough funding to afford company housing. My consulting team wanted to know the best way to align Airbnb with nonprofit organizations to not only benefit those groups but also show great CSR initiatives.

Getting started: conducting primary research

We began by mapping out the process of interviewing nonprofit board members and volunteers. We identified which types of nonprofits we needed to contact and focused on asking about their areas of interest with a potential partnership with Airbnb. Following the 1 week process of contacting nonprofit organizations, we developed tailored interview guides for each type of organization we interviewed.

Researching Nonprofits

After a 2 week process of ethnographic interviewing, my team and I were able to identify common trends among nonprofits. Some notable organizations that we garnered the best observations from were American Red Cross, Freedom House, NPR, and Rotary International. We created infographics of each organization to display each one's biggest key takeaways. 

Ideation

Crazy 8's Design Thinking

After research, my team and I compiled all our findings and decided that the main need for nonprofits was to find affordable and conveniently-located housing to a volunteering event or location. I spearheaded the design process for the mockup and used Crazy 8's to brainstorm some design ideas for a potential new partnership with nonprofit organizations. 

The design layout was inspired by Airbnb's website and app, which I studied and toggled through multiple times to understand the user interface of both platforms. 

Concept

Following this ideation phase, we decided to name our product proposal, Airbnbbenefit. With Airbnbbenefit, members and volunteers of nonprofit organizations can be connected with housing on a new platform of Airbnb. Organizations will partner with Airbnb and receive membership codes that connect users to available housing that can be shared with other nonprofit members with the same code. In addition, users who aren't involved in the organization directly can use this feature and search an organization name or specific volunteering activity. Airbnb will list out several organizations and their events and users have the choice to visit this event and use Airbnb listings while participating. This new platform opens up a new market for Airbnb as well as provides easier housing for nonprofit organizations.

Converging ideas

After reiterating these initial low-fidelity prototypes, my team and I also conducted a risk analysis. In this phase of the project, we determined a few major challenges:

1. How will volunteers or nonprofit members easily contact third-party housing when they must travel to a second- or third-world country? 
2. How will Airbnb ensure that the host can earn when there is a discounted fee involved? How can pricing still remain affordable?
3. How will Airbnb work with organizations like American Cancer Society or St. Jude's that have external housing programs for hospitalized patients or patients who require housing during care?

We decided to mitigate these risks with the following features:

Selecting housing

Once a home is selected, the user will be connected to a liaison from the nonprofit organization or event who will contact the host. There will be a messaging system that is similar to current Airbnb messaging so housing and regulations can be confirmed with the host. There will be a larger scale of liability and quality assurance because of the partnership with a nonprofit organization, which tend to have higher responsibility and ethical initiatives.

Registering

Nonprofit organizations will have a special code that is connected to an event location. This special code matches with other nonprofit members so you can easily share a home with other volunteers or co-workers. You can invite other volunteers part of your organization to split the cost. 

Patient Lodging

Organizations or hospitals may partner with Airbnb to provide overnight accommodations for patients who must travel for outpatient treatment and need assistance with lodging. Hosts will be subsidized by Airbnb or they may simply volunteer to offer their home and earn higher ratings by connecting with Airbnbbenefit. 

Final Iteration