All Wheels Up
This nonprofit gives away harnesses and slings designed to make air travel more accessible for those with reduced mobility. Read more about the group's work in a recent Frommer's feature. www.allwheelsup.org
Choose Love
For many of us, crossing international borders is as simple as buying a plane ticket and showing a passport. But across the globe, a huge segment of humankind is in a refugee crisis. At Choose Love, you can use a menu to pick where you want your donation to go, from reuniting families that have been separated by borders to funding job training to providing food and health care. us.choose.love
Doctors Without Borders / Médecins Sans Frontières
This group, which travels to provide essential medical care where it’s not readily available, already had its hands full before Covid-19. Now the NGO is stretching even further and racing against the clock to mitigate the severe disruptions the pandemic has had on essential health services. www.doctorswithoutborders.org
Elephant Nature Park
There are only about 30,000 Asian elephants left, which is less than 10% of the number of surviving African elephants, which are also endangered. Elephant Nature Park (pictured above), near Chiang Mai, Thailand, is a sanctuary for Asian elephants, including ones that have been rescued from abusive tourism practices. www.elephantnaturepark.org
Global Volunteers
If you don’t have the budget to make a big financial contribution, you can still help by donating your time. Global Volunteers, one of the oldest programs of its kind, plays matchmaker between international programs and manpower. It also accepts donations. globalvolunteers.org
Tourism Cares
This group works with local travel and tourism businesses to teach them how to operate with a “positive social, environmental, and economic impact” that can sustain destinations for years to come. Tourism Concern, which led the field for 30 years, closed down in 2018 for lack of funds, but Tourism Cares has a high score for financial accountability from the watchdog group Charity Navigator—which, by the way, is an excellent source to help you evaluate the trustworthiness of charities of every stripe. tourismcares.org
