cornwall based ceo invests thousands in madagascar start-up
This is a tell-all piece written by the TSAP Travel CEO (me) Chloe. I’m going to be giving you the inside scoop into the TSAP Travel journey and yes, I have invested the money I’ve earned to ignite change in Madagascar.
Let me introduce myself
Hi, I’m Chloe, I’m 23 years old and I grew up in a village on the outskirts of Dover in the South East of England. In 2019, I wasn’t having the best time and I decided to apply to university (having decided not to go in 2017), however, before I went I decided to use the little savings I did have to volunteer in Madagascar.
The decision to volunteer in Madagascar changed my life forever. Having turned a 5 week volunteer abroad trip, into a 3 month culturally immersive experience, I discovered an undeniable love for Madagascar and its people.
It was soon time to return to the UK where I began a Business and Management degree at Falmouth University. The course was incredible and gave me the opportunity to research industries which I was interested in. Which meant I could dedicate a percentage of my degree to researching the voluntourism industry.
Having started the degree with no intention of starting a business, as the course came to an end I incorporated The Sustain Ability Project CIC (aka TSAP Travel). At the time I still wasn’t sure if it would be a volunteer abroad company, as we were still experiencing a global pandemic. So having never started a business before, I embarked on the Entrepreneurship masters at Falmouth University.
Moving on
Whilst doing the MSc Entrepreneurship masters through 2021 and 2022, I was building TSAP Travel, networking with people, recruiting volunteers and raising some money. Fortunately, I managed to raise £2,000 which meant I could employ Giles Pitman (from PitmanFilms) to join me in Madagascar and record an informative documentary. However, £2,000 wasn’t going to be enough to launch a volunteer abroad company 6,000 miles away, with flight prices over £1,300.
Meanwhile, other funding stream options such as grants just weren’t an option and even today grant funds aren’t as readily available as you might think. Often you need data, data that couldn’t get without delivering a pilot project. So I focused my efforts on recruiting volunteers, however, this too had its challenges. I have identified our ideal volunteer to be a university student looking to travel and gain work experience. Many universities don’t allow you to advertise opportunities that students have to pay for, which I thought was interesting. I completely understand their perspective but I also believe adults can make their own informed decisions.
During this time, I was continuing to stalk flight comparison websites and in April flight prices finally went down to a reasonable price, in that moment I booked my flight ticket. Meanwhile, there still wasn’t much money in the bank and there weren’t few signs of money coming.
At this point I acknowledged that if I wanted TSAP Travel to be successful, I was saying goodbye to some of my savings…
investing thousands
The short answer is yes, I have invested almost £6,000 into the business to date. Whilst we are lucky to recruit a couple of volunteers here and there, often they don’t cover what it costs to run the organisation. Meanwhile, we only deliver in-country volunteering projects for three months a year, meaning cash flow can be hard!
Just to give you an idea of how we spend our money, have a look below:
Monthly:
£300 - local employees
£50 - resources
£28 - website
£20 - marketing
£14 - accounts
International Staff Costs (Yearly):
£2000 - travel costs
£2150 - living costs
So far, I have been covering these costs through investing in the business. I work a 9-5 to ensure English Classes continue and so that together we can ensure brighter futures for all in Madagascar. Whether that’s putting a smile on a tuk tuk drivers face as he takes volunteers and I to a workshop or gifting a laptop to one of our entrepreneurs. Despite having invested thousands in the past year, the joy that it brings to the Malagasy community is priceless.
in all honesty we need your help
I rarely publicly share the impact of financially investing in a start-up is. I still house share, limit my personal spends and work extra jobs to generate money to ensure we can continue our hard work. It can be overwhelming knowing how many people rely on TSAP Travel programmes and how excited they are for our future plans.
However, I can’t invest thousands in the company forever and that’s where you come in. We are launching TSAP Travel Prints, a place where you can purchase prints and postcards of places around the world. Not only will you be able to purchase prints of the images we take here in Madagascar, you’ll be able to purchases images from around the world taken by other photographers. You can submit your prints by WeTransfering your images to chloe.lingard@tsaptravel.com and you can purchase our physical and digital prints here.
You can also support our specific projects and staff members through our donations page.