Kayla Ferdon | Global Campaign Manager, Orbitz in Chicago

Besides my actual day job as a Global Campaign Manager, my favorite thing about working at Expedia Group is Expedia Cares, our incredible charitable giving benefits, that extend well beyond just monetary donation match.

Before working at Expedia Group, I worked for a wonderful nonprofit organization. Unfortunately, that nonprofit didn’t have a physical office, and after a few years, I was craving a job that allowed me to interact with fellow humans, face-to-face, on a regular basis. An opportunity opened up at Orbitz, one of Expedia Group’s many travel brands, which sounded great, but I was hesitant to make the move from the nonprofit sector to a large, corporate company because I was afraid I’d be losing my ability to give back and feel fulfilled.

My concerns disappeared when I learned about the company’s incredible charitable giving program.

Most companies today have a corporate match program where they will match every dollar you donate to charity. Expedia Group goes well beyond that. They understand that not everyone can donate money all of the time. EG also matches the time you donate to charitable organizations.

For every hour you volunteer (that does not conflict with your work hours), you receive $15 (or local currency equivalent) in donation dollars that go into a bank where you can allocate the funds to the charity of your choice at any time.

I volunteer with the Human Rights Campaign, Chicago Scholars and the Chicago Architecture Foundation. If I spend two hours on a Wednesday evening helping one of my mentees from Chicago Scholars proofread her college admissions essay, and then two hours on a Saturday afternoon helping HRC organize their annual gala, I can log those four hours and donate the $60 in donation dollars to Chicago Scholars, HRC, a different organization, or split it between a few. I can also save them to build up a bigger balance for a larger donation to one organization. This is seriously my favorite work perk ever and I hit the maximum time-match benefit every year.

If that wasn’t enough, we also empower our employees to volunteer together, building community within the organization. Each September, we organize the Expedia Group annual Day of Caring, a day when all Expedia Group employees are given a day off of work to go out into the community, as a group, and volunteer. I’m a member of the Chicago chapter of the Expedia Volunteers affinity group and for Day of Caring 2018 in Chicago, we organized opportunities everywhere from the Greater Chicago Food Depository to animal shelters to beach cleanups to preparing for a bike race to fight AIDS.

Throughout the year, we organize other activities too, in and out of our office. This year for National Volunteer Week, we planned different activities each day for the whole week. Last October, we hosted a volunteer fair where we invited nonprofit organizations to come into our office and tell our employees more about who they are and how to get involved.

And I’m not done yet! Expedia Group also has this really special Global Ambassadors Program, a yearly organized trip where a few lucky employees are sent somewhere in the world and work to understand how we can support tourism and sustainable living in that area. It’s adventure and culture and philanthropy all tied into one, and I am dying to get invited. The ambassadors are selected at random from the pool of individuals who participate in any of our various charitable giving opportunities. Since I hope to stay with EG forever, I hope I’ll get picked someday.

I’m so thankful that I found an organization that allows me to work in, let me just say, the coolest office space ever, with some of the smartest people around, all while allowing me to feel good about our collective efforts giving back to our world.

Learn more about how Expedia Cares: https://www.expediacares.com/