The Airbnb logo is displayed on soccer balls during a news conference in Houston in 2025, at which the company announced that it would invest $1.3 million in Houston ahead of the 2026 FIFA World Cup. In October 2026, Airbnb announced that it will donate 10 cents from every booking on the site to Airbnb.org, an independent nonprofit that provides free emergency housing to people displaced by disasters or otherwise in crisis.
Kirk Sides/Houston Chronicle
Former Houston City Council member Jerry Davis, left, Houston City Council member Julian Ramirez and Airbnb Director of Global Campaigns Laura Spanjian speak during a news conference in Houston in 2025. In October 2026, Airbnb announced that it will donate 10 cents from every booking on the site to Airbnb.org, an independent nonprofit that provides free emergency housing to people displaced by disasters or otherwise in crisis.
Kirk Sides/Houston Chronicle
Airbnb has a new plan to raise hundreds of millions of dollars for emergency housing, 10 cents at a time.
The company announced Wednesday that it will donate $0.10 from every stay booked on its platform to Airbnb.org, an independent nonprofit created six years ago that provides free temporary housing to people displaced by disasters, traveling for medical treatment or otherwise in crisis.
To date, Airbnb.org has been funded by donations, with Airbnb itself as the biggest donor. The company’s size means those thin dimes will stack up, said Airbnb.org executive director Christoph Gorder in an interview: Airbnb has about nine million listings around the world. With the new funding mechanism, the nonprofit projects that it can raise $500 million over the next five years, and said it will aim to provide one million nights of free housing annually.
Article continues below this ad
“That will provide us a lot of resources to be able to house people for free, which will allow us to help more people and more causes,” he said. “Secondly, as a nonprofit, what it does is it provides us a sustainable source of revenue.”
RELATED: Houston remains one of the cheapest US cities for World Cup Airbnb stays
Gorder said that Airbnb.org traces its roots to 2012’s Hurricane Sandy, which displaced thousands along the East Coast. In the wake of that disaster, he said, one of the company’s existing hosts reached out to the company, asking if she could make her home available for free. This spurred the company to partner with New York City, ultimately providing free temporary housing to about 1,400 people who had been displaced.
The independent nonprofit was created in 2020, when Airbnb itself went public, and has seen demand grow. In 2023, the nonprofit said, it provided free temporary housing in response to eight disasters. So far this year, that number has grown to more than 200.
Article continues below this ad
All told, Gorder said, the nonprofit has provided 1.6 million nights of free stays around the world over the past six years, about 33,000 of them in Texas.
In all cases, the nonprofit partners with local organizations to make arrangements. After the 2025 floods in central Texas, for example, Airbnb.org partnered with the Community Foundation of the Texas Hill Country.
RELATED: Airbnb will invest $1.3 million in Houston World Cup community initiatives
Consumers will not see a price increase, Gorder said, with the new funding stream. The ten cents will come out of Airbnb’s service fee. Hosts, similarly, will be notified that the booking is being made by a guest of Airbnb.org, and can lower their rates if they are so inclined, although they are not obligated to do so.
Over the years, he added, he has seen hosts go above and beyond — driving guests to medical appointments, for example, or helping gather baby clothes and supplies.
Article continues below this ad
“The reality is that neighbors have been helping neighbors in tough times forever. We didn’t invent this,” he said. “We’re bringing technology to it to be able to superpower this, to do it at a scale and a speed that was not possible before. But we’re tapping into that basic human instinct.”
Ultimately, he said, he could see Airbnb.org as a key organization in crisis situations, analogous to Doctors Without Borders, which provides emergency medical care, or World Central Kitchen, which focuses on fresh food.
“There isn’t any other technology out there to be able to do this and just give people a stable, dignified place to stay, catch their breath, figure out what’s next,” Gorder said. “So we know we can do a lot more, and this is gonna get us to the next level.”