silentVIP for Good
Managed travel for nonprofits, volunteers and schools.
silentVIP for Good brings the managed travel program silentVIP runs for companies to nonprofit organizations: one policy, clear approvals, every trip coded to the grant or fund you choose, clean records for finance and auditors, and a travel team on call day and night. For volunteer teams, and for schools, colleges and universities too.
Run by silentVIP LLC's travel team in the New York area and Sydney. A commercial service, not a charity.
Example Community Health (fictional)
Department budget vs actual travel spend
Needs your approval
Denver → Albuquerque, 3 nights
Who it is for
Built for organizations with a mission
Staff, board members, partners, speakers, volunteers, teachers, students and researchers all travel for a mission. silentVIP for Good runs that travel as one program, with the controls these organizations are accountable for.
Nonprofit travel
A managed travel program for your organization
Policy, approvals, grant and fund allocation, finance reporting, duty of care and events, run by silentVIP's travel team.
- A policy staff can follow and funders can check
- Approvals before money is spent
- Every charge coded from booking, mapped to your grants and funds
- Itemized invoices and exports for audit
Volunteer travel
Volunteers and teams, where the work is
Disaster response, medical and building missions, conservation and community projects: teams booked together, rosters that change, and urgent help around the clock while they are away. Insurance, medical assistance and evacuation come from your insurer or assistance provider.
- Group travel from 10 attendees
- Roster changes handled, including name changes where the airline allows
- Itineraries, emergency contacts and traveler needs confirmed before departure
- Contact attempts when an incident affects their trip
Education
Schools, colleges and universities
Field trips and class tours, teams and competitions, study abroad, faculty conferences and research, admissions travel: organized, coded to the right budget and supported around the clock.
- Elementary, middle and high schools
- Colleges, universities and graduate schools
- Students and chaperones booked as guest travelers
- Research travel charged to the award
The problem
Travel is one of the hardest costs to keep clean
When travel is booked by whoever is traveling, on whichever card is nearest, and sorted out afterwards, the questions start later.
Booked everywhere
Personal cards, airline sites, a colleague's points. Nobody can say what the organization spent on travel this year until the receipts are in.
Charged to the wrong fund
A trip that served two programs lands on one grant, and the split is reconstructed months later for the report.
Missing documentation
Funders and auditors ask who approved it, why it was needed and how the cost was decided. The answers are in an email thread somewhere.
No one knows who is booked where
When there is a storm, a strike or an emergency, finding out which staff and volunteers are traveling in the area takes hours of calls.
Staff time lost to logistics
Program staff spend evenings comparing fares and rebooking canceled flights instead of doing the work they were hired for.
Groups are their own project
Board meetings, conferences and volunteer deployments each turn into a spreadsheet of names, flights and rooms.
How the program works
One program, from request to reconciliation
The same flow every time, whoever is traveling and whoever is paying.
Set up once
Your travelers, approvers, policy, cost codes and billing are set up during implementation (4 to 6 weeks).
Request a trip
A traveler, or the person who arranges travel for them, sends a request with dates, purpose and the grant or program it serves.
Choose from checked options
silentVIP's travel team sends options already checked against your policy. The traveler chooses one.
Approve before booking
If your rules need it, the traveler's named approver sees the cost, the policy result and the code it is charged to before anything is booked.
Travel with support
Urgent help 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, with incidents monitored and affected travelers contacted.
Pay and report
Itemized invoices, every line carrying its cost codes, and reports and exports ready for finance and funders.
Grants and restricted funds
Every trip charged to the money that paid for it
A site visit that served two grants and a state contract should be charged that way. Cost codes are attached when the trip is requested, travel with every charge, and can be corrected later with the change recorded.
- Codes chosen when the trip is requested
- The flight and the hotel can carry different codes
- Corrections recorded with an audit trail
- Exports your finance system can import
Site visit · Field office (example)
Duty of care
When something happens, a named person takes it on
Incident monitoring 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. When an incident affecting your travelers or volunteers is confirmed, the team matches it to trips booked through silentVIP, makes a first contact attempt within 30 minutes and keeps you updated on who has been reached.
Playbooks
How to organize it, step by step
Timelines, who does what, and the checklists to follow: for board meetings, conferences, site visits, volunteer deployments, school trips, team travel, budgets, audits and the first hour of an incident.
Resources
Free guides and tools for any nonprofit or school
Useful whether or not you work with us.
Writing a nonprofit travel policy
What to put in it, section by section, and what funders tend to ask about.
Learn moreGrant-funded travel
Documentation, allocation and the official sources to check.
Learn morePolicy builder
Answer a few questions and get a draft travel policy to edit.
Learn moreTravel budget planner
Plan a year of travel by program and fund, and export it.
Learn moreQuestions
What organizations ask first
Who is silentVIP for Good for?
Nonprofit organizations that want their travel run as a managed program (charities, foundations, associations, community, health and advocacy organizations); volunteer organizations and nonprofits that send volunteers; and schools, colleges and universities, from elementary schools to graduate schools.
Who actually books the travel?
silentVIP's own travel team. Travelers (or the people who arrange travel for them) send a request; the team sends options checked against your policy, each marked in or out of policy; the traveler chooses. There is no live self-service search today.
How do you get paid?
No supplier commissions. Every fee itemized on the option and on the invoice. Nothing hidden in the fare. Fees and terms for nonprofits and schools aren't published yet: they are set out in writing for each organization before anything starts.
Can trips be charged to grants and restricted funds?
Yes. Every charge carries an entity, department and project from the moment of booking, which you can map to your grants, funds and programs. Each charge carries one set of codes; to split a single charge between grants, record the split in your finance system. The codes travel onto invoices, reports and exports, and corrections are recorded.
What happens if something goes wrong while someone is traveling?
Urgent help is available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Urgent calls are acknowledged within 5 minutes, and when an incident affecting your travelers is confirmed, the team makes a first contact attempt within 30 minutes.
How long does it take to start?
Implementation usually takes 4 to 6 weeks: your travelers, policy, approvers, cost codes and billing are set up, and the people who arrange travel are shown how to use the portal.
Tell us how your organization travels today
Who travels, how it is booked and paid for, and what you want to fix. A person reads every inquiry and replies by email.