The Nightlight Project is an initiative from Ronald McDonald House Charity & McDonald’s using the Airbnb community that seeks to provide accommodation to families when RMHC houses have reached capacity.

This idea activates communities of hosts around hospitals, donating their properties to the cause. This ensures that every family has a free place to stay, every night - even when the Ronald McDonald House itself is full.

The initiative also enables RMHC to raise wider awareness - driving donations, which enables the charity to build more houses, in turn accommodating and supporting more families in need.

We initiated the project with a trial, based around one Ronald McDonald House in Randwick, Sydney. This House is especially busy being situated next to Sydney Children’s Hospital and regularly turns away up to 30 families every week.

Working with Airbnb, we created a message template which asked hosts (selected based on certain criteria such as rating), to donate their property, for free, to a family in need. When the house reached capacity, this message was sent out to the hosts, through the Airbnb hosting platform.

When the host accepted, their property was added to a list in a dedicated Airbnb portal, only accessible to RMHC staff. This portal allowed them to browse the properties, select the most appropriate accommodation option and then coordinate between host and family to activate the stay.

The Nightlight Project meets an immediate need by facilitating overflow accommodation for families with seriously ill children. It has solved a critical business problem for Ronald McDonald House by allowing the charity to welcome more families into a caring environment.

It does not replace the need for increased donations to the Ronald McDonald House Charity to build further accommodation. It has been proven as a viable option for the charity, with dozens of families having already been part of the initiative, and providing great feedback to help shape the program for the future.

The purpose of the Nightlight is not to build awareness or create brand recognition. The Nightlight is a solution for families in desperate and stressful times, easing their mental burden and helping provide stability in an otherwise uncertain time.

Since the Nightlight began, no family has been turned away from Ronald McDonald House in Randwick.