Sustainability isn't a program we run.
It's the reason IOI exists.
WHO WE ARE
Intercultural Outreach Initiative funds and delivers long-term conservation, education and social-development projects in partnership with local institutions — in Isabela, Galapagos, and Cayos Cochinos, Honduras.
OUR STORY & MISSION
The work is the point. The trip is how it gets paid for.
We don't do this alone, and we don't do it briefly. Every project is co-designed with the communities and institutions who live with the results long after a volunteer or student goes home. International education is how we make that possible — volunteers, interns and study abroad students fund and staff the work.
IOI began in 2006, when founder Johann Besserer turned a master's thesis on community-based conservation into a working program on Isabela Island. What started as one project has grown into a standing partnership with Ecuador's Galapagos National Park, its biosecurity agency (ABG) and its governing council (CGREG) — formalized under a cooperation agreement with the Government of Ecuador, and independently evaluated every year since at least 2018.
That model now transfers. In Cayos Cochinos, Honduras, we work with Fundación Cayos Cochinos to carry nearly two decades of regional practice into a second protected archipelago — long-term projects centered on community needs and priorities, starting with what took the longest to build in Isabela: trust, and a local partner defining what's actually needed.
Our mission: to provide international education programs that support the education, conservation, and social development of isolated communities by assisting local institutions in sustainably handling the human-environmental intersection.
WHAT WE DO
01
We offer volunteer opportunities in conservation, education, and social development, that provide our participants with life changing experiences, and our local partners with funding, expertise, and human power on site.
02
We offer study abroad programs in which students spend up to three months studying the local environment and learning the local culture.
03
We develop and implement outreach projects with local institutions that address pressing conservation, education, and social development needs via fundraising and grants.
We strive to help establish ecological sustainability and social stability in our host communities.
We apply thoughtful assistance and expertise to local needs — financed by educational travel programs.
HOW WE WORK
01
We partner.
Every project starts with a local institution — a national park, a biosecurity agency, a community foundation — defining what's needed. Not us.
02
We staff and fund it through international education.
Volunteers, interns and study abroad students bring the hands, funding and momentum, working alongside our Ecuadorian and Honduran staff.
03
We stay.
Our commitment isn't a semester — it's a standing partnership, evaluated every year by the institutions we work with, not just by us.
THE TEAM
IOI is a small team and most of us live in the communities where we work.
THE BOARD
JOHANN BESSERER
Founder and Executive Director
EQUADOR TEAM
SARAH LUZ RUIZ
Director, Ecuador
RAFALELA CHAVEZ
BEATRIZ TIGSE VEGA
Groups Program Manager, Galapagos
Accounting and Procurement, Galapagos
BENJAMIN RUTTENBERG
Science Council
DANIEL PONCE-TAYLOR
FIORELLA RENDON
MARITZA SERANO
ROBERTA RAND
Board Member
Sustainability and Strategic Partnerships Director
Conservation Programs Manager, Galapagos
Project Assistant, Galapagos
ERIN GINDER-SHAW
Communication Council
MONIQUE MANCILLA
Director of Operations
EMILIO RODRIGUEZ
Volunteer Program Manager, Galapagos
Sector expertise
IOI's work is delivered by a mostly Ecuadorian team of program managers, coordinators and field staff who live in Isabela — with decades of combined experience across conservation, education and community development in Latin America, Africa and the Pacific.
That local delivery is backed by an active role in the frameworks our sector reports against. Our Sustainability and Strategic Partnerships Director, Daniel Ponce-Taylor, sits on CANIE's Global Board and the Council Board of the Forum on Education Abroad, and has co-chaired NAFSA's Sustainability SAG and the Gap Year Association's Sustainability Committee, and contributed to the working groups behind the CANIE Accord and the Forum's Guidelines for Advancing the SDGs through Education Abroad.
We don't just report against sector standards — our team helps shape them, and then holds our own programs to them.
OUR PARTNERS
Dirección del Parque Nacional Galapagos (DPNG)
Our founding and longest-running partnership. Under a cooperation agreement with the Government of Ecuador, IOI supports DPNG's forest nursery, giant tortoise breeding program, and sea turtle nesting protection on Puerto Villamil beach — independently evaluated every year, most recently certified at 100% program execution with zero incidents (2024).
UNIVERSITY PARTNERS
Galapagos National Park
Agencia de Regulación y Control de la Bioseguridad (ABG)
Galapagos' biosecurity agency. IOI funds and staffs vaccination, sterilization and pest-control campaigns that protect the islands' endemic wildlife from introduced disease and invasive species.
Galapagos National Park
Consejo de Gobierno de Galapagos (CGREG)
Together with CGREG, IOI runs community education, host-family support and local infrastructure projects that benefit Isabela families directly.
CAYOS COCHINOS, HONDURAS
Galapagos National Park
Fundación Cayos Cochinos
We develop and implement outreach projects with local institutions that address pressing conservation, education, and social development needs via fundraising and grants.
Program and credit partners who send students to study, intern or volunteer with IOI — including Tulane University, whose faculty-led cohort ran our first Cayos Cochinos program in March 2025.
We work because our partners let us.
ISABELA, GALAPAGOS
Galapagos National Park
Program and credit partners who send students to study, intern or volunteer with IOI — including Tulane University, whose faculty-led cohort ran our first Cayos Cochinos program in March 2025.
CAREERS
We hire people who want to stay a while – not just visit.
IOI is a small, mostly local team doing work that depends on continuity. There are no open roles listed right now — register your interest at info@ioi.ngo and we'll be in touch when something opens.
