About Us

Who are we?

Burners Without Borders (BWB) is a grassroots, volunteer-driven, community leadership program of the Burning Man Project. Our goal is to unlock creativity to solve local problems and bring about meaningful change. BWB supports volunteers around the world in innovative civic solutions and community resiliency projects.

What does this look like?

The important thing is to create collaborations and bring as much creativity and fun to the project as possible. The BWB website is intended to be the mouthpiece for this community’s efforts as well as a catalyst for inspiring new ideas.

Mission

BWB promotes activities around the globe that support a community’s inherent capacity to thrive by encouraging innovative approaches to community resilience, disaster response, and grassroots initiatives that make a positive impact.

BWB Theory of Change

Inspirational stories and prototypes, matched with learning opportunities and network support, creates leaders ready to take on projects that create localized impact at home and ultimately fosters more connected, creative and resilient communities.

Founding Belief:

People have the inherent capacity to solve their own problems, and social transformation is within reach of all communities.

4 Pillars of Programming

Experiment (project concepts and prototypes)

Amplify (storytelling and media)

Learn (learning and teaching)

Connect (network facilitation and support)

History

BWB began following the 2005 Burning Man event, when several participants headed south into the Hurricane Katrina disaster area to help rebuild. As their volunteer numbers grew, they focused on rebuilding a destroyed Vietnamese temple in Biloxi, Mississippi. After several months, that job done, they moved to another Mississippi community, Pearlington, to continue to work hard — gifting their time — to help those in need.

Over the course of eight months, BWB volunteers gifted over $1 million dollars worth of reconstruction and debris removal to the residents of Mississippi. Over the last two decades, BWB has refined its mission and its theory of change, while remaining true to its roots as a creative, community-led expression of the Burning Man Project 10 Principles in action out in the world.