A Hotel Brand Based on Charity, the Purpose Hotel

What if you could change the world in your sleep? That’s the slogan for The Purpose Hotel — photographer and humanitarian Jeremy Cowart’s revolutionary hotel concept.

Cowart had stayed in countless hotels while traveling for work, first to photograph celebrities and then while building his nonprofit, Help-Portrait. He realized hotels had the potential to help the world by bringing together ethically sourced products.

“As soon as I had that idea,” Cowart told Condé Nast Traveller, “I looked at the TV. There was porn [on it]. I thought, what if there was a documentary on social change [instead]? I realized everything in the room could come from a nonprofit.”

(Besides, you’ve got porn on your phone if you’re that hard up.)

Cowart’s vision extends beyond TV programming. As he explains in his Kickstarter video, each room in The Purpose Hotel sponsors a child’s education. Every product you interact with, from those in the mini bar to the ones on sale in the lobby gift shop, benefit important causes. At the end of your stay, rather than a typical receipt, you receive visual evidence of the impact you made on the world.

The first Purpose hotel will be built in Nashville. To bring the idea to life, Cowart is looking to raise $2 million — about $98 million less than it will cost to realistically complete the project. But as he told Condé Nast Traveler, “The two million is to tell a story.”

So what does your Kickstarter pledge get you? Fork over $75, and you’re a “co-founder,” with your portrait hung in every Purpose Hotel that is built.

“I’m asking you to help me build it,” Cowart says, “because humanity desperately needs it.”

Whether a new hotel will actually move the needle on the many issues we’re facing as a planet may be debatable, but as a branding concept, we’re sold.