FOR WELLBEING, PEACE, AND STEWARDSHIP OF THE PEOPLE and PLACES THAT HOST US
The experiences that change us can be designed to last.
TTI is a charity that learns how experiences change people, places and the living world, then shares what works through standards, training and community-led projects. It starts with travel and hospitality.
WHY THIS MATTERS
It starts with one person. A trail, a stranger's kitchen, a museum that rewrites a history or a view we thought we knew. We come home changed.
It reaches the people around us. Meeting someone whose life runs differently can change how we treat each other, at home and across borders.
It shapes the places that host us. When an experience works, people stay longer, spend locally and care for a place. When it doesn't, the place carries the cost.
It connects us to the living world. Time on the land and the water can turn into caring for it, long after we are home.
Most of this is left to chance. Whether it's a trip, a hotel stay, an event or a digital experience, we count who showed up and how they rated it. Almost no one measures what changed, or whether it lasted.
TTI exists to help that change last, by design. Our Stewardship Fund is built for experiences with that reach, in places around the world: schools where young people and travelers learn side by side, journeys where people meet across difference and practice peace, land that visitors help restore. Each one starts with a Project & Experience Map: who it is for, what it sets out to change, and how TTI will know.
Our vision for the future
Experiences are designed for what lasts, and the people who design them can show what changed. What that looks like:
People come home well, and stay well. Experiences restore and stretch the people who take part, and what they gain carries into daily life.
Strangers become neighbors. Travel and gathering bring people together across difference and build the understanding peace depends on.
Places are stronger for every visit. Communities lead the experiences in their own places, and visitors leave them better than they found them.
Time outdoors turns into care. People who walk the land and the water come home ready to protect it.
To get there, designing for lasting change becomes standard practice, every claim about an experience can be checked, and anyone can learn the craft. No company is paid to build this, which is why TTI is a charity, and why your gift matters.
“The goal of life is to make your heartbeat match the beat of the universe, to match your nature with Nature.”
Transformative experience research, design and standards
TTI is building the tools to find out what an experience changed, and to help people design for it.
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A shared description of what a well-designed experience includes, from the pace of a day and how guests are prepared, to how they meet their hosts. Written with people who design experiences, and being tested now.
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Research that asks what changed for the person taking part, the people around them, the place, and the team who delivered it, and whether it lasted weeks to months later. A working draft, in pilot.
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Foundations of Transformative Experience Design, with training priced so income is no barrier. TTI's practitioner certification program opens in fall 2027.
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Every project TTI takes on starts with a Project & Experience Map, is designed with the draft standards, is measured with the Experience Impact Profile, and ends in findings anyone can read, including where nothing lasted.
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Grants for experiences that local communities lead themselves, such as a trail they design and guide, or a school where travelers and residents learn together.
The founding year
TTI is in its founding year, through the end of 2027. This is the year its standards and research are tested on real experiences, in public.
Now
Practitioners are testing the draft standards on real trips and stays, through TTI's research with the USC College of Hospitality, Retail and Sport Management.
April 8, 2027
Practitioners, researchers and host communities refine the draft standards together at the Transformative Experience Symposium.
Summer 2027
The refined standards are published, with contributors named.
Fall 2027
TTI's practitioner certification program opens.
By the end of 2027
TTI publishes what the first Experience Impact Profile pilots found, including where nothing lasted.
Join the founding circle
Give $25 a month or $300 once by December 31, 2026, and fund the founding year's work. Joining makes you part of that year as it unfolds: you follow the testing, the Symposium and the first findings through quarterly updates.
the organzations partcipating in the founding year
The Transformative Experience field's first annual gathering.
What conditions, design choices, and economic structures make an experience change people for the better and leave the places that host it stronger?
Eight days, three experiences, built around one question
Nature Connection Walk April 4th-6th | The Mountain to Sound Greenway Trail ending in Issaquah, WA
Symposium Convening April 7th-9th | Day Break Star Indian Cultural Center in Seattle, WA with an optional stewardship reception in Issaquah Washington April 6th
Founding Year Gathering April 9th - 11th | Camano Island, WA with a focus on research and educational development
Who it's for
You design or deliver experiences (tour operators, hotels and lodges, guides, retreat and event leaders): mark up the draft standards in the room and take home what works.
You lead a destination or a community: see Washington as a live case, and meet the people who design experiences in places like yours.
You study experiences: help rank the research questions TTI tests next, at the Camano Island research weekend.
You fund or commission experiences: see what the Experience Impact Profile asks, and meet the people doing the work.