Advertisers

Fundraising for travelling and volunteering

Work as a charity fundraiser

Raise funds for deserving charities and earn money for your gap year at the same time

Find out more >>

YOUR MONEY PLANNER - V1.0

Download our FREE gap year financial planner.
Useful charts and planners to help you budget for your trip!

Find out more >>

Fundraising for travelling and volunteering

Top tips for fundraising

Name: Chloe Day
Age: 21
From: Wakefield, West Yorkshire

During my gap year in 2002/3 I spent four months in Kenya, working as a volunteer teacher of English, Music, PE, HIV/AIDS Education and Art at a rural primary school in a little town called Turbo in Western Province for a term and travelling at weekends and for a month when I finished my placement. I’m also the Senior Charity Rep. for my college at uni so I’ve done a fair bit of fundraising. That's why I thought I'd share some of my tips!

I funded the majority of my project costs (about £3,500) by working at weekends while I was at sixth form and then working full time for a few months when I came home. My advice job-wise is to check out some of the recruitment agencies in your area. This has a number of advantages:

- Lion

The agency looks for work for you so you don’t have to traipse around shops and places or trawl through newspapers looking for openings.
- Many companies only employ short-term staff through agencies because it saves them having to do the legwork so this means you can be offered jobs that you otherwise wouldn’t know about or be able to apply for.
- You can have your say about the type of job you’re interested in and what the minimum hourly payment you’ll accept is.
- Often you’ll qualify for holidays even if you’re only working for a few weeks and if you don’t take them off you just get the pay in a lump sum when you finish.
- There’s nothing to stop you registering with as many agencies as you want; this gives you more offers and you can turn down and accept whichever jobs you like - you’re in control.

As well as working I also received some donations from local charitable organisations, like Rotary Clubs, Round Tables and Lions Clubs. Obviously if you’re just going backpacking then you won’t stand much chance of getting any help from them, but if you’re participating in some kind of project then it might be worth getting in touch. All you need to do is look up clubs and organisations local to you and it’s likely that there will be several. Try to find the name and contact address of the Secretary or President of each club and write them a letter explaining your situation, details of the project you’re planning on doing including costs and your reasons for doing it and say that you’re writing to them in the hope that they may be able to offer you some financial help towards it.

Click here >> for advice on writing letters for funding
Click here >> to find your local Rotary Clubs
Click here >> to find your local Round Tables
Click here >> to find your local Lions Clubs

Cutting back on your general expenditure can save you a lot of cash. The trip of a lifetime is a pretty good incentive to help you spend less on buying stuff like clothes and CDs and going out. Sometimes it helps to think of savings as what their equivalent would be when you’re away, like if I was going back to Kenya then the £25 I save every time I don’t go out when I normally would at home will pay for my food and accommodation for 2 whole days.

Click here >> for more money saving goals

People in Kenya

In the summer of 2004 I returned to East Africa with my project partner and two of my friends from uni both to travel in Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania but also to take sports equipment, art materials, story books and teaching aids to the school I worked at and also some other schools in the area. For this trip our focus for fundraising was making money to buy the equipment with both in the UK and in Kenya. This meant that we were each willing to fund our own travel expenses, although we did apply to a travel bursaries fund at uni and were given £100 each.

We managed to raise £2200 altogether to buy the equipment for the school and we did this in a number of ways:

- £600 was raised through a coffee morning that my friend’s church at home ran on the Isle of Man including a raffle and cake sale.
- £215 was raised by Northwood Elementary School in Toronto because the Principal of the school is a family friend of mine and they wanted to do something to help my school in Kenya. The kids at the two schools are also now pen-pals.
- I wrote to a number of Rotary Clubs, Round Tables and Lions Clubs both in my area and also the area of my university and although some of them had to say no, we still had £250 donated.
- One businessman that I met when I went to speak at a meeting of one of the Rotary Clubs at home decided that he would like to help more and his company gave us sponsorship of £500.
- Another of my friends worked at a pub at home over the first part of the summer and ran a raffle there that raised £265.
- We also had some donations from friends and family.

Click here >> for more fundraising ideas

Here are a few things to think about when you’re planning your fundraising events:

- Elephants

Publicity is really important. The more people that know about an event the more people are likely to come. So sit down and have a think about the best way to advertise things, email, posters, word of mouth etc.
- Be organised. You need to plan ahead to get the best out of fundraising ideas and if you seem efficient and professional then there’s more chance people will donate money.
- People will need to feel that they can put their faith in you and you will actually do what you say you’re going to with the money they hand over. Make sure you come across as being trustworthy.
- Give people as much information as possible so that they feel they know where their money is going, but be aware that it may be beneficial for you to put the emphasis on different pieces of the information depending on the circumstances and who it is that you’re trying to get money from.
- Make sure you write to people to thank them for their generosity. It’s general courtesy but also, if you think you might need more money in the future they may be more inclined to give you some then. I normally send a letter when I get back as well, usually with some photos, like a little report so that people know how my trip went.

I think it's important that people know where their money went and that you thank them for the donation. Sometimes a little thanks goes a long way.

Further info