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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

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INTER-RAIL EUROPE

From Lapland to the Sahara: with one little ticket, travel freely on Europe's trains for up to a month.

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YOUR MONEY PLANNER - V1.0

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

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Fundraising for travelling and volunteering

Successful fundraising made easy

Sarah Wood writes...

"Exhausted by exams? Desperate for freedom before university or a career? But how do you make the most of a year out if you're not gifted in the pecuniary department?

Well, they do say that 'need makes the naked man run' (apparently), and the most motivated adventurers are commonly those who aren’t covered by the parental platinum card. If we want a gap year-shaped chunk of life experience, we have to cobble together the pennies for it.

But how? Well, motivation is a cumulative thing. Personally, once I’d summoned up enough of it to find the first hundred quid, the more enthusiastic I became about raising the rest. Whether you are planning for Inter-railing round Europe or a camel rodeo in Mongolia, the methods are the same. Firstly, get a job as soon as possible, if you don't already have one. I found this difficult, despite - or perhaps because of - my A levels, but eventually found a temporary classroom assistant post; this provided a slice of the real world as well as half-decent pay. Plus, once you’ve negotiated your way through the taxperson’s P-forms, you can do anything. Then there’s shift work. This can be hellish, but with overtime, it’s possible to accumulate thousands over just a few months.

If your venture is charitable - then people are kind. I chose Raleigh International because I knew I would definitely be doing something worthwhile. Furthermore, I was actually raising money for a charity rather than asking people to fund some jolly jaunt. I definitely recommend the charity route as opposed to self-funded travel, which, given the state of university fees, I couldn’t have contemplated.

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Sponsored piano playing

The largest proportion of my funds came from packing shopping bags. Send letters to supermarket managers now and you could get a peak Christmas slot. Other stores donated items which I subsequently used as prizes for a quiz, charging £1 per entry. It’s easy to overlook schemes that bring in money in smaller chunks, but they really will add up. Promise. Flog your junk on Ebay or at a car boot sale. Write letters to tried and tested sources of donations like include the Round Table, Rotary Club, and local churches and charities - in return for a report or presentation afterwards. I searched the internet and the Charity Commission website; one foundation I found by virtue of Google donated £50, and another contributed the hefty sum of £750.

The Directory of Grant-Making Trusts is often cited as a resource of charitable funding, but after an entire day spent in the library sifting through said weighty tome, I beg to differ. Most of the listed trusts directly discourage individuals from applying and out of around fifty letters sent, only a few bothered acknowledging me.

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One big sponsored event can be very worthwhile. I walked for 30km on the Raleigh Trek Challenge in London, and collected £400 of my £3200 target for the privilege. Classics such as swims and silences are great, but there is many an urban legend apropos pushing potatoes for a mile with one’s nose and such like. If you can handle making a spectacle of yourself, call in the local news and hear the money roll in!

The brass neck factor can be quite important. You might, for example, consider putting atheist, egalitarian principles on ice while you Hark the Herald Angels round the grandiose houses of your local wealthy types, as did yours truly and friends one deep, crisp and tornadic Christmas Eve. Shameless? Possibly. Financially rewarding? Very. More so if you can harmonise. Also, music pays so if you’ve got an instrument, play it, and charge people to hear - my local church let me stage a fully-blown piano recital there so use your contacts, and ask nicely!

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Getting involved with schools is always a good idea...

Getting involved with schools is always a good idea...

If all else fails, and even if it doesn’t, there’s always school which was one of my first ports of call. I started fundraising there over two years in advance of my actual expedition and they were wonderfully generous and all they asked in return was an article for the magazine.

I can only offer my subjective wisdom, but - at the risk of sounding like some dodgy gap year guru - I promise that the more hours spent slogging away at fundraising and in purgatorial temp jobs, the more rewarding the expedition, and the overall experience. Rather than being just another rite of passage, it’s an opportunity to grow up and explore all sides of the world... and to have a lot of fun."

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