Volunteer Global

By now you’ve probably learned that volunteer vacations often cost about as much as a regular vacation. If my Google Analytics map is any indication, you’re probably a college student, or at least living in a college town – and that means you likely don’t have a lot of money to drop on a volunteer trip.

Of course there are many inexpensive volunteer programs, which is really great! But what about your plane ticket, immunizations, or personal expenses?

Online Fundraising

There are several sites you can use for this – two that I’ll talk about are PayPal and Kickstarter.

PayPal – Everybody knows this one. I mention it since people who are wary of sending money online usually are familiar with PayPal. It's free to use, and individuals can pay through their own bank accounts without picking up a PayPal debit card first. You can set up specific or "choose your own" donation amounts, and include a link or a button on a signature, blog, your own website, or a friend’s site.

Kickstarter: The big difference between these two is that unless you raise a specific amount by a certain date on Kickstarter, all of your money will be refunded back to the donors. It's a pretty cool incentive to promote the heck out of your trip.

Door-to-Door Collections

Outside of college dorms, this probably won’t work unless you're a Girl Scout, a high school sports team, or a middle school band kid who really needs money for that trip to Disneyworld. So in other words, if you're under 18 this'll work, and if you're any older than that, people kind of get annoyed and angry that you're bothering them at home.

But if you’re in college, you’ve got an extension! Cut a hole in a can, knock on every dormroom door you can find and say, “Hey, so I’m raising money for [totally awesome cause], can you spare a couple bucks?” This works even better if you have a couple of friends with you and you have pictures of where you’re going. No really, it's effective; I’ve done this several times.

Business Donations

Yep, you can get businesses to help you out. Two ways I recommend are:

Testing a product: Find a business with a product you’ll use on your trip, such as a camera, a backpack, hiking boots, etc. Use it and write about it. I know people who do this for a living, as well as individuals who’ve done it for a one-off trip.

Advertising: This is great for small, local business funding. If you have a blog or a website, you can dedicate ad space or a "Thank you" entry in exchange for some funding on your trip. It’s free to set up a blog, and it’s inexpensive and easy to customize a template and set up a pretty great, dedicated website. You’ll drive traffic to the business, and they’ll help pay for your volunteer trip.

Old Fashioned Fundraising

Bake sale! Carwash! Stuff like that. I wouldn’t really recommend the candy bar or popcorn sale thing, since that’s really aimed more toward group expenses – but hey, if you’re fundraising as a group for an alternative break or similar, then by all means, go for it!

Grant or Scholarship Funding

This is for long-term volunteering – you can receive grant money and college credit for pursuing independent research projects alongside a semester- or summer-long volunteer program. You’ll have to speak with your school about this, and make sure that this is doable well in advance of booking your trip.

Have any more ideas? Stories? Comment below!

Photos courtesy of Amy Herrera.