Fund My Exchange
HOW CAN YOU FUND YOUR EXCHANGE?
You may be wondering what you can do between now and your exchange. Well here is the simple answer: Raise Money!
There are so many reasons to raise money, everything from cutting the cost of the exchange program, to raising spending money. YFU is a great experience, but just like any sort of travel it costs money. Now this may lead you to ask; "How do I raise money". This does not have a simple answer, but this page will help you through the whole process. Fund my exchange will give you resources to help you throughout your fundraising experience. You will find templates and forms to help you plan and organize, webinars and stories about effective ways to fundraising, and you will find creative ideas to get you inspired.
Step 1: Goal Setting
Setting Small Manageable Goals
The first step for any project is planning. For fundraising it is important to make a plan that lays out your monetary goals, as well as brainstorming ways of raising this money. Be sure to set deadlines, and divide up your monetary goal for each deadline.
Large goals can be hard to achieve in one event, so try and break it up. If you are trying to raise $1000 either split into 10 small $100 events, or 4 larger $250 events. If your trip is a year away you have plenty of time to split up your large goal into many smaller goals. This will make your fundraising seem more manageable. How you set your deadlines is up to you. Some suggestions are setting an overall or monthly deadline, and setting your payment due dates as deadlines. Below is a form that can help you organize your thoughts. It is very important that throughout your fundraising you stay organziased.
- Why am I raising funds?
- What will I achieve thanks to my donors/supporters?
- Why is this important?
- What kind of support do I ask for?
Something under a minute that you can give to companies, family, or anyone who is interested in what you will be doing with YFU, and why you believe that YFU is crucial to your education.
Planning Templates
Step 2: Creating An Action Plan
So You Have Ideas...Now How Will You Implement Them?
After brainstorming or getting inspiration from our Ideas Page below, it is time to create an action plan. The form below will help you plan for each of your events. For each of your fundraising attempts use the form to figure out costs and what your goal is. Use it too figure out what supplies you need, if you need any help, and what you need to do to advertise and prepare for the event.
Staying organized is the key to having successful fundraising events. You won't be able to successfully fundraise if you throw it together overnight.
Some more Questions:
- Who do I want to ask for support?
- Who can help me with my fundraising?
- Why should this person support my exchange?
- How will I thank my donors/supporters?
