We encourage volunteers to fundraise as much of the overall cost of the placement as possible.
Volunteers are also encouraged to consider further fundraising either to take as a donation or after you return, to give as longer term support to the project you will work with. The overseas organisations, such as Village Africa, are not well off and are often really struggling to find the finances for the work they are doing.
We are happy to help and advise you in this area if you get stuck. Feel free to contact us to chat about any ideas you may have. We have listed a few popular ideas below but please see the fundraising links on the useful links page for more ideas and services for fundraisers.
Ideas for fundraisingStart locally - targeting local business, societies and groups tends to work better than approaching bigger organisations. Try and leverage any friends and family connections! Sponsored activity – What about getting fit before you travel by training for a half marathon or ten km local race? Look in the back of Runner’s World magazine in a newsagents for a timetable of events. You should be able to raise quite a lot in sponsorship. It doesn’t have to be running though; you can design your own challenge and your imagination is your only limit. You could walk the West Highland Way, climb Snowdon, paddle down the Thames in a cast iron bathtub (talk to us for advice before you try this one), or if you talk too much, do a sponsored silence! You could organise a ball or party and sell tickets. This is normally a successful and fun way of getting some cash towards your trip. People are happy to pay a bit extra towards party tickets if they know the money is going to a good cause. - Wine tasting evening. Talk to local off-licences for their assistance as well.
The most important thing with your fund raising is to stress the voluntary work that you will be doing and that the money raised is allowing you to give up your time to help a charitable cause.
Remember that Gift Aid can often also be claimed back on donations and sponsorship, increasing the value of what you raise by 28%.
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Stationary donations in Africa
School building in Peru funded by PoD
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