Not everyone is rich or can afford to take
advantage of the many exciting and worthwhile voluntary work placements
available today. Sure, Prince William did a gap year
placement – and a very wise move it was, but let’s face it, he could
afford to.Nowadays, can you
afford not to?Not really, not
given that you gain so much knowledge, experience and understanding that will
stand you in good stead in your future career and your future life.But it takes money.
So – let’s see how you can raise the money
to realise a dream.
First of all, the
objective of fundraising is to obtain/earn sufficient money to enable you to
travel to a different culture and gain a better understanding of different
ethnic groups and how they live, at the same time perhaps helping
underprivileged children or doing your bit towards conservation.
The first important phrase there was obtain/earn
sufficient money.Travellers
can’t tell you to ‘go to so-and-so’ and they’ll give you the money,
but we can give you lots of ideas on how to earn or raise funds.It’s then up to you as to how determined you are and how
hard you’re prepared to work.
The second important phrase was helping underprivileged children or doing your bit towards conservation.
Nobody’s
going to give you money to travel to some faraway country to … lie on the
beach! But you already know that otherwise you wouldn’t be reading this
booklet. So, accept that you’re going to have to work on your placement, and
probably pretty hard … and then, when dealing with people who’re hopefully
going to fund you, emphasise the good
you’ll be doing while on your placement
– and the benefit you’ll
derive from your placement in your future life/career.
(NB: See Professionalism
further on.)
So
let’s get to the useful information.
2.ABOUT FUNDRAISING ACTIVITIES
80% of those who consider
taking time out don't go through with it and probably the reason is that they
haven’t got the money. Yet lots of people raise all the money they need –
usually very quickly. So maybe the almost-went’s didn’t have any idea of
how to raise money. If you’re doing a voluntary work placement, the
end result is usually that there are people or communities somewhere that
you’re going to help.
Now,
there are lots of charities out there who will give funds to deserving causes
– but their funds are limited and there are lots of deserving causes, so you
may not rank high on their priority list.But … there are also lots of companies and businesses would
love to be associated with people who’re going to help other people.
Why not ask them?Tell them
you’ll wear their logo on your T-shirt, or you’ll have a link to their
company put on the Travellers website (but check with us first to ensure the
link is appropriate). Or you’ll chisel their name 60 feet high on a
mountain.The point we’re
making is, if companies are going to help you, they want to get something
out of it! But more about that later.
3.
CHEEK – GUDSPA - AUDACITY
THIS is when your
hard work pays off - you're finally there and exploring the places you
had only read about!
Call it what you will, it gets you a looong way!
Your Local Newspaper
And along that way you find out things you never expected, like very often your small local paper is on the hunt for stories with a local interest. Your story about how you’re going out into the wilds of Malaysia to work with poor orphaned Orang Utans may be just what they’re looking for – and they can add into the write-up about you that you’re looking for sponsorship. In the ideal scenario, a local company that manufactures Orang Utan collars will sponsor you provided you come back with photos of you standing next to an Orang Utan who is wearing one of their collars. It would be excellent marketing material for them.
If you have reasonable writing skills, you may even suggest to them that you send them articles once a week or once a fortnight about your experiences – you know the type of thing, “Local boy/girl helps to increase English literacy in Home for Unwed Mothers in Buenos Aires!”
Local Magazines
All the above will apply equally to a local Magazine who may sponsor you (or partly sponsor you) in return for a series of articles during your placement. If you’re doing a teaching placement in, say, Ghana, you could approach an arts and crafts magazine and suggest that while you’re there you do an article for them on how Kente cloth is produced in Ghana, together with lots of colourful photographs. Kente cloth is famous for its ethnic patterns, colours and textures and how the Ghanaians produce it would make a fascinating article for a magazine of that type.
Local Radio Stations
Your local radio station is always on the look-out for interesting local stories to fill in some time. A presenter may want to have you on a 5-minute talk-in on what you’re hoping to do – and then another 5-minute talk-in on your return about what it was like in the wilds of Borneo. And for this they’ll slip in a mention about your need for sponsorship and a contact email or telephone number.
4. CHARITIES
It's worth it in
the end!
Local funds and charities will sometimes sponsor a young person (usually 16 to 24 year olds) to either get involved with projects that will improve the lives of less developed communities, or to help you develop as a person through an activity that will benefit you as an individual – which a voluntary work placement certainly will.
Ask your local Council if they have a list of charities they can let you have that do this sort of sponsorship – they may have such a list.
If they don’t have such a list, they may be able to tell you who to contact in order to get one.
Try to connect with appropriate charities.
Example:
In other words, if you’re going to Sri Lanka to teach football to poor kids, contact a Sports foundation because, let’s face it, what you’ll be doing is pretty unique. You could mention that the first few Travellers volunteers who did such a placement ended their project by organising an Inter-School football match for a “Volunteers Trophy” (which they bought at a local store). As a result of that, Travellers will be sponsoring an annual event and the “Volunteers Trophy” will become part of the school football year. Oh, and incidentally, the football standard in the school where the volunteers taught improved dramatically.
That sort of on-going help which resulted from a few guys doing a voluntary placement together teaching football is pretty impressive and I’m sure that there must be charities out there who would view your sponsorship
favourably.
Some of you will be lucky and raise cash quickly - others may find it harder. It depends on where you live and the number of charitable funds in your area.
TRAVELLERS TIPS
Look locally – this is very important. People are more willing to help “a local kid”
Focus on matching interest and criteria - don't waste time randomly hitting everyone; instead, target companies or people more likely to have an interest in what you’re doing. They will appreciate the fact that you’re going to them specifically (which implies you have a knowledge of them) rather than the thought that you’re going to anybody and everybody and just hoping to get lucky.
Be professional with your approach.
Example
There may well be a local XXX Memorial Fund which will sponsor youngsters to participate in a project which will benefit themselves and their community. Criteria: You must live within X miles of “Yourtown” and must be aged between 16 and 24.
But how do they tell you about it? Memorial Funds usually can’t/don’t advertise, so how do they let you know that there is money available? They can’t, so it’s either word-of-mouth or the money sits there year after year, increasing, with no-one taking advantage of it.
Where to Go
To find these kind people, you need to go to your library and find the Directory of Grant Making Trusts 2001-2002. (Published by Directory of Social Change in association with CAF
2001, 17th edition, normally costs around £75 – but you don’t want to buy it, hence the trip to the Library!)
According to the review on the Internet … “This book covers the largest 2,500 trusts in the UK which give grants to organisations … it has for many years been accepted as the fundraisers' bible, often used in tandem with other publications from the Directory of Social Change including the two volume Guide to the Major Trusts and the CD-ROM version of The Directory of Grant Making Trusts, which as well as covering the same 2,500 trusts, also includes information on a further 1,300 smaller, local trusts.”
For a complete list of charitable funds and trusts online, go to
www.caritasdata.co.uk. If you have no idea what charities are out there (which means that searching their database is not going to be easy), go to the library and look at The Charity Funding Yearbook. Section Three is the interesting part - This is where you'll find summaries of the charities, their aims and activities, policy description and guidelines for the year, areas they will support (and won't), size of grants available, application procedure and full contact details.
Other Useful Publications: The Complete Fundraising Handbook
Directory of Grant-Making Trusts
A Guide to Company Giving
The Complete Guide to Fundraising.
For more publications, see Appendix.
Other places to Go
Rotary,
Lions Club
Round Table.
All of these associations donate money to locals. You’re local – go for it!
These associations’ members are usually local businessmen who socialise together and have lots of business contacts. If they can’t help you, maybe they know someone who can.
Many local churches have Funds,
Schools give bursaries and/or awards
Many town councils have award systems
Speak to them. The old cliché of “If you don’t ask, you won’t get” is true. If you do ask, you may get.
Some past volunteers have been successful in
receiving grants from an organisation called BFSS - take a look at their
website to see if you fulfil their criteria by
clicking here
5. LOCAL BUSINESSES AND COMPANIES
Examples
One of our volunteers to Sri Lanka wrote to Manchester United Football Club and told them that he was going out there to teach conversational English to underprivileged children, and he asked whether they could let him have some souvenir type memorabilia to take with him – he wanted to use it to base some English lessons around. He got loads of stuff.
Another volunteer approached Walkers Crisps and got a rather nice sized donation.
The teacher of a rather special guy even approached Travellers – she told us how he was struggling to raise money, how the school had donated a certain amount and how he deserved a break … so Travellers matched the school’s donation! (Please don’t approach us, though – our donations are usually to really poor children or their communities in our destination countries.)
The point
here is that local companies can be very good sources of donations to local youngsters – don’t be afraid to contact them!
The FSB
The FSB (Federation of Small Businesses) is a very helpful body and a call or letter to them may get you a list of companies who might be interested – or at least approachable – about sponsorship. Again, try to get information on companies whose business is relevant to what you intend doing on your placement.
6. WORKING
The vast majority of volunteers work part-time to raise the money for their placements. There are lots of different levels of work out there – it depends what you’re prepared to do to earn money. On the other hand, if a placement overseas is a dream and you want it badly enough, you’ll be happy to clean offices if you makes you the money you need, right?
You’ll be in a situation where your choices are either working full-time during holidays, or part-time during school/university. Thanks to the minimum wage, you should be able to save a reasonable amount a week.
Turn budgeting into a goal: Work out how long you’ve got before you want to do your project, then break down the cost of the project into the number of weeks – that’s how much you have to earn per week before you leave. When you’ve broken the amount down to a weekly figure, it’s much more heartening to see £35 a week than it is to look at £1,950 as a total !!
You could also draw up a graph with number of weeks and then tick off each week that you earn the target amount – it’ll do wonders for keeping up your enthusiasm!
Types of Work You can Do
Waitressing and bar-tending are popular types of work. Once you’ve got a job, your attitude during the job will dictate how high or low your tips are. Lots of smiles, lots of friendliness and helpfulness will shoot your tips sky high and before you know it, you’ll have built up a substantial kitty.
Babysitting - always popular, pays reasonably -
lots of work available.
Cleaning offices – phone around local companies. Explain to them that you’re trying to save money to do a voluntary placement in a disadvantaged country and ask if they’ve got anything (and you do mean anything, even making coffee for the staff) that will assist you in earning the money you’re trying to raise.
Some companies have lots of data that needs inputting into databases every day. You could work part-time (including evenings) keying stuff in for them if you’re reasonably computer literate.
Look in your local paper Employment Offered section – you probably won’t find any part-time jobs that suit you, but think laterally - you may get ideas on innovative work that you can offer to do for companies on a part-time basis.
Supermarkets – ask you local supermarket to sponsor you as a cash-out packer for a day – even if you just work for tips. Then wear a big badge or T-shirt that says you’re working for sponsorship for a voluntary project.
Look in the local jobcentre or students' union for vacancies.
Likely jobs could include waitressing or bar work (as mentioned above), cleaning, administration and clerical work, factory work, shop assistant, etc, etc, etc.
Hire yourself out as a gardener who’s prepared to do the hard work, like digging, weeding, etc.
Housemaid for two or three different homes for a couple of hours in each over the weekend.
Hospital portering – very often this is a much needed bit of help and will pay reasonably.
Contact your local bottle recycling depot and ask what they’ll pay you for X quantity of bottles – then persuade all your friends, school mates, family, etc., to save their bottles. Better still, convince your classmates to go on a massive door-to-door bottle drive over a weekend. The logistics will need to be worked out, but then ingenuity is the name of the game when it comes to earning money!
7. IDEAS ON HOW TO RAISE MONEY
When you're tired
and flagging from overwork, just think about what you're aiming for:
Some of these ideas have been collected over the past few years, some have come from previous Travellers volunteers who’ve managed to fundraise the cost of their placement, others have come from various websites on the Internet and from books and suggestions.
Mostly they're here to inspire your imagination.
Remember: some of the activities listed below and in this book generally require permission from the appropriate authorities – please ensure you comply with the law.
PARTIES: If you’re at school, throw a party for your class and charge them £5 or £10 (or more) to attend – they’ll know it’s for a good cause! (If you’re not at school and you have lots of friends, equally good.) You could hold it at home or if that’s not possible, you could ask the school if you can use a classroom or the school hall (they will probably want one or two teachers to attend because of safety reasons – but it’s worth it to raise some money!). If the school can’t help, approach the local Scout Club or Youth Centre. If the premises you get are big enough, you could open the party to a few more classes, or even the entire school – then get the school to announce it at assembly. If you can get a local DJ to organise the music (for free, of course), all the better.
Ask local shops and businesses to donate items you can use as prizes and have a raffle at the party, and have a prize for the best dressed/most outrageous person or couple – more money in your pocket. Make sure everyone pays for their ticket up front.
CAR BOOT SALES: Collect all your old junk together, plus your parents’ junk, your neighbours’ junk and anyone else who’ll give you books, clothes, crockery, old toys, whatever, and take it along to a car boot sale. You’ll probably have to pay anything from £2.50 to £5.00 for your stand, but the rest is pure profit. We have reports of people raising anything between £50 and £500!
You could do this on a regular basis if you can find regular sources of items to sell. If worst comes to worst, canvas your neighbourhood, take ads in the local newspapers, print out leaflets and get local kids to drop them in mailboxes. Most people will be delighted to have someone take their “junk” away for free! And you’ll be amazed at how many people want the stuff you don’t want!
LOCAL FAIRS: If you live out in the sticks there are always summer fairs and local fairs where they have tombolas, cakes stalls, guess the weight of 6 bicycles, 2 cricket bats and little Johnny. Well, think of something you could do, a stall you could run, perhaps busking your way around the fair, a service you could offer, like dressing up as Captain Kirk or Spiderman and have a friend who can take instant photos – then persuade Johnny’s mother to cough up £2 for a souvenir photo of Johnny with his hero.
CHRISTMAS CARDS (OR OTHER EVENT CARDS): If you’ve got a camera (optional), a scanner and a computer with some graphic software, and a colour printer, you could make customised Christmas cards for people. For example, scan in a photo of little Johnny, paste it onto a card-sized document, add in “Happy Xmas” in a cheerful Christmassy font, then on the other side, “Season’s greetings from the XXX family”, with address and telephone. Print it off, fold it in half, and voila! A customised Xmas card. Little Johnny’s family will probably want at least 50 or 100 cards, and if you can get lots of ‘little Johnny families’ – result? A nice chunk of money towards your trip.
If you’re pretty good at computer graphics, you could approach some small businesses with the same idea. They could send customised cards to all their clients or customers. It could make you a LOT of money!
Along the same lines – customised CALENDARS that companies can give to their clients at Xmas. Telephone Jennifer at Travellers – she’ll tell you how to do it.
And there’s not just Christmas. Companies may be having an event, or a family may be having a Christening or an engagement – all of these would be just as appropriate for customised invitations.
Set up your own weekend CAR WASHING business – hire some local kids and get them busy with sponges. You’ll soon build up a regular clientele.
Better still – WASH WINDOWS, especially
upstairs windows in a house, because everyone hates doing those! BUT be
very aware that there is a risk of falling and
injuring yourself – so take the proper legal and safety advice first.
If you’re good at cooking, especially baking, approach your local butcher (with a sample!) and suggest that he might like to sell your pies on, say, Saturdays. Give him a reasonable price for the pies (one that he can also make a reasonable profit on) and you should both score.
PHOTOGRAPHY: If you’re a good photographer, hire yourself out for weddings or office Christmas parties. Stand outside a nightclub and take photographs of couples – the woman will want a souvenir photo of her date and the guy won’t be able to refuse!
If you’re a reasonable musician, try BUSKING. You’ll do a lot better if you make up a big sign saying that you’re raising money to do voluntary work in a poor country. It adds legitimacy and tells people you’re not begging. They’ll admire your effort at both raising money and doing voluntary work!
CHILDREN TAXI: Contact local Single Parent Groups. Usually picking up children from school is a major problem for working single parents. If your time is flexible, offer a service where you pick up the children school and drop them off at home
Fund-Raising Events
Below is a very random list of miscellaneous suggestions that you could think about as possible fund-raising activities. Most, if not all, of these have actually been done very successfully by people in the past. Most of all, though, try to think of something that no-one’s done before – or that very few people have done before. That way you catch people’s imagination and they’ll be more inclined to sponsor you. And as always when trying to think of new ideas, think laterally, it helps!
Try organising a major fund-raising event where people pay you per chunk of whatever it is you’re doing (e.g. per mile if you do a long walk, per hour if you do an endurance event. Do it together with some friends, perhaps people who are also doing a voluntary placement. It makes it much more fun. You could try walking from Lands End to John O'Groats, or, if you’re crazy enough, swimming the Channel. You could also run the marathon.
Shave your head (drastic, but one of our Travellers
volunteers did it and raised a lot of money!)
Ask to be sponsored per week of your placement, or per child that you’ll teach (if you’re doing a teaching placement)
Organise (or participate in) a coffee morning or an Easter Fete (speak to your local church about upcoming events) – have a stall that sells homemade cakes, pies, sausage rolls, jams (which you can get your friends to make and donate!)
CAR BOOT SALES – This is repeated because they’re a wonderful source of income. Get your local radio to mention that you’re looking for jumble – everyone else gets inundated with stuff and there’s no reason why you shouldn’t as well. Put notices in local shop windows asking for jumble. Stick posters on trees and telephone poles. Hand out leaflets. You’ll be flooded with junk!!
Organise a car boot sale in your school parking lot (get permission first, of
course) and then CHARGE the cars that set up stands. Give leaflets announcing the car boot sale to all the kids in the local schools to take home to their parents. You can easily and cheaply produce cheerful leaflets (1/4 A4 page size) on a computer at school/home/university.
Organise a barbecue in a field in your local village or town – ask for help from your vicar or the local Residents Association
Organise a lottery, charge X for the tickets, have a local celebrity and someone of good standing make the draw. The winner gets half the money raised (after expenses), you get the other half.
Organise an AUCTION in your local town hall. Plan in advance. Drop leaflets asking for articles to sell (leaflets should also advertise the Auction). When collecting the goods, gently pressure the people into attending the auction. Have an hour’s viewing time before the auction and then follow with a couple of hours for the auction itself. Have friends sell tea and coffee and biscuits or cakes for added funds.
Approach the management of your local shopping centre and ask if you can do a busking session (preferably with a band). Explain what it’s for. If you get permission, make large posters telling what it’s for, so that people know they’re donating to a good cause. Dress up – Father Christmas costume at Xmas time, Easter Bunny at Easter, etc. Make sure you (or a couple of friends) go around with a collection box at regular intervals.
8. WHAT OTHERS HAVE DONE TO SUCCESSFULLY RAISE MONEY
Remember, you will have to WORK HARD – it doesn’t come easy (usually), but you’ll feel that your efforts were all well worth it when you’re trekking through the jungle in Borneo or caring for a baby chimp in
the country's major Zoo!
One volunteer organised a 3-day fashion show that included food, raffles and prizes and raised a lot of money. The models were friends of hers. Of course, to do something on a grand scale like this, you need some money up front (borrowed and repaid after the event?) up front to pay for a facility, food, prizes (although you could ask local companies to donate prizes) etc. and this may not be practical. You’ll also need a lot of publicity from radio stations like Capital FM and Kiss FM and in your local newspapers
Planting trees for the local district council – raised £400
Organised school friends on a sponsored litter collection – raised £1,000
Collecting bottles from factories – raised £240
Designed a conservation oriented teatowel and had them printed. Cost £1.20, sold for £3.00 – Profited to the tune of £450
Lots of car boot sales – raising between £30 and £600 – many people advertise for junk in local papers and then sell it at car boot sales
Coffee morning cake sales in the local Church Hall
Organised car boot sale in school grounds and charged £5.00 per car to sellers.
Organised a Ceilidh – raised £600
Organised a black-tie Rhythm-&-Blues Ball – raised £2,400
Champagne Party – appealed to a local brewery who donated a case of champagne – some bottles used as prizes for raffles, others were sold – raised £210
Wine and cheese party – “Gues the Cheese” – asked for donations.
Halloween Parties
Discos
Race nights in the Pub – and lots of Pub Quizzes with donated prizes and entry fee charged.
Raffles – wrote to companies for prizes and received things like Holiday for two, Telephones, Jewellery, Haversacks, Beauty vouchers. Sold 5,000 tickets, 20p each – raised £950.
Skittles evening in local Working Men’s Club. – raised £200
Porridge sit-in (sponsored, and money raised from passers-by – raised £330 from passers-by and £1,320 from sponsorship
One girl spent a day on a building site in fancy dress
(very scantily clad! – embarrassing … but she raised £300 and lots of publicity.
Sponsored silence (made a lot of people very
happy!)
Spaghetti soak in a bath in the centre of town – raised £115 from passers-by and £800 sponsorship.
Parachute jump – lots of people have done these – raising anything up to £1,500
Marathon mountain trek – climbed 15 mountains in 3 days – raised £600
Walked coast to coast across Wales – raised £1,600
Lots of mountain climbing events – sponsored – raising anything up to £1,000
Three-legged walk in fancy dress – raised £1,650 plus £200 from other people who took part
26-mile blindfold walk – raised £1,100. Sent out lots of letters asking for sponsorship.
Fancy dress canoe trip – raised £1,000, including sponsorship from Rotary and various pubs
Sponsored swim – raised £800
24-hour pony ride – complicated by having to change horses regularly. Post Office donated postage for sponsorship appeal letters. – Raised sufficient money to cover her entire placement in one go.
24-hour trampoline jumping
London Marathon – raised £1,500 through sponsorship.
Lots of sponsored bike rides – raising anything from small amounts up to £1,600
Sponsored bike ride London to Monte Carlo
SPONSORED DIET – sponsored per lb of weigh lost. 60 people joined in the initial diet, 30 returned 8 weeks later. Result? 30 happy slimmer people and £1,000 raised. Clever catchwords in resulting newspaper coverage were “The Weigh to do it” and “Pounds for pounds”.
Sponsored silence for 1 hour in a pub on campus – raised £75 in the hour.
Fashion show – raised £600
International evening held in school hall – about 80 people attended – everyone who attended brought one international dish for the refreshments AND paid £2.50 per ticket.
Writing begging letters – lots of people have done this – general advice is write to companies, your old school, friends and family, local church or other local associations. Success is more forthcoming if you explain that your placement will benefit not only to yourself, but also some disadvantaged people or a conservation project.
How
one volunteer raised over £1,000
"For fundraising, firstly i applied to the school PTA and board of
govenors, after writing a letter I got a cheque for £100. I think it
helped that I have done loads of things around the school/college, like
Drama and the student council so I'm pretty well known. I also
wrote to the local Rotary club, who are donating £50. I was unsuccessful
with groups such as the Lions and the Conservative club.
I've had a jumble sale, which raised £130 and we've got enough stuff
left to have another one. I went through our loft and study and sorted
out our books. I managed to sell all my old revision
guides and school books back to school for £50. A family friend, and
ex-English teacher was moving house and gave me lots of English books,
which I sold to school for £25. I sorted out the garage and shed and
sold things like old bikes and furniture left over from our previous
house in the local paper, which raised lots of money.
At the moment I am doing a Calendar draw, where each date on the
calendar is worth £1. Each participant then pays a pound to 'buy' a day
of the year - usually a birthday. When the calendar is full, I'll cut up
the dates and draw them out of a hat. Lots of prizes have been donated
by local businesses, such as hairdressers. I didn't receive any
help from large businesses like banks and clothes shops.
So now I''ve got just over £1000." Lara
9. BANK ACCOUNTS
If you can, you should open a separate bank account for your Voluntary Placement Fund. In other words, don’t mix this money up with your day-to-day living money – it’s far too tempting to dip into it for a night at the pub, a new CD, a pair of jeans. In the separate account you’ll get such a kick out of watching your fund grow that you won’t want to touch it. In fact, you’ll do everything to make it grow even faster.
It’s all psychological, but it works!
10. PROFESSIONALISM - Applying for Sponsosrship
PRACTICALITIES OF APPLICATIONS
Create a letterhead for yourself to write to your potential sponsor. If
you want ideas for letterheads, contact Vicky (vicky@travellersworldwide.com)
giving your name, full contact details and include the type of placement
you intend doing - she will help you come up with a design for your
letterhead (or if you're lucky, she'll design it for you!).
Useful Tip: If your email address is sugarbaby@hotmail.com or anything similar, for goodness sake change it – you won’t impress your potential sponsor. Quite the contrary, your letter will probably go straight in the bin.
Keep your letter short and concise – one page, preferably 2-4 short paragraphs max. They don’t want to know your ancestry or favourite colours – that (hopefully) will come later.
PROPOSAL
Enclose a proposal of what you intend doing and what you’re seeking: Here presentation will be very important. Keep the Proposal brief. Remember that the people you’re sending it to probably have to read mountains of paper every day, so you don’t want to add to it (well, not too much, anyway). About 5 pages is probably as long as you want it to be.
If possible, buy a very attractive folder (not a cheap plastic one) or a good quality ring-binder. Best of all, and if you can afford it, have it ring-bound with a good quality hard cover on front and back. Speak to your local University – they often have a binding department and, if not, they can point you in the right direction.
Make your title page (or your cover, if you’re having it ring-bound) as attractive as possible by using a nice (but very legible) font, in colour, possibly a relevant photograph (or graphic, if you have to). You could also have an acetate front cover, leaving the title page visible through the cover.
Use a reasonable weight paper (100g or 115g would be perfect), perhaps in Ivory rather than White, but White is fine. Don’t use a strong colour paper – it’s very hard on the eyes.
The purpose of the Proposal and its presentation is to demonstrate that you are professional, serious about your purpose and intention, and, moreover, that you have taken time and effort to produce something that is worth reading. In other words, you are worthy of the money you’re asking them to donate.
Make sure you mention that you would be delighted to give them a talk or presentation in person on what you hope to achieve on your placement and how it will benefit you and their company.
PROPOSAL CONTENT
Regarding presentation of content, bullet points for main items are eye-catching and help to keep the content brief and to the point, yet have impact. However, don’t make everything into bullet points – just enough to keep items short and sharp.
Include as much background information about your project as possible. List what you will gain from the project – and what the destination project/community will gain from your efforts.
Example:
If your Travellers placement is (or will be) in the Umfolozi Rhino Reserve, go to the Umfolozi page on the Travellers website
(www.travellersworldwide.com) and cut and paste the information there into a document (or print it out and key the relevant information into your Proposal). If this is awkward for you, contact us and we’ll send you a print-out. Once you’ve reserved a placement we send you an Information Book on South Africa which includes details about the type of work you’ll be doing. You should also include these work details in your proposal.
To highlight the importance of the work that the Umfolozi Rhino Reserves does, you could also include a description of how the White Rhino narrowly escaped extinction (there were only 60 left in the world) through the hard work and dedication of the Umfolozi staff in relocating and protecting the rhinos from poachers. Add how there are now over 6,000 of these magnificent animals. You could tell them that future generations will be able to see and appreciate these animals in real life rather than through historic photos and how the rescue operation drew the attention of the work and increased awareness in people about the importance of conservation.
Ask us for a letter confirming that you will be participating in the project – this will add
legitimacy to your application to them.
If you’re doing a teaching placement with poor children, add that Travellers, although not a charity, donates teaching aids and equipment to schools, uniforms and books to children, and things like classrooms and playgrounds to poor communities – and that they are able to do this because volunteers do placements with Travellers.
Include information on any press you have got or have planned. This will demonstrate your commitment to your project and will indicate to your potential sponsor that you are working within the local community to raise money.
Add in that wherever possible you will mention/make it known that their company has contributed to making your project possible.
Obviously include your CV – but keep it brief. If you have any history of any type of community work, make sure that it’s on your CV, even if it’s only teaching football to the local Sunday school class. In your (very brief) list of interests, ensure you have at least one “team” interest (to show you’re capable of team-work) and one “loner” interest (to show you’re capable of working on your own).
If you have any references that testify to your character (from your Principal or teachers, or your tutors at University, or anyone else who is perceived to be of good standing, enclose photocopies of these as an Appendix at the end of the Proposal.
Regarding references, don’t be afraid to submit your proposal to your local MP and ask him for a reference, something like “I fully support this type of activity and have no doubt that XXXX will accomplish what he/she is setting out to do.”
If there is someone famous living in your area, perhaps an author or someone with a high profile, approach them too – they may respond positively because you’ve shown initiative (you never know, they may even contribute to your cause!). To be innovative, you could download a photo of the MP (or anyone else of high status) and insert it onto the reference.
Include a sheet laying out a breakdown of anticipated costs. Be factual, not unrealistic. If you say you only need £10 for food for three months, you’ll look an idiot. If you say you need £200 for Cokes, you’re slitting your throat. In other words, carefully work out what you’ll realistically need and include all the figures. This sheet will demonstrate to your potential sponsor that you have your finger very firmly on the financial pulse of your project (i.e. you’re very efficient, focused and serious about what you’re doing) and that their money is not going to be squandered.
TRAVELLERS TIPS
Make subtle references within your Proposal to the company/organisation you’re targeting, references about what they do and the relevance of their business to your placement. This will show them that you’ve “done your homework” – you’ve researched them and are not just ‘hitting on them
and a many others indiscriminately for free money’.
ALWAYS BE TOTALLY HONEST IN YOUR PROPOSAL. Fools are people who think they can fool other people – more than likely all the people you approach will be older, wiser and far more experienced than you are. If they catch you out in a contradiction, you probably won’t even know it – they’ll just refuse you, whether you’re deserving or not, because you lied to them.
Ring around all the Companies, Funds, Organisations, etc., that you intend approaching and ask for the name of the person you should address your letter to. Nobody likes mail addressed to “Dear Occupier” – the personal touch is the ONLY way to go!
If you’re pushed and they want to know what it is all about before you send it, ensure you’re speaking to the relevant person first – and then be brief. If they want to know more, they’ll ask you. Naturally, make sure you have all the information to hand so that you aren’t in the position of having to say, “Hold on while I get my papers”!
FOLLOWING UP YOUR APPLICATION
Follow up your application with a telephone call to the relevant person. I would allow two days for the post to arrive on their desk and for them to read your Proposal. If you ring too soon, your call will be ineffective because they won’t know what you’re talking about. If you leave it too long, any enthusiasm they may have had for your Proposal may have waned – or they may just have forgotten what they had read!
Don’t leave a message on voice mail – rather try again later.
Have a notebook in front of you and make notes about the conversation. Just brief one-word notes will probably be fine (you don’t want to sound distracted while you’re talking) – the one word will jog your memory afterwards and you can then fill in details.
Questions you’ll want to ask:
(If they’re interested) what is the next step?
Interview? (You’re free at any time so you’re at their convenience).
If they can’t help you, can they suggest anyone else you should try?
If they can’t help you, do they have any advice?
On anything?
APPENDIX 1: USEFUL PUBLICATIONS
USEFUL PUBLICATIONS ABOUT GRANTS
Most directory type books are very expensive and it’s not worth laying out a huge sum of money on them, given that you’re probably only going to use them once. Most of the books below can probably be found in your local library. You could also use the Internet to locate additional information, but you will have to trawl through lots of stuff that’s of no interest to you to get to any nuggets of useful info.
The Directory of Grant Making Trusts
Refer to the Charities Section for a description of the usefulness of this Guide – well worth dipping into. It contains a guide to 3,500 UK trusts and is very useful for people trying to raise money for individual projects.
The Directory of Smaller Grant Making Trusts
This covers more than 1,000 smaller trusts and is very useful for small-scale, local fundraising.
The Educational Grants Directory
A very useful tool in this directory is a model of how to make an effective application. Also contains a list of 1,200 local and national educational charities that support children and students in need.
The Guide to UK Company Giving
Very useful directory that lists hundreds of companies who donate many millions each year to charities, community projects and voluntary organisations. The entries all give details of types of grants, what that particular company will and will not support, typical grant ranges and advice for applicants.
Hollis Sponsorship & Donations Year Book
A guide to corporate donors, including contacts, donations, sponsorship budgets and each company's preferred areas of support.
USEFUL PUBLICATIONS ABOUT FUNDRAISING
The Complete Fundraising Handbook
The Complete Guide to Fundraising.
GOOD LUCK !
We hope you raise
lots of money and that you
join us soon - you'll love it!
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Tel: +44 (0)1903 502595 Fax: +44 (0)1903 708179
Email:
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