You’re a leader who makes an impact on your students. You're a compassionate educator that believes all students deserve to take a memory-making field trip. You believe that the inspiration from travel could change a student's life.
Your students and their families sacrifice to pay for the cost of the trip. You feel like any student who wants to travel should be able to participate in your trip. A financial barrier to a student taking a life-changing learning experience is just plain wrong.
This blog outlines a process and different ways to raise money for a school trip. Follow this guide to give access to a life-changing trip for all of your students and their families. Don’t let the cost of a student trip keep you from taking your students somewhere amazing. There are plenty of fundraising opportunities to help you make your dream a reality.
Follow these ways to fundraise money for a school trip
Step 1. Start making payments early. - Hold a trip kick-off meeting and open your trip registration a year or more in advance of your trip dates to lower the monthly payment.
Step 2. Student Travel Company Fundraiser page - Get online. Found on your trip page, this is a great way to offset the costs of a trip.
Step 3. Selling Bulk Items - Your students would buy items in bulk from Costco or participate in a school district-sponsored fundraiser.
Step 4. Help around your house and neighborhood. Tap into your community. Your neighborhood and family can help offset trip costs with consistent hard work.
Step 5. Scholarships - This is a great way to fundraise for your students.
You’ve done it! You’ve provided a blueprint and support for any student to attend your trip. You are leading a memory-making trip for all students.
Imagine being on your trip. Your students who fundraised for the trip have the time of their lives. Your students achieved their goals, and your heart is full of gratitude.
Connecting with student is why you became a teacher, to inspire your students. You are passionate about helping people and proud of your students. Seeing the eyes of your students light up is a truly great feeling. But, how did you support your students by making the trip more affordable? Here’s how:
You might ask yourself, “how much does a school trip cost?” It’s important to detail what is covered in a school trip. Most school trips are “all-inclusive,” meaning all the transportation, accommodation, meals, entrance fees, activities, gratuities, and guide fees are included in the trip cost. In addition, participants would need to purchase their souvenirs and other miscellaneous costs.
Typically a “bus trip” (the mode of transportation to the destination is a bus) is less expensive than an “air trip” (the mode of transportation to the destination is a plane)
A parent’s post-trip feedback best summed up the value of an all-inclusive school trip. “The number of activities we were able to experience was incredible. If I were traveling with my family, we wouldn’t have seen nearly as much.”
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Plan for an early trip kick-off meeting
How early, you ask? A year plus is a good place to start. This will allow your students and their families to spread out payments, making the trip more affordable.
We understand that some families may identify financial constraints as a key barrier to participation in their class trip. Planning your trip early will give families more time to make payments in manageable installments and fundraise for their trip. Starting the trip planning up to a year or more allows monthly payments to spread out over time. Book a call with your tour consultant. They’re excited to take your call and learn about your perfect trip vision.
Selling Bulk Items
Your students will make a huge profit selling bulk items purchased from Costco or Amazon. Snacks are always in demand and the perfect items to sell. This is a great idea for your students that want to take part in earning money for their school trip actively. Your students will feel a sense of accomplishment after selling out a box of these goodies.
Check what your school’s policies are on selling items on campus. For example, if the school does not permit selling candy on campus, students can sell their candy, chips, and other items around their neighborhood with parent supervision. Over time this effort and learning process will offset major expenses from your educational tour.
Encourage all of your students to create fundraising template letters and online fundraising pages for their trip. There are countless ways for your students to customize their pages by adding a video, a background image, and a description of why they want to attend the trip. Students can track their progress by having a list of active donations (even if they are small donations! ) along the side of their registration page, and all donations go towards their fundraising goal. Your students will be successful if they ask friends and family to donate to their trip in place of holiday, birthday, and graduation gifts. We have seen trips paid in full from fundraisers.
GL Travel partners with the registration and payment platform “We travel.” As part of your We Travel account, you and your child can access a fundraising page. It is important to note that all trip donations, less credit card fees, are credited to your account. Additionally, there are no fees if an ACH payment is used for the donation. Creating the fundraising page is simple and easy to share on social media or email. Then, have your child create a video for a more personal touch, and voila! You’ll start your online fundraising journey off to a successful start!
Imagine your students setting up the old classic lemonade stand to raise money for their trip. You love the idea, and here are some more. Neighbors are a great resource and will appreciate your students' ambition. With adult supervision, your students can talk to neighbors and tell them they are trying to raise money for their upcoming student travel trip.
Your students can offer to mow lawns, dog sit, clean pools, babysit, and do any other household tasks the neighbors may need. Walking dogs is a popular and fun choice for helping around the neighborhood. Babysitting is another popular fundraising activity for students of trip age. Doing these jobs is a great choice for students with older residents in the neighborhood because they usually need help with these tasks, so it’s a win-win for everyone.
Another easy idea that is a win-win for your students and their parents is having a rummage sale of clothes, toys, and other items cluttering the house. Sell items from your garage or use apps like OfferUp to sell the items online. In addition, holding a rummage is a great way for the students to make money to visit New York, Washington DC, or a National Park.
Recycling aluminum cans, glass, plastic, and other materials is a great way for your students to fundraise while doing good. Your students can also go to neighbors’ homes and ask if they would like to donate their recyclables to help you in your mission to pay for your trip. More often than not, neighbors will help for a good cause. Once you’ve collected enough recyclables, find your local recycling plant and turn those plastic bottles into cash! It may not be a lot, but any amount helps.
Below are a few more ways to tap into the community:
Bake sale
Give back night - These events may be called restaurant fundraising nights, spirit nights, or in-store fundraisers.
Car wash
Movie night
Book sale
Walk-a-thon
Read-a-thon
Have your students write an essay for a scholarship. Your tour operator is likely a member of the Student Youth Travel Association (SYTA), which makes your students eligible for the scholarship. Since the inception of the SYTA Youth Foundation (SYF)in 2000, over $1,200,000 has been awarded to students and youth for education and performance-related travel. In addition, SYF has directly impacted over 6,000+ student travelers in need.
Over the years, SYF has become an invaluable and popular resource for thousands of needy youth. We hope to help each of them realize special opportunities for growth and development.
Road Scholarship The SYTA Youth Foundation (SYF) established the Road Scholarship program for youth who are unable to afford the cost of student group trips. Based on the belief that travel is essential for a complete education, it is SYF's goal to make a positive difference, through travel, in the young lives of our global citizens..visit website
The World is a Classroom Essay contest
Provides middle school and high school students the opportunity to share their personal stories of how travel has impacted their lives..visit website
This program recognizes deserving high school students who have demonstrated through their action, intention, or circumstance the desire to expand their awareness, creating a dramatic life change. visit website
Students need more impactful experiences in their lives. You believe that every student should be able to take a life-changing trip. Financial barriers to learning and growth are just wrong.
Follow these ways to raise money for a school trip. In the process, they’ll pay for their trip and gain so much more. These strategies work with primary and secondary schools (middle school and high school) at both private schools and public schools.
Start making payments early. Hold a trip kick-off meeting a year in advance and have your students register early to lower monthly payments. Plan your fundraising events. A calendar of fundraising events will help you and your students make their trip fundraising a reality. Your fundraising plan will also help get parents on board to fill roles of extra support, coordinators, facilitators, etc. Finally, leverage your school’s PTA and have them help spread the word about your trip.
Keep your students motivated and consistent with achieving their goals. Check-in periodically with your students and give your support.
Track your progress.
Having a tracker on your goal and the progress of your goal is critical to balancing morale and reality for your group.
Affording a Student Travel Trip
*Leverage your student travel provider’s fundraiser page. This is a great way to offset the costs of a trip. Create a customized page and share the link with friends and family. We’ve seen great success for students who use the link for birthdays, holidays, and graduations. Your students will log on to their trip page and see their progress in real-time.
*Selling Bulk Items - Have your students participate in a school-sponsored fundraiser or buy and resell bulk items. Students will raise funds and also learn valuable skills of managing their own business. Make sure your students are following school rules on selling items on campus.
*Have your students help around their house and neighborhood. Think locally. Students have raised money mowing lawns, dog sitting, cleaning pools, babysitting, Walking dogs, selling chicken eggs, selling wood, and the list goes on. Older neighbors need the help and would love to support young people in raising money for school field trips. Family members are eager to help as well.
*Scholarships - Your student travel company partner is likely a Student Youth Travel Association member. SYTA youth foundation is a wonderful resource for students to raise funds for their trips.
Financial hardship should never be why a student cannot attend their school trip. If you have led trips before, the students who raise their funds stand out. You will be filled with joy watching students have fun on your trip. They’ve earned a memory-making trip and so much more.
We hope these ideas will inspire your students with more ways to fundraise money for a school trip.
Don’t let the cost of a student trip keep you from taking your students somewhere amazing. Plenty of fundraising opportunities help you make your dream a reality. If you're unsure how to navigate the trip fundraising process, we can go into more depth. We'll talk about your trip goals and point you in the right direction. If you want to learn more about planning an inspiring trip that your and your students will love, set up a call here.