Last week I wrote about volunteer travel as a way of doing good abroad. This week’s topic is sponsored trips. Sponsored trips fall under the category of responsible tourism, a concept that is becoming more and more important in travel. We are responsible for the mark we make in our daily lives, whether it’s through trying to minimize our carbon-footprint or not engaging in activities that exploit the environment. Travel is no different and tourism has almost become a dirty word in terms of destroying cultural integrity and being incompatible with ethical living. There are lots of different ways that you can change the way you travel or to get off the beaten tourist path, one of which is sponsored trips.
What exactly is a sponsored trip?
Sponsored trips function on the same basis as sponsored charity events: you go and fundraise money for a cause by doing something extraordinary, whether it’s running the marathon, skydiving or shaving your hair off. Sponsored trips usually involve something adventurous, daring or out of the ordinary. It’s not just a way to go somewhere foreign. You are responsible for raising the money, a percentage of which pays for your ticket and expenses, while the rest goes towards the charity. While it might seem odd that some of the money you raise ends up paying for your trip, the amounts donated to charity is fairly high to offset any costs.
Picking Your Sponsored Trip
There are two ways you can go about deciding what kind of trip you want to do:
- Decide what charity you would like to raise money for. A lot of us have personal affiliations with our philanthropic behaviour, which often makes it easier and more enjoyable when engaging with charity. Larger charities often have their own sponsored trips set up, so if you have a charity in mind, find out if they have any travel projects. For example, check out Breast Cancer Care to see what sort of thing charities organize.
- Think about what you like doing or where you want to go. What sort of activity would you be interested in doing abroad? There are lots of websites that can help you search in terms of activity or location. Check ResponsibleTravel.com and Across the Divide to get an idea what you can find.
Raising Money for Sponsored Trips
Sponsored trips are about more than the location you are going to. It’s about spreading the word about what you are doing, why you are doing and how people can help out. It’s not just about putting it all on your credit card and thinking the money is going to charity so it doesn’t matter that it all came from you. Fundraising is part of it. Oftentimes if you are raising money for a large organization, they will provide you with a starter info pack that includes how to begin fundraising. If you’ve never fundraised for a sponsored event before, the following sites will help you get started:
- FirstGiving– a site that allows you to have your own fundraising page. You can post about your progress, provide information about your project, and people can see how much you need to raise. It’s also a convenient way for people to donate. You can have a look at other people’s pages to give you some ideas:.
- How to Fundraise for Charity – a simple wiki site that gives you basics on fundraising.
- Across the Divide: Fundraising Tips – Across the Divide has been organising sponsored events for over a decade, so they are bound to have some good advice about what works.