Study Abroad &
Global Experiences
Fundraising Information Packet
Study Abroad 2016
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Study Abroad & Global Experiences (SAGE) Fundraising Guidelines
PURPOSE: The purpose of fundraising is to provide students the opportunity to earn money to support their
individual study abroad program (SAP) or for Valencia faculty and staff or businesses to support specific study
abroad programs.
GETTING STARTED: Before engaging in any fundraising venture for a Valencia Program, the participant
must fill out and submit a Release from Liability Waiver for SAGE Fundraising Opportunities Form to
SAGE (see addendum section).
COLLECTING FUNDS FROM DONORS: Any fundraising on behalf of a Valencia College program must be
run through proper channels and adhere to approved fundraising procedures, for the benefit of students,
program leaders and Valencia College. A process has been vetted and established to ensure accountability to
the public and the school, while protecting the Program Leader (PL). Keep in mind that to take fundraising on
as an individual, the person would assume responsibility for paying taxes on the amounts raised. By having all
donations deposited to the Valencia Fundraising account, this will be avoided; all checks must be made out to
Valencia College.
It is prohibited for any fundraising monies to be deposited to any personal,
business, or non-profit account. All funds should be deposited directly to
Valencia College by check within two business days after receiving donation.
MAKING FUNDRAISING DEPOSITS: Complete the SAGE Fundraising Deposit Form (see addendum
section) and submit the checks to any campus Business Office. The Business Office will deposit the funds in
the appropriate index and account. Students should retain a receipt for their records AND send a copy of the
deposit form and receipt to studyabroad@valenciacollege.edu. Failure to include the student Valencia ID on
this deposit form will result in loss of credit to that student’s individual fundraising efforts.
FUNDRAISING DEADLINES: The deadline to submit donations is four (4) weeks prior to the program
departure date of the program for which the student is raising funds.
AWARDING FUNDS: The SAGE office will process check requests three (3) weeks prior to departure so
students should receive their checks approximately two (2) weeks prior to departure.
As all proceeds will be paid out at the END of a program, all students will need to be prepared to make all
scheduled program payment deadlines on time. Students that plan on relying heavily upon fundraising to cover
the amount of their program should plan to secure alternate funding to meet scheduled payments; such as
loans from family or student loans for which they can apply all fundraising proceeds to pay off before travel.
Any fundraising proceeds (awarded two weeks prior to departure) may be used to pay off any such loans prior
to travel.
BUSINESS DONORS: If a student, faculty, or staff member identifies a business donor, he or she will process
the donation like all other activities. EXAMPLE: If you or your family have contacts at a business or
organization that would like to donate on your behalf, simply have them write out the check to Valencia
College. If the donation is sizable and the business or organization would like a letter for tax purposes, contact
SAGE to set up with the Valencia Foundation.
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FUNDRAISING ACTIVITIES ORGANIZED BY SAGE
The following is a current list of fundraising activities sponsored by the SAGE office. To have your students
participate in this these projects, the only action that a Program Leader (PL) must take is to publicize
availability of these projects to the students, direct the students to the SAGE website link, and ensure that they
complete the required forms: http://valenciacollege.edu /international/studyabroad/students/fundraising.cfm.
Further ideas to help Program Leaders who wish to engage in Program Leader-Initiated Fundraising Activities
will be provided later in this packet.

RACE SPONSORSHIP: Valencia students, faculty, or staff who participate in a race can request
donations either by the mile or as a flat fee donation. The participant must have donors complete
the SAGE Study Abroad Race Donation Form (see addendum section) and keep track of all
donations. See the SAGE website for preapproved races: http://valenciacollege.edu/
international/studyabroad/ students/fundraising.cfm. If you discover additional races that you feel
would be helpful, please contact SAGE to contact the race organizers for approval.

ANYTHING FOR A BUCK (AFAB): Students will volunteer their time to do activities such as lawn
care, clear cars, move boxes, clean out a garage, pressure-wash drives/walkways, etc. The
requestor will propose the activity with a fundraising amount and the student will accept or decline.
SAGE will promote the opportunity to Valencia faculty, staff, and the community in order to develop
a client list which will be emailed to students on a weekly basis. Clients will post jobs/projects that
they would like completed and students will contact SAGE to confirm their availability. SAGE will
then put the client and student in touch. Program Leaders can and should also promote AFAB
activity to everyone they know who might be looking for student workers.
HOW YOU CAN HELP BUILD FUNDRAISING OPPORTUNITIES
Contact the PL for your specific study abroad program to see if they plan to develop and implement any
fundraising venture specifically for your program. Let him/her know if you are interested in serving on a
Fundraising Committee.
Consult the section of this packet for “Program Leader-Initiated Fundraising Activities.” If you see any ideas
listed in this section that you would like to help organize or have any ideas of your own, please propose them
to your PL, using the “Project Proposal Form” in the Addendum section of this packet.
If your PL is not going to organize or facilitate any fundraising events outside of those already planned by
SAGE, contact SAGE at studyabroad@valenciacollege.edu to propose your idea. Be sure to complete the
Project Proposal Form (see Addendum) and give as complete an overview as possible of your idea. If SAGE
has a PL from another program that would be willing to spearhead your idea, they will set up contact for you.
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KEY POLICIES OF FUNDRAISING FOR A STUDY ABROAD PROGRAM
All fundraising ventures are to be approved through SAGE; contact your
Program Leader with any ideas that you may wish to propose. The program
leader will seek approval through SAGE or direct the student to do so.
All collected funds are to be paid by check, money order, or cashier’s check;
made payable to Valencia College.
All funds are to be deposited to the Business Office at any Valencia Campus
within two business days after receiving the donation.
All deposits at the Business Office must be done using the SAGE
Fundraising Deposit Form. Students must include their VID number or risk
losing credit for the funds.
All funds must be deposited at least four (4) weeks prior to departure of the
student’s specific study abroad program. This will allow SAGE and the
Finance Office much needed time to record, calculate, and arrange payment
to be sent to each student.
Any funds raised by students will be paid out at approximately two (2) weeks
prior to the departure of the specific Study Abroad Program for which the
funds were raised; students must be prepared to make all required program
payments by the assigned deadline.
All amounts raised via fundraising efforts are to be retained for use by a
student that is engaged in a Valencia College study abroad program. If a
student engages in fundraising and ends up dropping from the program for
any reason, monies cannot be returned or paid out to that student. Those
funds will be applied to the travel of other students.
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PROGRAM LEADER-INITIATED FUNDRAISING ACTIVITIES
For the Program Leader who wants to invest in a more hands-on role in order make his or her program more
accessible to a greater number of students, you will want to begin by considering the following steps. Please
note that you can start this process prior to the application deadline date. This will get students more
committed early in the process and reduce the possibility of drops.
1. ESTABLISH A FUND-RAISING COMMITTEE:
Depending upon the size of your student group, you may find it helpful to establish a fundraising committee of
your potential student ambassadors; if you have only a small group of 6 or fewer students, you most likely will
not need a committee. If larger than 6 to 8 students, you may find it that too many opinions will be counterproductive. Seek out those that are energetic and have demonstrated a strong commitment to developing an
effective fundraising program. They can be helpful in brainstorming and in carrying out organization needs to
shoulder the workload. You will also want to use this team to establish key policies for your fundraising efforts.
With the help of your committee, consider the talent pool that exists within your team of student ambassadors;
use these natural talents to add your program. For example, a student-ambassador team can create a tier of
rewards to give donors, based on the amount of money contributed, on RocketHub, an online crowd-sourcing
site.
Poll your student-ambassador team to determine networking potential. Does anyone have family or close
friends that work at a hotel, restaurant, business that would be willing to donate goods, services, space, etc.?
Hotel stays can make excellent incentive prizes for fundraising ventures; restaurants or hotels may be willing to
donate space for a fundraising dinner, silent auction, evening of entertainment, etc.
2. FUNDRAISING EVENT-DEVELOPMENT
Once you have established whether or not you need a Fundraising Committee for your team of students, and
if so, have filled it with hard-working students, begin by determining how many, and which projects would
work for your student group. To develop your own fundraising events, here are a few basics steps.
1) Brainstorm basic ideas. Consider talents of your group, or networking contacts that your students may
have. Below are a few ideas to get you started; a couple of these will be outlined in greater detail, later
in this packet, as a model.
Bowl-a-thon (details provided on page 7; contact SAGE for helpful forms)
Rockethub.com (details provided on page 8)
Kickstarter.com
GoFundMe.com
Host a Foreign Exchange Homestay Program
Chik-fil-A
Table-top marketing events
5K Run
Casino Night
Riverboat Gambler Night
Kentucky Derby Day
So You Want To Be A Star … a talent night, can be Karaoke Night
Battle of the Bands
Publix table-top events
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Recruit business donors
Host a meal and sell tickets
Silent auction (can be online or live)
2) Settle on your first project that you believe will be most viable to show a strong profit. A strong
showing on your first venture will serve to inspire greater performance on your next project.
3) Think of ways to maximize revenue, encourage participation beyond your group of students that plan
to travel; this will be your greatest benefit. This is where the donated goods and services can be
helpful. By offering prizes for participants that raise the most money, you can get other participants,
outside your program students, working to help raise funds.
4) Make certain that all students understand the concept of the Little Red Hen; if they want to reap the
benefits of fundraising, they must actively engage. Stress that this is NOT like class projects where
some students may reap the “benefits” of the one, hard-working student that does all the work.
Students will be credited for donations that he/she raises as an individual.
5) The Program Leader may also engage directly in any of the SAGE-initiated or Program Leader-initiated
activities, and the funds can be distributed as follows: (1) put into the program account to pay for
additional meals or activities while in country (receipts required); (2) distributed equally over all
students; (3) set aside as an additional scholarship for low-income students (a rubric and committee
will be required to select the student who gets the award).
3. PROJECT TRAINING & LAUNCH
After you and your committee have established which ventures you want to undertake, you are ready to
launch your project to the entire team. Hold a training meeting in which you provide all details and guidelines
to your students. Be specific. You may find it helpful to document all key details, any waivers/disclaimers and
send by email to all, so that you have a record of what you covered.
A key policy to state at the beginning, and repeated throughout the fundraising process: Make
certain that all fundraising participants understand that any funds raised must be used for program fees; if a
student that raises money, but later elects to drop from the study abroad Program, they cannot receive any
payment for monies raised … all proceeds garnered on their behalf will then go to students that are remaining
in the same program.
During your training meeting for your first fundraiser, have each participant sign a Release of Liability Waiver
(see documents provided,) to help minimize risk to school.
Distribute a “deposit slip” for the SAGE Fund 06 account. This should include student name and school ID
number, Fund 06 account name and number, amount of deposit, and name of the specific event. This will be
invaluable information in tracking who has deposited specific amounts, to aid in proper disbursement of funds
later. Be very clear to students that they are to retain these slips, along with receipt of deposit; in the event
that there is a question with deposit later, this will be helpful in tracking the deposit. Advise students that if
they do not include their student ID number, they may not receive credit, as this will be very challenging to
track credit without key information. Failure to provide all pertinent information may result in loss of credit to a
student’s individual fundraising efforts.
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PROCESS FOR INITIATING A FUNDRAISER
1) Develop a Study Abroad Fundraising Proposal (see addendum section).
2) Contact SAGE for approval; SAGE will vet the project through Legal, Risk Management, and all other
necessary entities.
3) After approval from the above entities, present the fundraising schedule of events to your Study Abroad
Student Ambassadors:
a. Determine if your team wishes to open your event to students of other programs.
b. Issue invitation to other Program Leaders via SAGE; provide details and who to contact for more
information.
4) Present Specific Fundraiser details
a. Who, What, When, Where, How Much
b. Explain how to raise the funds
i. Who to approach
ii. How to approach
c. Provide them with a sample of written verbiage; you will see some sample materials from
established fundraising events in the addendum section of this program (see addendums).
d. Provide them with any written materials they need; you will see some sample materials from
established fundraising events in the addendum of this program.
e. Announce date and execute the event.
5) Finances: Give student specific instructions for how to turn in funds
a. Check, cashier’s check, or money order, must be written to Valencia College
b. Students go directly to the Business Office with funds to deposit
i. Must deposit all funds received within 2 business days
ii. Printed deposit slip to SAGE Fundraising account (see addendum section)
iii. Business Office will give student receipt, which the student must email a copy to SAGE;
retain copy for his/her records until funds are disbursed at end
c. SAGE will process all payments to individual student accounts approximately three weeks before
travel; students are responsible for making all program payments at the appropriate deadlines.
GUIDELINES FOR FACILITATING A BOWL-A-THON
Basic Concept: This is an organized bowling event, in which participants raise funds by soliciting
sponsorships from friends, family, or community at large. Sponsors may pledge either an amount per point
bowled, or a flat amount.
To Maximize Revenue: To increase funds raised, it is recommended that the bowl-a-thon committee and
study-abroad participants obtain prizes to award to those raising the most funds. Since the goal of the
fundraiser is to generate donations, it is the person who turns in the most money by the pre-determined
deadline who will win the prize.
Getting Started:
1) Determine a date and location for your event. Check with different bowling centers to see who may
give the best rate. Recommended preparation time and give yourself at least two months prior to event.
2) Once your location and price is set, determine a price for the registration fee. You will want this to be
more than your expenses as this can help raise money to purchase a major prize. SAGE will offer a
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$100 SAGE study abroad scholarship to the study abroad participant who raises the most funding for
this event by the event’s turn-in deadline.
3) Solicit prizes from area businesses or contacts that your team members may have. You want to secure
your prizes within one month prior to the event.
4) Once you have your list of prizes, you are ready to advertise your event and have participants sign up
and begin to solicit donations (see addendum section for forms and marketing materials). You can also
make a PowerPoint to put on the Valencia TV monitors.
5) Have a training meeting for your student ambassador team. Contact SAGE if you want a pre-designed
PowerPoint to use for this meeting.
6) Advertise to others to join the event using prizes as incentives. Having bowlers raising funds who are
not traveling is the best way to really generate extra funding for your student ambassadors. Have
students encourage family, friends, members of civic or church groups join the effort by registering to
bowl.
7) Give instructions to your team of student ambassadors and disburse the forms to all participants (see
addendum section).
How to Raise Revenue: Participants are to solicit sponsors to pledge money to benefit the program.
Sponsors may be individuals, businesses, or organizations. Keep a record of ALL pledges on the sponsor
sheet and be sure to bring a copy of this sponsor sheet to the event.
To Maximize Revenue: Encourage participation of others outside of the study abroad participants. To
encourage high-performance fundraising from others, it is advisable to have prizes to be awarded to the top
earners. Have team members promote to friends, family, church or civic group members to join the fun and win
prizes! Each student will also receive credit from any friends/family who help raise funds if the bowler submits
donations at the Business Office with the student’s VID number.)
Awesome Approach: One top earner opened a PayPal account for sponsors to pay conveniently online and
then promoted via personal emails and on all his social media sites. He cleared well over $1000 to his
account! That was one smart cookie!
GUIDELINES FOR ROCKETHUB
Basic Concept: RocketHub is an online crowd-funding site, where individuals and organizations can
showcase an idea or program with the goal of generating funds for implementing their idea or program.
Getting Started:
1) Go to https://rockethub.com/ and view some of the existing projects listed (search for study abroad)
prior to developing your own site to see what is currently being offered and funded. Examine layout and
creativity involved - what gets your attention and captures your interest? Make notes to help you in
designing your own project. See the Valencia College France program project:
https://rockethub.com/projects/38868-valencia-college-student-ambassador-medieval-restorationproject
2) Once you have viewed several existing projects, brainstorm with your team on how to make your
project stand out. A few ideas: have a student team create a 3 to 4 minute video of your program (what
they hope to learn, achieve, what it will mean to their academic careers, etc.); photos of your team
members, short bios; short bio on the program leader and why their program is important, what they
expect their students to learn, what inspired the professor to create this program, etc.
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3) Once you have a concept and are ready to create your project site, use the instructions on the site or
consult the easy step-by-step instructions in this packet (see addendum section).
4) MONETARY GOAL: Keep in mind that your ability to reach your monetary goal will diminish the
service charge that will be deducted by RocketHub. For the France Medieval Project, the project leader
decided to list the goal as $2000, but in the project description headed up the summary with the phrase:
EVERY $2000 HELPS FUND ANOTHER STUDENT AMBASSADOR. This gave the awareness that to
go beyond the basic goal of $2000 would continue to be useful in sending numerous students.
5) TIMELINE: Projects that last at least 60 to 90 days tend to do better. It will take some time to get
momentum going and projects that last too long will give students the tendency to procrastinate. You
can always come back and extend your time frame by contacting RocketHub by email, or renew by
creating a second site after it closes. (See https://www.rockethub.com/projects/41638 for an example;
this project site was opened three times bringing in about $7,000 total.)
6) PRIZES AND AWARDS: Successful crowd-funding sites offer “gifts” or “awards” for donors. Brainstorm
student-created projects, particularly if they can coincide with study abroad itself. For example, in a
recent study abroad to France, which featured student ambassadors working with a historical
preservation organization on the restoration of a medieval watermill, offered a DVD documentary of the
project created by a film student using the study abroad as an internship); an art rendering by one of
the student ambassadors of one of the chateaux in the region visited; paperweights created from rocks
chipped off from the stones cut at the site and inclusion in a time capsule to be buried for future
discovery.
7) Get creative in naming your tier-levels for donors. With the medieval restoration program, the tiers
were given titles of yesteryear … knave, squire, knight, duke, prince, king. Anything fun, creative,
unusual that will help garner attention keeps “shoppers” considering your program as a worthy project.
How to Raise Revenue: Once your site is active, provide all team members with the web address to access
the site. Team members help promote the project via their social media sites, mass emails, and word of mouth
to friends, family, and any civic and church groups to which they and/or their family and friends belong. Make
them aware that they will need to promote this every couple of weeks via mass communication and to
continuously mention in face-to-face meetings. Encourage them to ask family and friends to do the same. This
is a grassroots type of crowd-funding. Once projects start showing a strong following, it captures attention of
those that consciously seek to help worthy projects.
To Maximize Revenue: Consider having your team members set up a day with area businesses, such as
Publix Supermarkets, in which you set up a tabletop event to raise community awareness. You can use any
marketing materials for your study abroad, such as rack cards, table marketing displays of your program, and
include any visual displays that correspond to the theme of your program and/or the target country of your
study.
To encourage passersby to visit your RocketHub site, you can print up marketing cards for your team members
that list the name of your program and include the address of your specific RocketHub site. Use the address
that is in the browser bar of your actual project site, not the generic rockethub.com. You want them to visit
YOUR site, not the sites of others! These marketing cards can be used at community awareness events, such
as Publix tabletop events, or students can keep them on hand to give out when discussing their proposed
study program in daily activities (see addendum section for examples).
Have students design a marketing poster of your study abroad program and include information on how the
public can help by including information on how to find the RocketHub site for your project. These can be
posted throughout town at any sites that offer community bulletin boards. Promote to civic groups, particularly
ones that pertain to your area of proposed study (see addendum section for example).
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GUIDELINES FOR ANYTHING-FOR-A-BUCK (AFAB)
Basic Concept: Students engage in fulfilling odd jobs for clients that either they locate, or are located by
professors, fellow team members, or SAGE. As checks are written to Valencia College, the client benefits from
knowing that the work that they offer is of service to them, while also helping to provide educational
opportunities for local students.
Getting Started: Students may contact SAGE at studyabroad@valenciacollege.edu when they learn of any
community members who have notified them of an odd job or task that they need fulfilled. Students may also
orchestrate their own search by contacting neighbors, family, friends, civic or church memberships to
broadcast that they are seeking such opportunities. Students should make clear that all checks for services
rendered are to be paid to Valencia College, which may stimulate community members to actively think of
possible jobs that they can offer; by knowing that their payment helps to fund an education opportunity, this
may yield odd jobs that may not otherwise be envisioned by clients. SAGE will maintain the client list and send
out job opportunities to study abroad students each week.
To Maximize Revenue: Program leaders can help their team members by promoting this to friends, family,
and colleagues, and passing on information of interested persons to their student ambassadors. Encourage
students to network, combine resources, and band together to find opportunities and work together. This can
also create a closer bond between your students prior to travel and make for a more meaningful experience
abroad!
GUIDELINES FOR CHICK-FIL-A
Some local stores are willing to work with schools and student groups to help in fundraising. Depending on
proximity, they will deliver to campus with multiple delivery times to ensure freshness. Check with some of the
locations near your campus, meet with the manager to determine details such as any discounted pricing, and
how often they will deliver to your campus.
Basic Concept: Students set up a table on campus to sell Chik-fil-A sandwiches. Advertise the event in
advance via posters and/or email blast to your campus so that students, faculty, and staff are aware prior to
day of event.
Getting Started:
1) Establish a day with your students that you know they can effectively staff a table. This can be an
ongoing event in which your team commits to having at the same time each month, whether once, twice
or more a month; for example, the first and third Wednesday of every month. Advertising at a regular
time slot will result in people being able to plan in advance for lunch.
2) Call on the store manager during off-peak dining hours, such as 3:00 pm. This will make for a more
profitable meeting.
3) Check with the Student Development office on your campus to determine if there are established
protocols that dictate how far away from daily onsite food vendors your table needs to be. You want a
high-traffic area that will keep food out of the sun/rain but does not violate any contractual agreements
that Valencia has with permanent vendors.
4) Students will need a working fund at the start of the day to be able to make change. Determine how
your team will do this.
5) Once your day and schedule of events has been established, be sure to market with posters, email
blast to your campus, and announce on campus TV monitors several days in advance, so that
students, faculty and staff will be prepared to patronize your food event.
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COORDINATING A FOREIGN EXCHANGE
STUDENT HOMESTAY PROGRAM
Host an international exchange group. This will involve finding host families to house students and organize
weekday activities for the students. This can be a very lucrative fundraiser for 2 to 5 students that have strong
ties at a civic, youth or church community, or strong ties at area middle and high schools. This can yield
income between $3000 to $6000 depending on the size of the group hosted. The study abroad students act as
coordinators for the program. The coordinating team will receive organization help in establishing the event
schedule with the student coordinators leading the events with the exchange students. Student coordinators
secure host families to house a student for approximately 9 to 10 days in the spring with about 6 weekday
events/weekend days are spent with host family. For more details on this fundraiser, contact Karen Fowler, via
SAGE if you are interested. This needs to be started by mid-fall for exchange students arriving the following
spring. Your team may want to host a group from the target country of your study abroad program.
How Funds Are Earned:
1) Per student placement fee to the Student Ambassador that places students in qualified host family.
2) Coordination fee per event credit to Student Ambassador who runs the event.
3) Background checks for host families are conducted by Horizons du Monde personnel.
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