How to finance your project with Freepackers?
Erasmus+, mobility grants, corporate sponsorship, fundraising, the Working Holiday Visa: the routes to funding your volunteering project, with the figures to know and useful links.
Where to start
Four keys to funding your project
Raising funds takes time: allow six to twelve months before your departure date. Funding is part of the project, and knowing how to see it through is already a skill of the sector.
- 1
Plan ahead
Start six to twelve months before departure: most applications have closing dates.
- 2
Budget
Work out the full budget (programme, flight, insurance, living costs) so you know what is left to find.
- 3
Search
Follow several routes at once: grants, corporate sponsorship, fundraising, work. Few projects are funded by one alone.
- 4
Keep going
Hundreds of students and young people leave with us every year. Every one of them found the means to do it.
The figures to know
- €460 to 750Per month with Erasmus+Depending on the destination and the kind of mobility.
- €400Per month, French international mobility grantFor a course or a placement of 2 to 9 consecutive months.
- €300 to 1,000Per month, French regional council grantsDepending on means testing and destination.
- 6 to 12 monthsTime to allowBetween starting the paperwork and leaving.
These amounts change every year: always check with the organisation concerned before building your plan.
The full picture
Six routes to explore
Each one is set out below, with the links to apply.
The Erasmus+ programme
For students, apprentices, and young people in training or looking for work.
Mobility grants
French Ministry for Foreign Affairs, international mobility grant, regional councils.
Corporate sponsorship and associations
Set up an association or work through a student union to raise funds from individuals and companies.
Local council youth services
Subsidised stays, open to everyone, to ask your local council about.
The Working Holiday Visa
Work abroad for a year between 18 and 30, in sixteen countries.
Benevity
Corporate giving: employees' volunteering hours turned into donations.
The Erasmus+ programme
Students: enrolled in a higher education institution, in initial training or on an apprenticeship. You can apply for study or placement mobility from your first year. Applications go through your institution's international relations office.
Young people and professionals: anyone registered with a French local employment service, with France Travail or with an association can take up company placements in Europe and, since 2021, worldwide for vocational education and training. You need to apply through an organisation running an Erasmus+ funded project. Grants range from €460 to €750 a month depending on the destination.
The programme is open to anyone studying, on an apprenticeship, in training, looking for work, or wishing to volunteer, as long as the stay has a purpose of learning, training or sharing knowledge.
Grants for international mobility
French Ministry for Foreign Affairs grants: the Univers programme offers language grants to students from the second year of higher education, for placements abroad of two weeks to six months. The presentation document sets out the conditions.
International mobility grant: for students following a course or a placement abroad for 2 to 9 consecutive months, around €400 a month.
Regional council grants: French regions co-fund mobility in Europe, from €300 to €1,000 a month depending on means testing and destination: Explo'ra Doc, Aquimob, the Euroregional grant, among others. Every mobility grant, region by region.
Eligibility criteria are set out on etudiant.gouv.fr.
Corporate sponsorship and associations
For a group project, setting up an association lets you raise funds from individuals and companies. Donations can be collected through a platform such as HelloAsso.
The associations that most often carry this kind of project:
- student unions at universities and business and engineering schools;
- sports clubs, such as divers joining a marine conservation project;
- education and cultural exchange associations;
- parent teacher associations.
Nine ideas to raise funds
On your own or in a group, enough to top up a grant or close a budget.
An online fundraiser
On a platform made for young people's projects, such as Wweeddoo or Globedreamers.
A media campaign
Tell your project's story on social media, contact influencers, offer an interview to local media.
Company foundations
Find the companies in your area that run a foundation and put your project to them.
Service clubs
Lions Club, Rotary Club and private foundations support humanitarian and environmental projects.
A sporting challenge
A sponsored effort: every kilometre or every length raises money for the project.
An event
A walk, a raffle, a concert, a cake sale: anything that brings people together around the project.
Donations instead of presents
Ask family and friends to give to the project instead of buying you a present.
Clear out your cupboards
Car boot sales, selling what you no longer use, and collecting air miles from friends who travel.
Your own skills
Photography, drawing, private tuition: what you are good at can pay for part of the trip.
Local council youth services
Local councils subsidise stays abroad, open to everyone. In Argentina, groups have worked with young immigrants to organise cultural activities, building strong bonds across their differences.
Ask your local council's youth service about the terms and the application deadlines.
Working abroad (Working Holiday Visa)
The Working Holiday Visa lets young people aged 18 to 30, up to 32 for South Korea, travel and work for a year in sixteen countries.
Programmes such as those run by RealStep make settling in easier and open up work opportunities, in Australia, New Zealand, Canada, Japan and South Korea in particular. Enough to fund the rest of the trip.
Benevity, corporate giving
Benevity is a global corporate giving platform. It connects companies around the world with volunteering programmes.
How it works: employees commit to a project, and the company turns the volunteering hours worked into donations. If your parents or people close to you work for a company registered with it, it is worth looking into.
Taking action is within everyone's reach
Joining a sustainable development project, alone or in a group, takes real means: logistics, supervision, equipment, a sound organisation behind it. That is the minimum for programmes that last, that are led by specialists and that are run with local communities.
You have a goal; what remains is finding the means to reach it, and it can be done. Every year we send hundreds of students and young people on projects: every one of them got there. So why not you?
To go further, read our complete guide to raising funds. And if you get stuck anywhere, the Freepackers team is here to help.
