Schools
How do you fund a school trip with crowdfunding?
A teacher or a parents' association can fund a school trip: price the coach, tickets and meals, ask families and local businesses, and keep it for adults.
Short answer
One adult, a teacher or someone from the parents' association, runs one campaign for one trip. Price the coach, the tickets and the meals for the whole class, add the places for families who can't pay, and set the deadline before the coach has to be paid. Ask parents, grandparents and local businesses, never the pupils. If the goal is met, the organiser claims the funds for the trip; if not, every backer takes their pledge back.
Key facts
- The campaign creator must be 18 or over. Pupils never pledge or share the link.
- One campaign, one trip: a story, a goal, a deadline and rewards.
- No association, no company and no approval queue on our side.
- All or nothing: miss the goal and backers take their pledge back.
- Each pledge pays 1.5% plus a flat $0.99.
Who should run a school trip campaign?
An adult who is organising the trip: the teacher in charge, or someone from the parents' association. Every user must be 18 or over, and the campaign is written for parents, families and neighbours, not for the class.
The campaign and its funds belong to the one person who creates it. So the teacher, the school and the parents' association should agree who that is before anything is published, and the story should name them.
What does a school trip cost?
Price it per pupil and for the whole group, so nobody is left out by a missing line.
- The coach, or train tickets for the class and the adults.
- Entry tickets: the museum, the park, the science centre.
- Meals and water for the day, or for every day away.
- A night's stay, if the trip lasts more than a day.
- Insurance for the trip.
- The places of the adults who go with the class.
- Places for pupils whose families can't pay.
- Thank you cards and the rewards.
How big should the goal be?
What the whole class needs to go, plus the fees, minus what families already pay. Count every pupil, not the average one.
For example, for 30 pupils: the coach $800, entry tickets 30 at $15 each, so $450, lunch 30 at $10 each, so $300, and $100 for the rewards. That is $1,650. Add a little for fees and the unexpected and the goal is about $1,800. Then check it: 60 families and friends backing at an average of $30 makes $1,800. The goal planner does that sum for you.
What rewards fit a school trip?
Small, warm and about the trip, without photos of the pupils:
- A thank you card drawn by the class.
- Your name on the thank you board in the school hall.
- A short report of the trip from the teacher, sent to every backer.
- An invitation to the evening where the class shows what it learnt.
- A souvenir from the place the class visited.
- For a local business: its name on the trip's sponsor board and in the school newsletter.
Keep three or four levels, up to five. The smallest can sit at the minimum pledge, $10, so a grandparent far away can join in. The reward tier planner checks what each level costs you.
Who should you ask, and how?
Adults who care about the class: parents, grandparents, aunts and uncles, former pupils, neighbours of the school and the shops around it. Never ask the pupils to pledge or to pass the link on.
- Send the link in the parents' group chat, with one line on what it pays for.
- Put a QR code on the letter that goes home to parents.
- Ask the school if it can go in its newsletter.
- Take the sponsor level to the bakery, the pharmacy and the bookshop nearby.
Families can pay by card or in USDC. A share reward, from nothing up to 18.5% of each pledge a shared link brings, is optional; for a school trip, none is the natural choice. A clear story does more, and how to write a crowdfunding pitch shows how to write one.
What does the campaign cost?
Writing and previewing it costs nothing, and opening it costs $5 on the free plan. Each pledge pays 1.5% plus a flat $0.99, and a share reward, if you set one, comes out of the pledge too.
The percentage fee on a pledge follows the plan of the account making it. It's taken when the pledge is made, so it isn't returned if the campaign misses its goal. Paid plans aren't on sale today, so the published fee is the free plan's fee.
The fee calculator shows what each pledge leaves the trip.
What if the goal is missed?
If the goal isn't met by the deadline, you take your pledge back from escrow with one tap, and nobody has to approve it. What comes back is the amount held for you: your pledge minus the fees taken when you backed (the platform fee, the flat fee, any tip and any share reward the campaign pays).
Set the deadline before the coach or the tickets have to be paid, so the school knows in time whether the trip goes ahead as planned.
How do you start?
- Agree with the school and the parents' association who runs the campaign.
- Price the trip for every pupil and every adult going.
- Sign up in the app with email or Google.
- Write the story, the goal, a deadline before the first payment and the rewards.
- Preview it, publish, and send the link to the parents first.
Everything you can fund has a guide for each kind of project, running a campaign covers the weeks it is live, and every other question is in the answers.