Naomi's Advice on Makin' It Rain!

Happy Thursday Everyone!

Before I begin with my words of wisdom on how to get pockets full of green, I have some great news! The due date for the final payment of my trip has been extended until February 28! That means that I have an extra three weeks to come up with the rest of the money (and believe me I'm going to need it!) Even more great news is that one of my good friends Christa is going to be my roommate in France. So far, everything is looking up :)

Now on to my pieces of vital advice on how to get people to show you the money:

Tip 1: Ask, Ask, and Ask Some More!
I'm sure most of you are thinking "Well duh Naomi, that's obvious!" If you don't ask, you won't receive. When I sent out my Hanukkah cards asking for donations, I decided to only send them out to family and family friends. I didn't send them out to my personal friends because I felt rude asking for money from people who were also broke and in school like me. Now I know how wrong that decision was! I got crap from lots of friends, even those I wasn't close with, saying that they would be happy to give $10. Ten dollars may not seem like much, but if half of my Facebook friends gave me $10 then my trip would be fully funded! My advice for anyone else trying to raise money is to ask anyone and everyone available to your disposal: ask relatives even if you don't know them, ask friends even if you aren't close, and talk about your trip to anyone who will listen! Get the word out there because the more people that know, the more chances you have to get the dough.

Tip 2: Think Outside the Box
Applying for scholarships is one of the most effective ways to get your study abroad funded, but unfortunately my white upper middle-class status severely limits my scholarship opportunities at Georgia State. Applying for the IEF Scholarship has the potential to bring in $700, but I had to take a more unorthodox approach to financing the remainder of the cost. I have been sending out handwritten letters to family and friends. In these letters I have included an itinerary of my trip (to give an idea about what I will be doing) and a stamped, self-addressed envelope. The envelope makes it easy to donate: just write a check and stick it back in the mailbox. This approach cost me only $20 for the card stock (my parents covered cost of stamps for Hanukkah) and it brought in $1000! In addition to my cards, I am taking a class with a $300 stipend, selling old textbooks online, and putting in extra hours at work.

Tip 3: Take Advantage of Free Tools
This blog and the fundraising thermometer are completely free (If you are interested I will give you the links), and are great tools for letting people track my progress. Instead of asking for birthday gifts or graduation gifts, I am instead asking for trip donations, and plan to have a collection jar at big events like my family's Superbowl party, birthday party, and friend get-togethers. Using social media like Twitter and Facebook are also great ways to spread the word about your trip to everyone you know. If you are really tight on cash, instead of sending hand-written letters, you could use the beauty of the Internets to send out completely free and unlimited emails to friends and family.

Unfortunately, many of the great things in life aren't free. The Paypal button on my blog is a great tool for raising money because it offers the convenience of using credit/debit cards and allows for people to give on their own time, but like any business its motives are anything but altruistic. For each donation I receive, Paypal takes a 3% processing fee. At first, seeing Paypal take money that ought to be in my bank account made me feel  like they had pick-pocketed me, but I've decided that offering this convenience is worth it for me, especially if I wouldn't have gotten those donations otherwise.

Tip 4: Start as Early as Possible
I began the process of applying and raising money for this study abroad in December, which gave me four months to find the funding. I would recommend that anyone who needed to raise the full amount for their trip start at least six months ahead of time if not more. It takes a long time to put out your asks, depending on how many people you are trying to reach. After receiving donations, saying thank you can also take a long time. Filling out forms and making trip plans on top of fundraising has been sucking up much of my free time, and I wish I had sorted out all the trip details long before I even began looking for donations. That way, I would have only had to tackle one piece of the trip of the time. Oh well, lesson learned.

I have one month left to raise $1000 and I'm ready to kick ass and take names! If you're reading this now and haven't donated yet, please consider giving me $10! It will be repayed with hugs, gratitude, and a pretty thank you note from me!

Peace, Love, and Paris ~ Naomi

A Quarter There, Much More to Go

Hola...or should I say Bonjour since I ought to start working on my French,

I must admit that I am slightly embarrassed that it has taken me nearly three weeks to update this blog, especially since I committed to posting at least once a week in my last post. Even more embarrassing is that I had to have my mom guilt trip me into writing what you are reading now. The realization hit me today that this is the first true piece of writing I have ever done voluntarily without academic instruction, guidelines, or due dates. The absolute freedom of a blog makes the task of writing seem slightly daunting. From now on, I am going to set Saturday as my blog update day and do my very best to hold myself to it even when I am experiencing a severe case of writer's block (which is almost all the time!)

I have learned so much both about the details of my trip and fundraising these past few weeks, so this post will be a bit lengthy. First about my trip (itinerary link to come soon!),

The places I will be going to include:

• Strasbourg, France
• Heidelberg, Germany
• Brusels, Belgium
• Luxembourg
• Paris France 

The spectacular sights I will see:

• European Parliament
• Chambre of Commerce
• Court of Human Rights
• Environmental Protection Agency
• Deutsche Bundesbank
• German Stock Exchange
• European Court of Justice
• NATO Headquarters
• Paris Economic Development Agency
• Louvre

...and so much more!

Progress had been made on trip preparations. The trip will run from May 4 through May 23. This past Thursday, the program became full at 22 students with a mix of both graduate and undergrads. I have all my paperwork completed and my passport is ready to go. All that is left to be done is to get a doctor to sign my "o.k. to travel" papers, and I will be ready to jet set! 

Now on to what's really been on my mind, dolla' dolla' bills ya'll!

Trip costs have been locked down at $2,925 for the program and $1,022 for the round-trip flight. I paid $410 for the deposit, a payment of $500 was due this week, and the remainder of the trip balance ($3,037 for those of you that are math challenged) is due on February 7. Ahhhhhh! That is less than three weeks away!

Thanks to the holiday card response from my wonderful family and family friends I have raised $1,060 which is truly amazing! On another happy note, the old bank account I am using to store this money already had $261.20 in it before this all started. Hooray! This brings my running total to $1,321. Some additional money is expected to come in the form of a $200 pledge from a family member, a $500 IEF scholarship, and a $300 stipend for an extracurricular Jewish education class. That money would put me at $2,321. Over halfway to my final goal!

I still have plenty of money left to raise before February 7, and luckily a handful of ideas left on how to do so. This experience has taught me so many important lessons about the work involved in raising money, and I plan to share this knowledge and advice with you all in my next post!

Until next time
Peace, Love, and Paris ~ Naomi

It's All About the Benjamins

Hello People of the Interwebs!

I have to say I have been completely overwhelmed with generosity over the past month! There has been so much support financially from family and friends, and I am so grateful to have raised nearly $400! My thank you cards cannot express enough gratitude for everyone's donations, kind thoughts, and well wishes.

My winter break is almost over, and soon I will back to school for my final full semester at Georgia State University. These past few weeks I have been hard at work on planning my trip to Europe: sending out Hanukkah donation cards/thank you's, filling out university travel forms, applying for study abroad scholarships, and putting a Paypal donation button on this website (*hint hint, wink wink*).

Besides letting my family and friends know about all the adventures I'm having in Europe, this blog will focus on finding the money needed to travel, specifically what this experience has taught me about traveling on a college student's budget and my attempt/success to fund raise my way to France. In the past trips I have taken were either paid for by someone else or funded by student loan, but this time it will be different.

This time I will use all of the wit, planning, and most likely begging I can possibly summon in order to fully fund this trip without a single dollar of additional debt to my name. This is my New Year's resolution, and I am prepared to tackle it at full force!

Peace, Love, and Paris ~ Naomi