Raising money in the modern age is a lot simpler than finding investors or getting a loan from the bank. All you need is an account on a crowdfunding site and a good story, and if you’re lucky, the funds will start pouring in. It’s become a popular way to fund trips across the country and around the world.
It’s also an old trend — just look at Christopher Columbus’ 7 Tips On How To Crowdfund Your Travels, who crowdfunded his way across the Atlantic Ocean.
If you’ve managed to successfully crowdfund your latest trip, what is the next step? Here’s what you need to do.
Create a Timeline
This is something you should have completed before your campaign reached its goal, but it’s not too late to get one started. Not only does it help you keep your trip itinerary straight, but it can also help you show your donors where their money is going.
There are plenty of tools online, both free and paid, to help you create your itinerary. If you want to save a little money, you can easily make one with nothing more than Microsoft Excel.
Make a Budget Plan
Having a good budget plan is useful no matter how you fund your trips. If nothing else, it keeps you from ending up stranded in a foreign country without a dollar to your name. Having a budget for a crowdfunded trip also helps you be accountable to your donors — they love to see where their money is going.
If you’re visiting a couple of countries, make a list of what you’re planning on visiting and how much money you have to spend in each country.
You don’t necessarily need an itemized list of purchases for your donors, but keeping track of your budget will help you use your money intelligently, and can even encourage people to donate for future crowdfunding campaigns.
Start a Blog
If you don’t already have a blog, now is a good time to start one. A blog is a great way to share your adventures with your donors. If it gets a lot of followers, you could turn it into a secondary source of travel income, too.
A blog can also be a good stepping stone to help you reach new and higher goals, whether they include taking more trips that will need to be crowdfunded or starting a career as a travel blogger.
Don’t Get Discouraged
Crowdfunding is a great tool, but it doesn’t always work. The global average success rate for crowdfunding campaigns is only about 50 percent, so if your campaign doesn’t take off immediately, don’t get discouraged.
Keep up with your social media and content marketing — a crowdfunding campaign won’t go anywhere if potential donors aren’t able to see it. If things are starting to look down, try talking to other campaign creators, especially those who have been successful. Get some feedback on your campaign to see where you can improve.
Even if you don’t have a bunch of rich Italians lined up like Colombus did, crowdfunding can be a great way to finance your next great trip. Don’t get discouraged if it falls through, though. Just take some time to figure out why your campaign failed and try again.
About the Author:
Kayla Matthews is a productivity and life-improvement writer who loves working remotely from her Pittsburgh, PA home. To read more posts by Kayla, subscribe to her blog, ProductivityTheory.com.
