GoAbroad creates travel opportunities with crowdfunding platform
As a company that believes with our whole heart that global experiences can change the world, Via loves supporting other companies that share a similar belief.
GoAbroad is one of those companies. Founded in 1997, GoAbroad’s mission is right up our alley: “to change lives through meaningful travel, one destination and one experience at a time.”
One aspect we particularly love about GoAbroad is FundMyTravel, the company’s crowdfunding arm for travelers.
FundMyTravel started from GoAbroad’s Tech Friday, where teams meet to brainstorm ways to make travel more accessible to all. Knowing that cost keeps many from traveling, the GoAbroad team decided to break down those financial barriers.
FundMyTravel was born.
What is FundMyTravel?
FundMyTravel is an online fundraising platform for groups or individuals who want to raise money for domestic and international travel or other travel-related projects. It’s not just for those who want to study abroad. It’s open to all travelers who want to volunteer, intern, teach or otherwise make a difference in the world through travel.
Fundraisers use FundMyTravel to create personal campaign pages, which they then share so they can collect donations. The platform makes it easy for travelers to budget their trip, incentivize donors to contribute, and even request offline support.
“Creating FundMyTravel was our solution to help students raise funds for their travels and reach their dreams of studying abroad,” says Christine Petilla-Del Pilar, GoAbroad’s Marketing Manager who was the product lead for FundMyTravel.
Christine Petilla-Del PIlar, Marketing Manager at GoAbroad and former Product Lead for FundMyTravel.
Fundraisers choose how much money they need to raise for their trip. The average is $3,000 per campaign page, according to Petilla-Del Pilar. An average of 10,000 travelers use the platform each year, she says. Since FundMyTravel was launched in 2013, fundraisers have used it to raise more than 2.5 million so they can travel all over the world.
While it’s free to create a FundMyTravel account, once a campaign begins receiving donations, FundMyTravel receives 5% of each donation to cover the cost of its team of developers, designers, programmers, user support reps and marketing managers.
Petilla-Del Pilar shares that one fundraiser met their fiancé while traveling in Asia. Another raised money to travel to Hollywood so they could work. Others have funded biking trips all over Europe and Asia with the help of FundMyTravel.
“The possibilities of where you can go and what you can do is limitless,” she says.
When the pandemic struck in early 2020, essentially shutting down the world, FundMyTravel took that time to finetune the platform. Now that global travel is possible again, the FundMyTravel team is encouraging travelers to use the platform to get out there and explore the world.
FundMyTravel even offers social media and marketing campaign support.
To learn more, explore the FundMyTravel website.
Let’s Connect
Like GoAbroad and its crowdfunding platform FundMyTravel, Via believes global experiences will change our world. That’s why we created traveler relationship management and travel risk management software, which helps universities and organizations empower global experiences. Let’s see how Via can help you.