Fundraising for small scale projects

/ Rie

How to successfully do fundraising to travel abroad during a Master’s, undergraduate or gap year activity!

By Traveling female ornithologist (last updated 26-12-2023)

One happy biologist collecting and sampling invertebrates in the Kenyan Mountains!

Fundraising is hard work! It is heartbreaking when you start receiving decline emails in your inbox. If you put a serious effort into it, you can and will succeed and get to do your dream 🙂

I have repeatedly been asked about the process of my fundraising experience.

Here’s my story about how I successfully landed grants to go to Kenya for two months

During my Master’s studies, I decided that I wanted to go abroad and do my own fieldwork for my Master’s Thesis in Biology. I didn’t go on exchange abroad, to my biggest regret till this day.

My last chance was to find an international project where I could gain valuable skills in planning and conducting scientific fieldwork in a tropical environment.

At the time I was working at BirdLife Denmark, and asked my international co-worker, if he knew about any projects at the time. Long story short, I received an affiliation from the National Museums of Kenya to conduct fieldwork in the Taita Hills in Kenya. In the Taita Hills, a rare and elusive songbird, a member of the Cisticolidae family, was disappearing from several forest fragments, and one of the ideas was to study the foraging behavior and ecology of the Taita apalis. How exhilarating was this, my very own expedition to Kenya! I was to be supervised by an Italian scientist, affiliated in Kenya, and a danish supervisor from my home university and institute.

The view from Vuria, Taita Hills

Then I spent four months researching, writing applications and preparing myself for the fieldwork. I ended up sending 20 applications to different Danish and international grants and foundations.

I admit, it was a tremendously long process, but extremely rewarding. I received only three out of the 20 grants, and they were extremely helpful and covered 70 % of my budget towards the fieldwork. Here you should note that most foundations never replied back to me, and some applications (maybe two) got lost with the post service.

My personal strategy for fundraising and applying for grants in generel

Start early. When you start on your Masters in biology (any specialization!), you may already have a clear idea of what kind of organism or which natural environment that brings you joy. For me it was birds and Africa. I had good contacts to help my with the groundwork, but even if you don’t have a large network, anyone can send an email and reach out to find suitable supervisors. If you are passionate, you will find a good supervisor and you will be successful in your grant application for your project.

Remember when you reach out to supervisors; think about what the supervisor can do for you – not vice versa! You are there to study and become a skilled graduate student.

The summary of my advice for grant applications and fundraising

  1. Find out what project you want to work on. Do you have your own idea? Great! Find someone who will work with you. This I have no experience with. I found an existing project in a place I’d never been and just went for it.
  2. Research the internet and in the library for a book on grants. Some grants are for people in need. For Danish readers I have added a section below describing the proces in Denmark, including how to deal with taxes (SKAT) 🙂
  3. Apply on time!
  4. Send every single document they ask for. If they ask for your Tax paper, send it.
  5. Write that motivation letter like there is nothing else in this World!! You are passionate, this opportunity to go abroad is possibly the best thing that has ever happened to you and your career. Have someone you know check your motivation letter. You are also allowed to reach out to your supervisor for some feedback. In the post-2022 era you can use AI to help you with grammar.
  6. Make a standard CV. Works with most grant applications.
  7. Again: Apply on time! Some grants are only open for applications for a certain time of the year!
  8. After you return from your adventures, some foundations asks you to write a report or an article. Respectfully do so 🙂
  9. Use AI to help adjust your application for different formats. Do make some proof-checking of the work that nothing fundamentally has changed in your application. The future is here – take advantage of the helping tools that have evolved!

Links to existing grants (September 2020)

Global funds

Write a comment below if you have found an amazing database for small project grant applications, and I will add it to the list!

For Danes only (sorry guys, the rest is only relevant for Danes!)

Fondssøgning til rejser, speciale, bachelor og sabbatår

Lad dig ikke slå ud af navnet på fonden. Du behøver som udgangspunkt ikke have spillet tennis for at søge penge fra Dansk Tennis Fond. Nogle fonde kræver du er medlem af foreningen, andre kræver ikke. Undersøg selv på deres hjemmeside.

Tillykke! Du er blandt nogle allermest privilegerede mennesker i verden. Vi har en høj levestandard, og vi har endda mange muligheder for at få hjælp fra det offentlige.

Vi er også så heldige der findes bøger som Legathåndbogen, hvor du kan søge et legat, med den ene grund, at du har gået på en specifik privatskole i Roskilde. Verden er uretfærdig! Men du skal udnytte, at der ligger penge i forskellige fonde og venter på, at ildsjæle som dig søger deres legat.

Hvordan finder man legater: På biblioteket og internettet. Der findes nogle goder databaser derude, og det kan godt betale sig at betale for adgang (jeg gjorde dog ikke!). Søgeord som legat og fond bruges på ligefod.

Skatteregler og legater til udlandsrejse (status 2020)

Legater du modtager, som skal bruges i Danmark, skal indberettes til SKAT. Men tager du pengene til udlandet, skal de ikke indberettes 🙂 Kæmpe win for os, der laver feltarbejde I udlandet! Læs mere på SKAT.dk

Jeg hjælper ikke med at læse ansøgninger eller links, men smid en kommentar og jeg skal se om jeg kan hjælpe 🙂

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