Mission Fundraisers

Who raises money in this category

Four kinds of people do most of the fundraising here. There's the student who got accepted onto a summer team and was handed a deposit date and a total, and the parent doing the paperwork while their teenager does the asking. There's the person accepted into an apprenticeship or a training school who has to reach a monthly support number before the sending organization will release them to the field. And there's the family already serving who needs to cover what came up this month, whether that's a seven-seat vehicle, a repair, or a budget line that fell short.

You don't need nonprofit status or an EIN to start. Anyone can start a fundraiser, and one account can run more than one, which is how people split an upfront lump sum and ongoing monthly support into two pages.

Mission trip fundraising, start to finish

Most people arrive here with a number and a date somebody else set, so what helps most is the order of operations.

• Log in, open My Fundraisers, and click Start a GiveSendGo. Pick the recipient's country before anything else, because it's locked once the fundraiser is created and it sets which bank accounts can receive the money.
• Set the goal at the real total, choose the Mission category, and write the trip's own facts into the story: where, when, what it costs, and what the money covers. MICA, GiveSendGo's AI writing assistant, can draft that story from a short description if a blank box is what's slowing you down.
• Add a photo or a short video, then publish.
• Add the recipient and upload their ID the same day. Verification review doesn't begin until the ID is in and the first gift has landed, whichever comes later, and it typically takes 1 to 2 business days from there.
• Share it consistently rather than in one announcement, because a fundraiser page reaches the people you actually send it to.

Start a GiveSendGo

If the traveler is under 18, a parent has to be the recipient

The recipient must be 18 or older, live in the fundraiser's country, and have a bank account there. That catches families off guard every summer, because a seventeen-year-old raising for a trip cannot be their own recipient. A parent or the sending organization has to be. Every recipient completes identity verification before any transfer, using a government-issued photo ID, a tax ID in that country, a phone number, and a residential address.

The recipient's country is locked once the fundraiser is created and can't be changed afterward. If the recipient's country isn't supported, a trusted adult in a supported country can be named instead, receive the funds, and pass them along. None of this changes who tells the story, so your teenager can write every word of the page and do all the asking while a parent's name sits on the recipient form.

What it costs, and when it reaches you

GiveSendGo doesn't take a cut. There's no platform fee. What's deducted is the payment processor's fee: 2.7% + 30¢ per gift for US fundraisers, 3.5% + 30¢ outside the US. On a $100 gift to a US fundraiser, $97 reaches you. A $25 gift lands at $24.03, and a $50 gift at $48.35.

Timing matters here more than in most categories, because the deposit date is usually somebody else's. Your first gift becomes available 5 days after it's received, and every gift after that on a rolling 3-day basis. Once you request a transfer, it typically lands in your bank within 2 to 3 business days. Non-USD transfers can take longer. So upload the recipient's ID the day you publish, not the week the deposit is due.

You can request each transfer yourself from the Transfers tab, or set them to go out weekly, bi-weekly, or monthly. A manual transfer sends the whole available balance, and you wait 24 hours after one is approved before requesting another.

Givers can set up monthly support

At checkout a giver chooses a single donation or a monthly subscription, so the people who support you can keep giving every month rather than once. If your sending organization wants to see sustained monthly support before they release you, that's the mechanism. Givers manage the payment method or cancel from My Impact themselves, and cancelling stops future charges immediately.

What tends to fill a mission trip fundraiser

The trips that get funded have a page that answers a giver's questions before the giver has to ask.

• Break the cost out inside the story: flights, lodging, in-country costs, and the deposit that's due first.
• Put the trip's own facts near the top, meaning the country, the dates, and the team you're going with.
• Tell one clear personal story with a direct ask, in the traveler's own voice.
• Use strong photos, or a short video shot on a phone.
• Post updates while people are still giving, not only after the trip.
• Share it with real people one at a time rather than in a single post.

Start a GiveSendGo

If you opt in when you add your phone number, someone from GiveSendGo can call and pray with you. And if you're here to back somebody else's trip, the fundraisers listed above belong to real travelers with dates already on the calendar.

Give to a mission fundraiser on this page