Following the Equator | EF's Educational Travel Blog

Group Leader Spotlight: Phil Leswing

First-time group leader Phil Leswing teaches psychology at Greenfield-Central High School in Greenfield, Indiana. Phil (pictured at left with his wife and son) began organizing his 2011 educational tour to Spain, France and Italy this past October, anticipating he would travel with a small group. Two hundred people showed up at his first meeting, and he now has a group of almost 70 travelers. Here, he shares his story.

What inspired you to take an EF tour?

The joy and inspiration I get from traveling was the first factor that motivated me to travel with EF. When traveling with a group, I get as much joy and inspiration from seeing other people excited as I do from my own experience. There is a powerful force generated by groups of people traveling together. I chose EF because of two things that seem like they can’t coexist, but they do. The professional side of EF is outstanding. I also appreciate the personal side of the company. The open and constant communication has made it easy as a first-time group leader to feel like I’ve been doing this for years.


How do you use your blog to promote your tour? Do you use any other types of social media (ex. Facebook, Twitter) to promote your tour?

I use the blog for trip and meeting updates right now. As we get closer, I’ll be adding information about the destinations and our trip details. My Twitter just announces the trip and connects to the blog, so it is not really in use yet, but I can see us using it in the future.


As a first-time group leader, you've been incredibly successful at recruiting students for your tour. What’s your secret to success? How do you encourage students to sign up for your tour? 

The first thing that made recruiting students successful was finding a core of social students who were very interested in going on a trip. I then involved them in the decision-making process of where we would go on our trip. We set up our first recruitment meeting in October, and I started going to classes and talking up the trip. The posters and itineraries that EF provides were hung up and distributed before our meeting, so even more people were getting exited. We had over 200 people show up for our initial recruitment meeting. I was amazed by the turnout. I had gotten some gelato to share with the group. I had Flickr slideshows going of the destinations we would be traveling to, and I had EF YouTube videos playing. One of the potential chaperones had traveled with EF in the past, so he spoke with the group about the professionalism and personal connection that EF provides. We had a best price deadline of October 31, and a first-night sign-up raffle for $50 off the trip.

Our 10 Best of 2009

Thank you to everyone for reading, sharing and supporting Following the Equator in 2009. We sure enjoyed posting great stories, facts, tips and profiles about educational travel and the group leaders who make it possible.

We're already planning some exciting new things for 2010. Most of all, though, we want to hear from you. What do you want to read and see on this blog—more interviews with teachers, more amazing travel photos, more fundraising and recruiting ideas, more tidbits about the things to see and do on tour? Let us know at equator@ef.com.

As we look ahead to an exciting year of travel in 2010, we thought we'd take a quick look back at a successful 2009 and our 10 favorite blog posts of the year. Feel free to post your own comments below.

Fundraising suggestions on Facebook

We have a lot of fundraising suggestions at eftours.com/fundraising, including tips on getting started, sponsorships and grants, community and school events, product sales, ideas for individuals and guides, webinars and other resources.

There's also an ongoing fundraising discussion on EF Tours' Facebook fan page. Join the more than 13,000 other fans, and click on the Discussions tab to participate.

Webinar: 5 best ideas for group fundraising

EF Fundraising Tips & Tricks - Fundraising as a Group

View more presentations from EF Tours.

Fundraising for your educational tour as a group is not only a wonderful way to raise funds, but it also gives the group a chance to bond and work together toward a common goal.

In the fourth of our series of fundraising webinars, we focus on the five best ideas for group fundraising.

If you have your own good group fundraising ideas, please share them in the comments section below. For more fundraising webinars or other fundraising tips, please see EF's fundraising website.

Fundraising webinar: Ideas for individual travelers

EF Fundraising Tips & Tricks - Ideas for Individuals

View more presentations from EF Tours.

The third in our series of fundraising webinars presents several great ideas for individual travelers. These tips are simple suggestions to help easily raise funds for your educational tour.

Do you have other fundraising ideas? Please share them in the comments section below. For more fundraising webinars or other fundraising tips, please see EF's fundraising website.

Webinar: Top 4 fundraisers for a challenging economy

EF Fundraising Tips & Tricks - Ideas for a Challenging Economy

View more presentations from EFTours.

It's no secret that everybody is looking for ways to cope with today's challenging economy. Fundraising, too, can be complicated when we all are re-prioritizing how to spend our money.

However, that doesn't mean that it's impossible to raise funds for your educational tour. In the second installment of our fundraising webinars, we present four ideas for fundraising in a challenging economy.

If you have other fundraising ideas, please post them in the comments section below. And if you're looking for more fundraising webinars or other fundraising tips, please see EF's fundraising website.

Fundraising webinar: Planning and Organizing

EF Fundraising Tips & Tricks - Planning & Organizing

View more presentations from EF Tours.

Are you looking for tips on how to get started fundraising for your educational tour? Wondering how to raise funds in a challenging economy? How about ideas for individual or group fundraising?

We have created a half-dozen brief webinars to address the basic fundraising questions and provide some useful tips to get started and take your fundraising to the next level.

You can see all of of our fundraising webinars on EF's fundraising site. Plus, we will feature a different webinar each week here at Following the Equator. The first webinar (above) focuses on planning and organizing. This is a great introduction to jump-start your fundraising efforts and make educational travel even more affordable.

Double your donations with one small step

Sounds too good to be true, doesn't it? But it really is that simple.

If you're raising money for your educational tour, just ask each of your donors if his or her employer has a charity matching program. If so, it usually takes only one simple form to double your donations.

Many corporations have a charitable gifts matching program, where they will match donations dollar for dollar. Check out MatchingGifts.com for a partial list of employers with a charitable-matching program. However, just because a company isn't listed doesn't mean it doesn't have one, so be sure your donors double-check with their human resources departments. This money is already allocated in the company's budget, so it is basically free money for your group!

Earth-friendly fundraising

Lend a helping hand while raising money for your educational tour! Seek out an opportunity to help spruce up your community's public spaces. Some ideas include:

• Clean up a local park, alongside a busy travel route or even after town celebrations.
• Help bring new life to a public outdoor space by planting flowers and trees.
• Prepare the local ball fields, especially if they need a quick turnaround between games.

There are a couple of ways to approach this type of fundraising:

• You can ask a sponsoring organization to pay your group for your time and services and put that money toward your tour.
• You also can seek pledges for hours worked or trash bags collected to supplement your earnings.

Fundraising success story: Alicia Chapman

One hour of prep time + three weeks + nine students = $1,560 profit. Not bad, right?

For Alicia Chapman and her high school students in rural Maine, it's made all the difference.

Alicia, a high school science teacher, has helped make it possible for her students to travel on an EF tour next year with her incredible fundraising success story.

When I asked Alicia (left) why she leads tours with EF and puts the effort into organizing fundraising for her students, she said it's well worth it.

"I get to go because of them (my students), so if I have to spend a little of my time (to help them make it happen), I think it's fair," Alicia said. "Half of my students have never left Maine and may never do it again. I can't wait to travel with them!"

Alicia and her students are traveling to London and Paris next summer with EF. Fortunately, for their fundraising's sake, their rural town in Maine loves having Yankee Candles delivered to its doorsteps. A few years ago, Alicia was the senior class adviser, and the idea of organizing fundraising efforts for 200 students was a daunting one. She came across Yankee Candle Fundraising, and it was a hit!

Calling all fundraising success stories

As spring-break travelers prepare for departure and summer groups organize final details for their EF tours, we're starting to hear some great successes in fundraising around the country.

Now, we want to hear your story! Next week, we will launch a new series within the Fundraising Tip of the Week to highlight fundraising success stories from our EF Group Leaders and travelers.

What fundraisers worked best for you and your group? What did you learn? What tips can you share with groups just starting their fundraising for next year?

Please email us at fundraising@ef.com to share your experiences. We want to hear fundraising stories of all shapes and sizes—from raising a surprising few hundred dollars with minimal planning to paying for your entire tour through an ambitious fundraising agenda.

(Tip of the Week is written by EF Fundraising Specialist Tessa Lorenze and appears at Following the Equator every Tuesday. For more fundraising help on your EF tour, check out EF's fundraising tips or contact an EF Fundraising Specialist at fundraising@ef.com.)

Photo: kaylamarie2191 via Flickr (EF Tours pool)

99 places to promote your fundraising efforts

Our friends over at Firstgiving host a regular webinar series covering many fundraising topics, particularly online. Though the focus is more general, many of the fundraising tips and advice found in these webinars are useful for educational travel groups.

We've posted a lot here about harnessing the Internet to boost your fundraising efforts. Firstgiving's most recent webinar covers a lot more ground: "9 ways to promote your personal fundraising page and 99 places to do it."