Funding is an important aspect of SIFE team activities and projects and each SIFE team needs to develop its own funding approach for the year to accomplish their goals and finance the team activities. Each SIFE team can choose to follow any combination of the approaches listed below that they think would work best for them.
1. Campus or institutional support
Many colleges and universities have a pre-determined amount that they allocate to groups or societies on campus for travel or team projects. Your SIFE team should explore this option when it is being registered as an official organisation on campus and at the beginning of your academic year. These requests should be filed early in the year as the fund amount is often limited.
2. Grants
SIFE and SIFE sponsor companies also offer grants that can be used as funding sources for the SIFE projects. Grants made available in the past are:
3. Entrepreneurial Operations
Your SIFE team can always look at participating in campus initiatives such as festivals and undertaking an entrepreneurial venture such as selling products, opening a food and beverage stall etc.
You could also explore the option of a partnership with the campus cafeteria/stationary organisation to market your products and raise funds for SIFE activities.
4. Local civic organizations and foundations
Most cities have local organisations that actively support community initiatives, which may prove to be a good source of funding for your SIFE projects. You can check with your college professors and administrators if they are members of any of these organisations and can help you to get introduced to more members.
Another source that can be tapped is the foundations of corporations based in your city. This, however, may be a one time grant. You may consider developing multi-year plans if you are looking at receiving funding over several years.
5. Partnerships
Explore the option of partnering with businesses in your community who would be willing to offset the costs of certain of your educational projects. This may be in line with their social initiatives or these companies may be natural partners for these projects. You can offer them branding and marketing opportunities in return for their financial support. Always remember that these plans take time to materialise and you must calculate a sufficient amount of gap in the same.
6. SIFE Network Opportunities
Your SIFE team can also approach the local branches of companies you know are SIFE sponsors for funding. Keep in mind that companies often allocate their funding budget at the beginning of the fiscal year and you should obtain this information for all companies you are planning to approach. You may find that the level of awareness about SIFE is not what you are expecting; be prepared to counter this by going to meet them with relevant SIFE material and information ready. Even if the company does not provide you with funding, you can still ask the key people to be on your BAB board and guide your SIFE team.