Allocation of program fee - Kindly read it carefully

Dear Volunteers and Parents

First of all, thank you for showing interest in IFRE volunteer program.

As you may be well aware, IFRE offers extremely competitive program fee and because of this, the programs we offer is one of the most affordable.Rarely any U.S. based organizations offer the services and the fees we offer (you can verify it on the internet via a Google search). IFRE does not make ANY profit from the programs. The fees are just enough to keep our programs going. By doing this, we hope to inspire many volunteers like you and your children to venture in the world at large and make the real difference.

Secondly, we would like to remind you that when running a quality volunteer (or any other business), it involves aspects like program development, advertising, administrative expenses (US and field), field expenses and program coordination. These are features that are vital to run a successful and effective program. But unfortunately, these factors increase the cost and the expenses.

As we do NOT get external funding, the program fee is the only source we have to run our programs, or else we have to close down our business. Please find the details of cost break down (average worldwide).

Program Development

Before sending volunteers, we visit each country, conduct research on potential projects, carefully select host families, set up home base and interview/recruits local staffs. We also provide training to country coordinators and projects staffs so that our volunteers can have a safe and rewarding volunteer program. Sometimes, we stay even up to one month to complete all these processes.  Following costs are involved in the program development

• International travel of IFRE staffs
• Room/food/Pocket money of IFRE staffs during travel/training (as long as one month)
• Advertising for host families, projects, coordinators in local newspapers
• Screening and selection of host families, projects, coordinators
• Training for project staffs, host families, coordinators (some times it also involve renting space for training, room/food during training)

Nearly 5% of IFRE fee goes for program development.

If the program is not developed carefully or if we do not select good projects, choose safe host families, and pick qualified coordinators and train them, our volunteers will never have a safe and quality time. Hence the projects, host families or our home bases where our volunteers work or live are chosen with extreme care, where lot of our effort and budget are spent.

Advertising

Without advertising, there is very little chance to get business. Advertising is very expensive in USA. Google per click rises as high as $2 per click for each major keyword. We get nearly 80% of our volunteers through internet. IFRE does a lot of advertising. We do both online advertising (Google, Yahoo, Go Abroad) and other advertising like in magazine and student fairs. Without advertising, volunteers will never hear about IFRE or the affordable programs we offer. Only the big volunteer or travel companies will get all the volunteers. The costs involved in adverting are:

• Online Google, Yahoo, MSN per click advertising
• Advertising in Go Abroad and other volunteer directory
• SEO to enhance web presence
• Study abroad fair in many colleges/universities (stall fee, travel cost, room/food)
• Magazines advertising

Nearly 12.5% of IFRE fee goes to advertising

Staff salary, rent, utilities

Staffs at IFRE or the director of IFRE do not make more than $36,000 salary per year. In last two years, we have NOT given raise to staffs at their reviews during Christmas time. If you see 990 forms in guidestar.org – you will notice directors of OTHER NON-profit volunteer abroad organizations making as much as $300,000 per year with their salaries. We are working very hard and getting paid a very low salary just to give wonderful opportunities to many volunteers like you. The cost of staff salary, rent and utilities are:

• Salary of 6 IFRE staffs
• Rent of USA office
• Utilities
• Office papers, pens, pencils etc

Nearly 15% of IFRE fee goes to salary, rent, and utilities

Field Expenses

In order to provide safe and quality programs, we have set up many field offices/home bases in many countries. There are many expenses involve in field operation. These are:

• Room (home base or host family)
• Food (home base or host family)
• Airport pick up
• Transfer from airport to home base or host family
• Project donation (money or materials)
• Salaries of coordinators and field staffs
• Travel allowances of coordinators and field staffs
• Frequent travel costs of coordinators to visit projects/host families
• Rent of home base (we have home base in 11 countries)
• Utilities of home base
• Salaries of cooks/security guards working in home base
• Maintenance of home base
• Daily communication – long distance call to coordinators
• Free Spanish lesson in many Latin American countries

Nearly 57.5% of program fees go to above activities

Miscellaneous expenses

When you run volunteer program (a kind of business), you will understand that many expenses are involved in it. Few examples are:

• Insurance of volunteers
• Web maintenance (as high as $50 per hour)
• Data Base management ($75 per hour)
• Insurance of employees
• International money wire fee
• Bank fee
• Accountant fee

Nearly 5% of fee goes for above activities.

Follow up Travel – Program Development

Yearly visits to countries where we run our programs are essential. This is true even in countries where we’ve carefully researched and selected the programs. Many things changes in a year. Field conditions become different due to variety of political, social and economical factors, old staffs leave and new ones arrive, new programs are launched and old ones are closed down. Each year, we change projects and host families and the staffs who failed to deliver the services we seek leave. Sometimes, we visit some countries even 2-3 times a year to fix the problems or adjust the changes in field situations. All this incur cost. These are:

• International travel of IFRE staffs
• Room/food/pocket money of IFRE staffs (for as long as one month)
• Advertisement for host families, projects, coordinators in local newspaper
• Screening and selection of host families, projects and coordinators
• Training for project staffs, host families, coordinators (sometimes we need to rent space for training, room/food during training

Nearly 5% of IFRE fee goes for Program development.

Therefore, except 15% of administration cost (salary, rent, utilities, office expenses- which is also a part of this program), all 85% of your money go for you and your program.

Sincere Request

IFRE is a small 501 C 3; we work hard (get paid low salary) to offer highly affordable and quality program. However, not all of your money reaches the host family and the project. We are really sorry this situation has to arise but you are well aware that because of all the expenses we have to incur to run the program, a large chunk of money goes into it. If we increase the fee, we can also increase the amount that goes to host families and projects, but this contradicts with our mission of offering affordable fee program. This also hampers the business. But we can assure you that all our host families receive better share of money (than other volunteer organizations offer). The projects are also provided with either money or material donations (from US office or from local office).

Therefore, we sincerely request all the volunteers and the parents to kindly understand why so many costs are involved while running volunteer abroad program. We are not doing it for profit. Therefore, please help us promote this humanitarian program. If you refer us to your friends/families, we will be able to reduce cost in the future and give this life changing opportunities of many college students and inspiring volunteers.

Your kind understanding is very much appreciated. Many thanks again for joining or inquiring about IFRE program.

Remarks: Allocation is based on average of IFRE worldwide expenses
Sincerely
Director
IFRE, Dallas, TX