Volunteer
Budget Guide
Estimating Your Service Budget
As you prepare to serve, it’s a good idea to create a budget. To estimate your service budget, you need to know your monthly expenses and your irregular expenses.
Step 1 – Calculate your monthly expenses: Your monthly expenses may include supplies such as toiletries (available in the Ship Shop), recreation, or malaria prophylaxis. A list of the most common expenses crew cover is below.
Step 2 – Add your irregular expenses: Your irregular expenses are one-time expenses, such as round-trip flights, costs during planned time off (for crew serving 3 months or more), and end-of service expenses.
To help you do this, feel free to download a budget worksheet below, based on your length of service.
Sample Budget Worksheets
For Crew serving less than 12 months, it’s more common to fundraise for all or most of your service at once. The worksheet will still calculate a monthly breakdown for you.
For Crew serving 12+ months, it’s more common to fundraise towards a monthly or annual goal. Funds for irregular expenses can be spread out and included in the monthly goal, or raised separately.
Expenses
Below are some of the most common expenses volunteers pay for.
• Round-trip airfare
• Vaccines
• Malaria Medication
• Fundraising and donor care expenses
• On-Boarding or Gateway training attendance (travel expenses)
• International Driving Permit (as required by role)
• Passport fees
• Personal supplies and clothing
• Spending money
• Recreation
• Souvenirs
• License renewal (as required by role)
• Re-entry (3-6 months of expenses)
• Emergency funds
Costs Covered by Mercy Ships
Mercy Ships covers the cost of lodging and meals on board for all volunteers.
In addition, Mercy Ships provides a comprehensive health and travel insurance policy at no cost to all active volunteers.