Xu Bo Staff Overseas Travel Fund

In recent years, reunions set up by ex Xu Bo volunteers are becoming more and more common. These reunions are usually held in the home countries of the volunteers, often in Europe or the USA, and participants greatly enjoy the opportunity to share special memories and rekindle special friendships made during their time volunteering in China. Some of these special friendships are between volunteers and our staff members and reunion organizers often invite our staff members to attend.

Our staff members would love to attend these reunions. They often make special friendships with volunteers and, like the volunteers they serve, they are interested in seeing new places and experiencing other cultures. However, cost-of-living differences between China and the West make traveling to the West very expensive for us. When we examined our company budget, it was clear we could not afford to fund this travel expense alone. As a non-profit organization, we keep our costs to volunteers as low as possible and we have a very tight operating budget.

Several former volunteers have told us they would be willing to make a donation to help make it possible for a staff member to travel to these reunions. We were greatly touched by these offers and realized that this kind of generosity is common among our wonderful volunteers. For this reason, we have established a Xu Bo Staff Overseas Travel Fund, a fund that will be funded jointly by the company budget and by donations from volunteers. Xu Bo will seed the fund with 3,000 RMB each year; an amount that we recognize is insufficient for even one trip abroad. But, with donations from you, we are hoping to be able to make up the difference.

To make this fund work, we are asking every Xu Bo volunteer to nominate a specific Xu Bo staff member as the one you feel is most deserving of the opportunity to travel abroad. And you can, optionally, make a donation to the fund in that staff member’s name. We ask you to nominate a staff member even if you decide not make a donation. To help us in this effort, please follow the procedure below:

1.	Decide on the specific staff member who you would like to nominate.
2.	On a piece of paper, write “Staff Member Overseas Travel Nominee: ” followed by the name of the staff member you are nominating. At the bottom of the page, you may add your own name but don’t do this if you wish to remain anonymous.
3.	Obtain an envelope from Nick in our office - or use your own envelope and place the paper containing your nomination into the envelope.
4.	If you wish to make a donation to the travel fund for the staff member, please insert the money into the envelope along with your nomination.
5.	Write “Staff Member Overseas Travel” on the outside of the envelope and deliver it directly to Nick at the Xu Bo office.

If you are not making a donation and it is more convenient for you, you can send me an email with the name of the staff member you are voting for. My email address is jiong.duanmu@xubo.org

We will make public the funding status at least twice a year so you can keep track of “Xu Bo Staff Overseas Travel” funding. We also will email you whenever a staff member is selected to travel abroad through this program.

We thank you very much for your support in this program and look forward to fulfilling the dreams of our staff members to travel abroad. If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to contact me at the email address above.

Jessie Duanmu
Director, Xu Bo Art & Culture Exchange