·         Your Academic Department – talk to your professors or the dean of your department for funding possibilities, especially if your program relates to drug policy, social justice, human rights or activism.  Professors or deans may also be able to point you to external funding possibilities, such as grants.  Professors or their colleagues and friends may also be willing to sponsor you or your group personally, so if you feel comfortable asking then go for it!

·         Your Student Union – many student unions have funding available to help get students to conferences.  Talk to your student union to see if they can help you out.

·         Your School – many schools also have funding available specifically to help get students to conferences.  Ask a professor, a school administrator or a student union representative for more details, as the funding available and the process for receiving funding will be different from school to school.

·         Your chapter fundraising – In the past, chapters have done their own fundraising to ensure that at least one or two of their members can represent the chapter at conferences.  There are many fundraising possibilities depending on the size of your group, your location, how much time you are willing to commit and other factors.  Some ideas and past CSSDP fundraising events include, open mic nights, comedy shows, auctions of art/event tickets/other fun stuff, bake sales, garage sales, car washes, BBQs, movie screenings, AirMiles/Aeroplan points drives, bottle drives and many others.

·         Individual fundraising – talk to your friends, family, coworkers, professors, colleagues, networks and see if any of them are interested in sponsoring you to get you to the conference.  Even if 10 people give you $10 each, you are already on your way, and if someone can spare a larger donation, then even better!

·         Poster Presentation – CSSDP thinks it is really important to get students and youth more involved in the content of the conference, so we’ve decided to hold a poster presentation again this year, where students and youth can present their research work or their exploration of an idea during the conference, and take questions, comments and feedback from other conference participants.  Not only does this get students more involved in the conference, but it brings up more funding possibilities from your academic department, your school, your student union, research grants, presentation grants, academic funding etc, because you are going to the conference, not simply as a participant, but as a PRESENTER.