For the first time in our seven-year history, Next Step has raised the cost of our week-long mission trips. We still offer domestic trips starting at $299, but most domestic participant costs rose from $399 to the current $419. Our international participant costs also rose from $599 to $649.

We believe in being fully transparent as a ministry, which includes our finances. So the natural question is why the price increase?

There are two main reasons for our price increase in 2015.

#1 Cost of Community Development

Like most movements, there is a cost that is associated.  As we are committed to changing the culture of short-term missions and creating short-term mission trips that collide with long-term community development, it now costs us more to run a trip that is more “community-based”.  Where do the dollars go with a community-based mission trip?  The dollars go to hiring local community members to serve along-side your teams, selecting work projects that might cost a little more—but are the right projects to do, using higher quality materials so we don’t leave a community feeling like they got “mission trip work”, and leaving a little money in the community to finish up work that your team may not have completely during your week.

#2 Material Cost Rise

This one is more basic, over the last seven years we have watched material costs rise over 10%.  Next Step was very hesitant to move this cost onto our participants, as we desire to provide an affordable mission trip to all teams.  However, with our heart for more community-based mission trips, we felt this was an opportunity to adjust our costs with confident hearts.

You may have heard us say it in the past, but we never will let the price of a trip stand in the way of ministry.  It sounds cliché, but if you ever have a student or a team that is struggling to afford a Next Step trip, give us a call and we are committed to making it work.

Thank you for every single dollar you contribute to this ministry.  We will continue to be committed to prayerfully spending responsibly and effectively the funding we have been blessed with.

Respectfully,
Nick Cocalis
Co-Founder and Missions Director