Travel Grant Policy

The following criteria will be used to determine the funding awarded to SCA Conservation Interns for travel to and from the sites where they work. Please note that internships don't begin until an intern arrives at the site and end as soon as an intern leaves the site to return home. Interns are expected to pay for their own travel to their work site. SCA reimburses them for their travel expenses, provided their paperwork is complete, at or near the beginning of their internships. Reimbursement is deposited into an e-funds card and is immediately available for their use.

Travel Request Form for Interns

There are three categories of Travel Grant reimbursement:

1. Interns at all car required positions (i.e. interns who need to drive their own vehicles to their sites) are reimbursed at a rate of 19¢ per mile, plus $60 per night for lodging (maximum of four nights). They can check MapQuest for their route of travel to help calculate mileage.  All interns that are traveling to Alaska and Hawaii will fly.

Interns from overseas and Central and South America must provide their own round-trip transportation from home to their internships in the United States and back. SCA will provide a grant of up to $650 (more for Alaska and Hawaii) for foreign interns to use toward round-trip travel. Travel Grants for interns from Canada and Mexico are determined in the same manner as for U.S. citizens. If you select or are interested in a foreign applicant, SCA can help arrange Visa requirements for entering the United States as an intern.

Interns who leave their positions before completing their scheduled term of service are liable to forfeit their return travel grant and may be required to return travel funds already received.

Use Of Personal Vehicle for Official Duty

SCA will not award a travel grant to a participant for the use of a personal vehicle in the performance of official duties assigned by the cooperating agency at the duty station. SCA expects the cooperating agency to provide transportation for the performance of official duties or full reimbursement for the use of personal vehicles for such purposes.

Policy

When interns are asked to travel as part of their volunteer service, SCA expects the agency partner to absorb associated costs.  If the intern is traveling by car, the agency should plan to reimburse at its own rate; if the agency hasn’t established a reimbursement rate for mileage, the intern will be compensated at 34 cents per mile.  Travel funds processed by SCA are subject to a 28.3% program support fee. 

Exceptions to this policy will only be made where mitigating circumstances exist, as determined by the program’s Assistant Director and/or National Director.

Procedures

When an agency partner wishes to provide funds to an intern for duty-related travel costs, the partner must:

1. Ascertain whether coverage of these costs is articulated in the agreement for services between SCA and the hosting agency.  If not, the agency partner must initiate a modification to the agreement.
2. Estimate the travel costs, taking into consideration meals, lodging and mileage rate (or airfare).  If the travel has already occurred, the intern should submit receipts to the agency partner.
3. Call or send an email to the Program Representative requesting the specified amount of funds be disbursed to the intern’s Chase e-Funds card.