We’re going to go out on a limb and guess that budgeting is not the highlight of your job. No cool spreadsheet or app can make up for that. But take heart, even those with small conference budgets can make it to The Orange Conference 2014. It may take a little creativity and hard work, but we’ve seen it happen.

“If saving money is wrong, I don’t want to be right!” – William Shatner

Here are a few suggestions to save some green on Orange:

• Throughout the year, we offer free conference registrations through contests. Follow this blog and/or @OrangeLeaders on Twitter for those announcements.
• Sometimes our other social media channels offer free tickets through giveaways and contests. You can connect with us in a variety of ways to stay up to date.
• Host a fundraiser. We’ve heard a lot of really clever ideas over the years!
• We love to learn, and we love students. If you’re a student, fax or email a copy of your current student ID for undergraduate, graduate or high school enrollment, and you’ll qualify for student pricing of $219.
• Groups of 15+ and international attendees receive discounted pricing. Please visit the Details page for more details.
• We work with hotels, car rental companies and airlines to make special offers for you. Those can be found at the bottom of the Details page of the website. Helpful hint: The hotel deals go fast, so it’s a good idea to secure those early if you want the lower pricing.
• You can also save on hotel costs by using services like AirBnB and Homeaway.
• We couldn’t get through The Orange Conference without stellar volunteers just like you and your staff. So, if you’d like to experience a different side of OC14 for free, consider joining our volunteer team.
• As we get closer to April, we will again try to help attendees find host homes to help alleviate lodging costs. If you are interested in a host home, or would like to host others coming in to Atlanta for OC, please contact Kristi Porter at kporter@rethinkgroup.org.
• Find a travel buddy. Those of you traveling alone may be able to find someone from a neighboring church that’s headed to OC14 and share the travel costs with them.  Sometimes we can even help you find those folks. Or you can use our handy Church Finder to see Orange partners near you.
• It doesn’t hurt to ask! Ask friends, relatives, fellow staffers or church members to help you cover expenses with hotel rewards points or frequent flyer miles, or even monetary donations. You might be surprised by how others want to help you invest in yourself so you can invest in others.

Have another great idea? Please share it with us in the comments section. We’d love to hear it!