No wonder Niku VIII is hurting. Sad.
I do not feel sad.
Niku VIII is not hurting.
Marty is right. I have to devote attention to securing large gifts.
Ted is not wrong for being curious about how the fund raising is going.
Forum contributors are important.
We had about a dozen people at yesterday's luncheon in Washington. It was a high-powered dozen. The luncheon appears to have been successful in raising significant dollars for the expedition. I say "appears to" because these things are not like church where you pass the plate after the sermon. Specific commitments are made in private follow-up conversations.
The host, Dr. Kurt Campbell, gave me a glowing introduction and my one-hour PowerPoint presentation was well-received. After about 20 minutes of Q&A the mood in the room was positive and the consensus was that the case for Nikumaroro is strong and the expedition needs to happen. Kurt announced that his firm would be making a significant contribution and a number of people said they would be donating. No firm numbers were discussed but Kurt and I will be following up over the next week or so. He also plans to put me in front of other potential contributors who were not able to attend and he intends to hold another similar luncheon in a few weeks. There's more work to do to harvest the fields we planted yesterday, but I feel that the prospects for completing the funding for the expedition are now excellent and we'll be moving forward aggressively with preparations and logistics.
To answer Ted's question, we need to raise another $146,216 to trigger the $100,000 foundation grant and complete the basic $350,000 expedition budget. That's the most urgent need but it's not the whole story. With more funding we can do more and we'll of course need to keep TIGHAR's operating costs covered before, during, and after the expedition.