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[Monty Fowler]

I was hoping we'd have gotten the check from the fourth quarter of 2014. I know I ordered a few things from Amazon Smile during that time.

LTM,
Monty Fowler, TIGHAR No. 2189 ECSP

[Todd Attebery]

Along the lines of my TECTIC post,  has TIGHAR considered doing a crowd sourcing funding program dedicated to an individual person (someone less skeptical, but can't personally pony up $50K) ?  I.e. "Fund an 'at-large member' " or "Fund-an-Educator" to join the expedition... some price to nominate someone $50 (or $19.37) , and some small price $5 ($1.93) to vote.    Two ideas here... 1. If individuals have some personal skin in the game, it might help the funding effort "go viral".  2.  The "suggested price point" of helping in the search $19.37, may be a bit too high for the average "lurker" on facebook, but they might easily drop a few bucks for a friend's attempt to join the expedition. 

Again, my $0.02.

[Steve Lyle Gunderson]

Here is a lead to a potential supporter and/or partner.

[Rob Seasock]

Funny, OceanGate's Antipodes submersible spent the night staged on a flatbed truck out in the parking lot of the marina where I live last fall. The name Stockton Rush struck me as unusual for some reason, he has an old Philadelphia family and interesting background:
http://www.oceangate.com/our-company/oceangate-stockton-rush.html

His fathers Princeton memorial citing the Declaration of Independence signee connection and living in New Zealand reference,  the Antipodes was ounce a tourist sub in New Zealand:
http://paw.princeton.edu/memorials/40/15/index.xml

Antipodes submersible:
http://www.oceangate.com/equipment/antipodes-submersible.html

[Ric Gillespie]

All of these manned submersibles are too large to be deployed from our expedition vessel.

[Ted G Campbell]

Ric,
Where do we stand money wise?
Ted Campbell

[Ric Gillespie]

Where do we stand money wise?

The expedition budget is about $350,000 (it's a moving target because we haven't selected an ROV contractor so we don't know how much that will cost).  So far we've raised $206,300 in donations and firm pledges so we need to raise another $143,700 for the expedition, but we also have to cover TIGHAR's operating expenses through July.   The bottom line is that we need to raise another $200,000.

We still have one $50,000 Sponsor Team Member berth available, so if anyone knows of a wealthy individual who wants to go on an "Indiana Jones-style adventure vacation" (as Tom Crouch styles our expeditions) have him or her get in touch with me.

We have a fundraising luncheon in Washington DC scheduled for March 19.  Former Ass't Secretary of State Kurt Campbell is hosting the event and has invited a number of "heavy hitters."   The TIGHAR board of directors is also soliciting significant donations from their contacts.

Donations via the TIGHAR Facebook page are coming in.  Not huge amounts but a steady stream of $50 and $100 contributions.  It adds up.

[Monty Fowler]

Hmmm ... payday is the 15th. Guess who's going to be getting a check on the 16th?

LTM, who can see the end of the tunnel,
Monty Fowler, TIGHAR No. 2189 ECSP

[Monty Fowler]

Donations via the TIGHAR Facebook page are coming in.  Not huge amounts but a steady stream of $50 and $100 contributions.  It adds up.

I'm hoping that the Your Name in Lights funding idea is driving at least some of this - it's a novel take on one way to get lasting fame.

LTM,
Monty Fowler, TIGHAR no. 2189 ECSP

[Ted G Campbell]

Ric,
How short are we?
Ted Campbell

[Ted G Campbell]

Ric,
Give us number!
Ted Campbell

[Martin X. Moleski, SJ]

This is what Ric posted earlier in this thread, Ted:

"We have a fundraising luncheon in Washington DC scheduled for March 19.  Former Ass't Secretary of State Kurt Campbell is hosting the event and has invited a number of 'heavy hitters.'   The TIGHAR board of directors is also soliciting significant donations from their contacts."

Today is March 20.

My guess is that Ric is busy courting the kind of people who can complete the funding, not reading the Forum, this morning.

"Are we there yet, Daddy?" really doesn't make the car go faster.

[JNev]

This is what Ric posted earlier in this thread, Ted:

"We have a fundraising luncheon in Washington DC scheduled for March 19.  Former Ass't Secretary of State Kurt Campbell is hosting the event and has invited a number of 'heavy hitters.'   The TIGHAR board of directors is also soliciting significant donations from their contacts."

Today is March 20.

My guess is that Ric is busy courting the kind of people who can complete the funding, not reading the Forum, this morning.

"Are we there yet, Daddy?" really doesn't make the car go faster.

Marty,

Ted's been a keen and apparently substantial supporter of Tighar by all I can tell in the forum and by his generous offer to send me to the early hearings in Wyoming to support Ric and Tighar.  Mirth is one thing, but it seems Tighar could use the goodwill of guys like Ted.  Isn't your remark a tad sharp, considering that?

I consider it to be, and condescending - that while Ric's busy courting potential 'heavy hitters' the goodwill of rank and file seemingly only deserves the backhand of a proxy.

No wonder Niku VIII is hurting.  Sad.

[Martin X. Moleski, SJ]

Ted's been a keen and apparently substantial supporter of Tighar by all I can tell in the forum and by his generous offer to send me to the early hearings in Wyoming to support Ric and Tighar.  Mirth is one thing, but it seems Tighar could use the goodwill of guys like Ted.  Isn't your remark a tad sharp, considering that?

As I said to you in a private message already this morning, I have noted your criticism of my post.

Even though I am the server administrator and the person who set up and maintain this Forum, I'm a little uncertain as to exactly what time Ted made his posts.  My personal timezone settings may affect this view, too.

It seems to me that Ted asked his two questions within an hour of each other sometime in the wee small hours of this morning:

« Reply #152 on: Today at 12:22:34 AM »

« Reply #153 on: Today at 01:19:03 AM »

I replied seven hours later:

« Reply #154 on: Today at 08:09:01 AM »

My guess is that Ric is busy with more important matters than reading the Forum this morning.

[Ric Gillespie]

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.