Funding: More Alternatives

Funding the project has always been a major challenge for the WorldWalk-Peacetour team. Though there have been plenty of ideas, at the end it came to begging—directly or indirectly—or doing odd jobs. That’s about it. The Ivanics brothers cannot really do anything else during the tour.

Now it was time for us, the background team to come up with some ideas how to get a solid financial background for the project.

By having opened a new bank account in Spain new horizons of action are opened up for the project as well. The boys are now able to accept help from anywhere around the world. They can try to have an impact on the conscience and empathy of uninterested pedestrians who don’t know anything about the project. They can try to introduce themselves and their mission in a few seconds. But it’s easier and more convenient to get the message to whoever might be interested through the Internet. It’s easier to present a picture about the members of the project, their goals, their adventures and the troubles they have to face. And if someone takes the time to read this travelogue, she or he can decide more easily if the boys are worthy of support or not.

Only one thing was missing to make this happen: A donation button on the blog. Once clicked, it provides a way for you, dear reader in front of the computer to send a small amount of money, a donation to the boys. You’ll find the button on the left sidebar, anyone can donate using a PayPal account, a credit or debit card or a bank transfer. Even the smallest help is very much appreciated. So, WorldWalk is now PayPal verified:

Our next idea started as a joke. But a joke, taken very seriously. Why should we expect anyone to donate without getting anything in return? Who knows, maybe the noble cause or the entertainment—by providing hopefully interesting reads—are enough, maybe not. What else could we give the donors? And the answer was: let’s launch WorldWalk-themed merchandise.

Said and done, the WorldWalk-Peacetour Supporters Shop has opened its doors.

Currently it sells only one item, a supporter’s T-Shirt with a humble design and a direct message.

But, jokes aside, these souvenirs—of course with better design and a consistent message about the project’s mission—might have an important role in WorldWalk’s funding in the future. We just need to give a proper shape to the experiences, thoughts, photos of the boys. And of course it’s not just income we’re talking about here. The donors using these objects would promote not only the WorldWalk-Peacetour mission, but its message about peace, friendship and brotherhood as well. So we won’t yet stop, will try to design items that match the sublime goals. We hope we’ll get some responses on these plans.

The third idea came from the lack of sponsors. If we analyze the sponsors’ business viewpoint, they’re interested in how the boys can advertise their products, their values. Virtually the WorldWalkers should become ad-carriers themselves. But since it’s not easy to walk around the world and discuss sponsorship issues with marketing professionals at the same time, the sponsorship plans came to a standstill quite fast. But again, on the web it’s a lot easier, just a few clicks and ads related to the posts appear on the blog pages and feed. The advertiser pays for the impressions his or her ad gets, and the ad host—i.e. us—gets his share after the clicks the ads trigger on his pages. Simple as that. That’s why we placed Google AdSense ads on the blog, we hope they will increase the budget of the project.