Sponsorship

As you might have guessed the cost of this expedition really expensive. In fact it is too expensive for me. But I value the experience more than money since money I can make (or save, rather) but the experience like not too many people can have. Having said that, I still want to get some form of sponsorship from big corporations or the media to help cover part of or entire the expedition. The first I tried was the Vietnamese newpapers in Vietnam. I thought it’s probably more interesting to the Vietnamese people that a Vietnamese to go to the North Pole. After all, I might be the very first Vietnamese to go there (again, unconfirmed, but I did some search, nothing came up). I sent the two biggest daily newspapers in Vietnam. No echo from the black hole. I then tried BBC Vietnamese version, also no response. Only when I tried the local Vietnamese community here, I got some reply but they were in no position to sponsor since they don’t make that much money. At least they’re willing to pay me for the articles and photos after the trip. I then switched to big corporations. Cisco would be the first. I tried people from marketing and people who might have pointers. Fruitless. I turned to Google, Facebook and Yahoo. For Google, I even drafted out the plan how to make their young social network Orkut to be more popular. They quickly replied with a no. As for Yahoo!, at least my friend Ryan tried back and forth and finally it also died. As I read on thepoles.com, they said to expect lot of no for a yes. It’s true to my case. Next time if I need to raise some money, must do it much earlier and widespread. I certainly gave up the hope to get any sponsor until yesterday my team have a quick meeting. Everyone got together and wished me luck on my trip. And to my surprise they gave me the “sponsor” money, not much compare to the trip but a lot for a “standard” gift as we always have when someone has a baby. I really appreciate this, especially it is quite a bit for them. Thanks guy for your support and going easy on me :)