DONOR FACTS

Existing Funding Support
My project, Forest Visions, is currently supported by a US Fulbright grant.  This grant pays for my daily living expenses in the form of a ten-month stipend which I use for my trips to remote forest communities.  Travel to the interior of Malaysian Borneo is arduous and expensive.  Transport, which involves hiring a 4WD vehicle for a trip into and out of a community often costs over $200 US.  I also pay for guides, relevant supplies that are needed by communities I work with, and food, especially important given food shortages in some of the communities where I work.  I also bring needed supplies and gifts for communities I work with, such a toothbrushes, tarps, fishing line, and a whole list that stuffs my backpack.

What has already been funded by donations?
All film and digital cameras (30 individual cameras) currently being distributed to forest communities have been purchased or donated with funds from individuals.  These donors have also funded film costs for the majority of the film and camera batteries.  Some of my Fulbright allowance will pay for film processing and printing.  Project donors are all individuals and photographic suppliers who have supported me and my vision of working with forest communities.  Many of these people have purchased art prints from me and thus contributed to other projects, such as work I've done with communities in the Philippines  (US Peace Corps and graduate fieldwork) and Costa Rica (teaching US college students about conservation initiatives and challenges).

What are current donations used for?
My monthly income from my Fulbright is less than my monthly project expenses. I usually make up the difference in my funding shortfall with donations and spending my own money.  Donations are especially helpful because they often allow me to travel longer, to more remote forest communities with more supplies that forest people need.  This is also a much more valuable and satisfying way of working. 

The majority of my travel involves going to remote areas to work with nomadic Penan people.  This travel will be my most expensive to date. The Penan represent the last populations of nomadic people in Borneo.  Documenting their ideas about forest conservation and creating reserves is especially crucial to finding a way forward.

What are the benefits to donating?
Donations are tax deductible.  You will receive an email receipt of your donation, a card by mail, and all project updates.  I envision the newsletter I've started here in Borneo as a beginning of a much larger project of working with marginalized forest communities.  This is passionate work of a lifetime.  Not only am I indebted to you, but you are now part of making my work a reality.

Donors are invaluable and once my work is finished and mounted, they will be entitled to picking out a complimentary art print as a gesture of my appreciation. My Borneo book will also be available as well, at production cost to small donors or free to large donors.