Random image

The Seven Lakes of Heaven

The Book

Submitted by Geeproud on Sun, 05/04/2008 - 20:28

Proposal:

A returning Peace Corps Volunteer can share their experience with other Americans by creating a Photo Gallery in their local towns that will also be the marketing platform to raise money for the communities they served overseas.

Cultural Exchange and Cultural Documentation:

The gallery exhibit will give Americans a glimpse of the lives of people in other countries and try to broaden one’s cultural understanding. The gallery will be used as a jumping off point to open discussion about the local culture and peoples. While artistic expression will certainly draw attendance and set the standard of quality, the main goal of the gallery is the documentation. Through this documentation, awareness can be raised for certain issues.

Focusing Interest into Action | Fund-raising:

The gallery will serve as a way to market a photo book that documents the lives of a small village life. Instead of providing just a art space to temporarily discuss these issues, visitors will have the possibility to purchase a coffee table book to have a lasting impact.

The need for sponsors and partnerships:

1) Legitimate organization to receive and disperse funds for sponsors. Possible candidates: Arete Youth, Peace Corps PPPC project,

2) Potential Partnerships: It is unclear where exactly the market is because it is book about a culture for another culture. Partnerships with Museums and art galleries should be logical, as well as libraries. But they shouldn’t be looked as sponsors but as partners for gallery space and marketing the book.

3) General Sponsorship without or without advertising opportunities to cover transportation costs, printing costs

Extending the Experience | Fundraising for local Communities

To extend this gallery experience, a photo book will be sold. There will be a "fund-raising" book that will be smaller and more compact with a lower price and more funds going to the local communities. The archival book will be much larger and more expensive but will have a broader spectrum of photos with a more complex discussion of the culture.

The Archive Book

  • Roughly 100 pages of photos and commentary. The style would be like a National Geographic Magazine without the lengthy articles. Often, the articles are rarely read and photos are displayed without context. This book would provide a brief context in a paragraph form for each photo but not focus on writing a definitive work. The focus is the photos and the culture the photos have documented, not the author.

    The Fundraising Book

  • With a discernibly different goal than the Archival Book, this book aims to provide some of the best photos of the gallery

    Scalability:

    Should an NGO be interested in taking on this project, cultural books could be made collectively from each country that has Peace Corps Volunteers. This could be marketed as an “encyclopedia” of sorts. It could provide minimal funds to the NGO and allow people to gain awareness for cultures throughout the world.

    Web Applications:

    Frankly, creating a website is possible and could be a good alternative. This is added time and runs the risk of being "lost" in the web. Physical galleries and books have more immediate and direct impact than a web presence. Plus, the concept is to "introduce" the culture to people that would not normally be exposed to such photos. A web presence, by definition, is only found when it sought out either by search engines, blogs or word of mouth.

    Small Scale Production

    Currently, it is possible to create a book "on-demand" and have the book shipped to any address in the world. These books are more expensive than normally printed books but allow the publisher much more flexibility. It limits the risk of the publishing endeavor because there is no upfront costs. Should the book become demanded in quantities over 1000, it is possible to have it traditionally printed at much lower costs. Examples of this "On-Demand" printing are www.blurb.com and www.lulu.com . Both offer competitive prices and have online marketplaces to display, sell and receive money for the books. This eliminates the need to create a complex website with shopping carts and outsources money collection to a trusted and dependable 3rd-party. It also outsources delivery of the book, further reducing potential headaches.

    Purpose of Fund-raising:

    The most effective projects are those that involve education and individuals. Funds raised will be used to fund local scholarships for students. Returned Peace Corps Volunteers from Bulgaria have formed an NGO based in the United States called Arete Youth ( http://www.areteyouth.org/ ). It currently organizes and finds talented university students from Bulgaria and offers scholarships for tuition. This provides a great and stable organization that has contact within Bulgaria to outsource the dispersal of the fund-raising. The focus of this project is an introduction of different culture, not about managing large sums of money for scholarships.