While preparing for the Travel House project, we asked for help from and offered cooperation to a number of institutions, companies and organizations. We received virtually no positive answers, even though some of the institutions allegedly exist exactly for such projects. Here we give a list of all those who didn't help us (which are all those whom we asked for help):
- Turkish Embassy in Belgrade, Turkish Culture and Tourism Office (First they said they couldn't give us any money, but would be happy to provide other kinds of help; when we asked for that help, they didn't reply anymore).
- Society of Vojvodinian-Turkish friendship (They didn't even reply, even though our project exactly matches their mission).
- Couchsurfing (We wrote a number of times, asking them to include the news on the Travel House project in their online CS Magazine, which publishes news on various travel-related projects. They didn't want to publish it.)
- Hospitality Club (We wrote to Veit, the founder, with whom we had exchanged a couple of emails a long time ago (when he was interested in the possibilities of promoting HC in Serbia); However, this time, when we needed something from him, he didn't even bother to reply).
- Vilnius Hitchhiking Club (We sent a couple of e-mails to Lithuanuian hitchhikers, inviting them to visit us in Istanbul and asking them to publish the Travel House info on their website. They never replied. We also contacted them on Facebook and received a 3-syllabic meaningless reply).
- Banca Intesa, Uniqua, EPS, Telekom Srbija, Vip, Wiener Stadtische, Raiffeisen, Philip Morris, As Insurance, JAT Airways, Mts, Axa Insurance, Voda voda, Knjaz Miloš, Delta Generali. (There were more, but the notebook in which we kept track has been left in Serbia.)
- We also contacted a bunch of smaller companies, such as language schools that offer Turkish, and generally all companies that might be interested either in cooperation with us, or in cooperation on this particular project.
In short, we sent out dozens of e-mails, both in Serbian and in English. We dialed dozens of phone numbers. We wrote detailed offers and explanations, sent additional materials about our club and the project and so on. At least five persons worked on this fundraising attempts, and a huge number of work hours were spent.
Why did we publish this? First of all, a lot of people asked us why wouldn't we contact some companies, why didn't we ask the Turkish Embassy in Belgrade and so on. Well, we did.
Apart from that, this can serve as a moral for all those intending to implement any serious projects, and have no personal connections in any companies, institutions etc. Don't expect to get any help from that direction.
Finally, let us mention one more thing. Of all the people we've written to, only Anton Krotov from the Academy of Free Travels replied to us and published the Travel House info on his blog.
