2April2016 Update
Is Friends Transmuting still active?
It’s been a long time since our last post. The reason being that I have not known what to report in this forum. It’s overdue for us to share something of an update, but the fact remains that at this moment in time we do not yet have funding for projects secured. There have been several points in this past year that we thought we were there, but for various reasons funding sources just didn’t fully materialize.
We do feel that we have some funding options that will come together in the coming weeks, but we won’t discuss details in this public forum. When funding becomes available we will know exactly what the parameters are that we have to work within, and we will give whatever information here that we can share.
When funding for Friends Transmuting manifests we intend to fully activate the team to communicate with all who approach us for project funding. Until then we are all looking after our own lives and doing what we can with what we have available to us. All of us are doing what we do as volunteers until we have funding secured. All of us have normal lives with families to support and attend to. Friends Transmuting will be far more responsive once funded.
What about the UN Project Template?
One of our funding sources has indicated that they will require each project that they fund work with a UN Project Template for their business / project plan submissions. They have been working with a UN Consultant on this, but to date we have not received a copy. Until we know what format projects need to be in we have chosen to keep the project submission form closed. We may re-open it again, but for now we are suggesting to just send us your business plan by email if you wish to get in line for when funding does become available.
You are welcome to send in what you do have by way of Business Plan or Project Plan to: projects@friendstransmuting.org If you send us your project overview to this email we will keep it in the line-up to contact you as soon as we have a way to fund your project.
We will likely have a budget to work with for those needing support to get their Business Plan into the format required for the final project submission process. We intend to have a several support services available once we are up and running as a group.
When might we expect the first project funding to be available?
We first launched this website in early 2015 because we thought that we would have project funding available in February 2015. It is now over a year later. Nevertheless, we have been working steadily to bring into reality our vision of funding projects on a large scale. We are hopeful that our efforts will pay off soon, but there is little point estimating exactly when that will be. We share the approach that we do as much as we can with what we have available to us now, AND do what we can to bring into reality what we really prefer.
When the funding is available to work with you to support your efforts then the funding is available.
Until it’s available we are working to bring it into reality. We are hype averse and wish to be realistic as we proceed.
To speculate when it might be tends to work in a negative way to support falsely arrived at expectations. Nothing is certain except that we are focused on our vision to support as many good projects as possible.
What about those of us who submitted Projects to Friends Transmuting already?
Thank you for your patience with us. Had we known that funding would not come available back in February 2015 we would not have launched this website when we did. That we did has given us the opportunity to build relationships with those who chose to approach us. For all of you who did submit projects know that we continue to work towards funding them. Also, we wish you the very best if you have found or will find other funding for your project before we manage to. Our goal is to bring about a world that we prefer, not to make sure that we are involved with your project.
If you have submitted your project or business plan to us know that we still have it on file and will contact you as soon as we have a way to fund you. If you wish to contact us directly I am very happy to speak with you personally. The best way to reach me is via Skype or phone. I can share my details with you if you email me your details and let me know that you would like to speak with me. I’m in Australia, but I am able to call most countries for free on my Skype plan.
To organize a call, email me at: mark@friendstransmuting.org or use the contact form to give me your phone number and/or share you Skype username with me. Google Hangouts also works for me. For more sensitive conversations I am happy to speak with you using http://zoom.us as it has some level of encryption. It works similarly to Skype, GoTo Meeting and other conference calling platforms, but it has encryption.
With Friends Transmuting,
Mark
