Jeff Blumenfeld - Get Sponsored: A Funding Guide for Explorers, Adventurers, and Would-Be World Travelers

Copyright 2014 by Jeff Blumenfeld

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eISBN: 978-1-62873-834-6

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available on file.

ISBN: 978-1-62636-137-9

Printed in the United States of America

This book is not intended to be a guide to safe adventuring techniques. There is no substitute for professional training and practical experience when coping with matters of health, life, and death. Neither Skyhorse Publishing, Inc., nor the author accept responsibility for any accident or injury caused by use, misuse, or interpretation of the information or anecdotes contained in this book.

Dedicated to Joan, Julie, and Jenna,
and everyone else Ive met along the way
who have made my life an extraordinary adventure .

Appendixes

This expedition of mine into the adventurous world of book publishing was launched when Terry Whalin, my agent, met me at a conference in New York. He saw potential in recounting, from an insiders point of view, exactly what drives people to risk their lives in the name of exploration, and how their stories could inspire others who might want to undertake their own journeys some day. Ive been an adventure marketing consultant for over twenty-five years; Terry showed me how to take a fresh look at these projects, and I am grateful for his sage advice and guidance.

Brando Skyhorse, my former editor at Skyhorse Publishing, assisted in further crafting this book to include advice for budding adventurers who always dreamed of a trip of their own, but perhaps currently lack competent outdoor skills or financial support.

A debt of gratitude goes as well to my editor, Abigail Gehring, who shepherded this project the entire way, driven by her own love of the outdoors.

Writing Get Sponsored has been a labor of love, for sure, one that has reacquainted me with the people who, since the early 1980s, have been such a major part of my career. I am particularly grateful to Jon Bowermaster, Dwight Collins, Jason Davis, Lonnie Dupre, Gunnar Marel Eggertsson, the late Ned Gillette, Mike Haugen, Carolyn Muegge-Vaughan, Paul Schurke, Will Steger, Reid Stowe, the late Colonel Norman D. Vaughan, Erik Weihenmayer, Gordon Wiltsie, and Robert Wells, among many others.

Id also like to recognize Ruth Burton, a great friend who reviewed various chapters, whose resourcefulness on the Viking boat project I so much appreciated; Jennifer Kimball Gasperini, whose life was forever changed when she traveled north; and the employees of Blumenfeld and Associates who held down the fort while I was gallivanting around the globe on behalf of one explorer or another.

Richard Wiese, former president of The Explorers Club, now host and executive producer of TVs Born to Explore , provided valuable advice on the writing process, based upon the experience of preparing his own book, Born to Explore: How to Be a Backyard Adventurer (HarperCollins, 2009).

Traveling a bit farther in the Wayback Machine, credit is due to my first two newspaper editors: Madeline Conway of the Evening News in Monticello, New York, and Mike Greenstein of the Syracuse New Times , both of whom saw a spark of promise in a young cub reporter from the Catskills.

Finally, enormous thanks are in order to my clients, past and present. Its through their support that Ive been fortunate to play a behind-the-scenes role in some of the worlds most fascinating adventures and expeditions.

Jeff Blumenfeld

Perhaps Christopher Columbus started it all. Sure, there were some Vikings who discovered the New World, and Marco Polos journey across Asia was a business trip well before he gained fame as a swimming pool game, but adventure marketing arguably started with the now-maligned Italian explorer who in fourteen hundred and ninety-two sailed the ocean blue.

While revisionists 500 years later charge that Columbus was simply a fortune hunter who left a legacy of exploitation and genocide, and there are some Icelandersdescendents of Leif Erikssonwho believe he was a latecomer to the adventure game, one thing Chris knew how to do was ask for money. So believes sports promoter Michael Aisner, who spoke at an International Events Group conference in Chicago.

Aisner pointed out that Columbus was getting desperate in his search for a fat sponsor for a high concept. Originally, he went to King John II of Portugal who took a pass after two reviews. Columbus repackaged his dream trip with a Spanish angle, but Queen Isabella Is review council turned thumbs down three times because pesos were tightshe was underwriting a nasty war against the Moors. But the Italian sailor was persistent. He found an agent who had contacts, and received an audience with the Queen.

Thus it was that adventure marketing was bornwith Columbus, hat in hand, requesting funding from Spanish monarchs Ferdinand II and Isabella I.

If we sponsor you on this quest of yours, whats in it for us? they undoubtedly asked during the pitch meeting.

Ill carry your flag to the New World and return with great riches, was the likely reply. Knowing hed just keep shopping crowns, they put Chris on retainer for six years.

The rest is history. Columbus sailed. He delivered. He may not have been the first to discover America (it was already inhabited, thank you) but Im thinking he must have retained a great publicist who carved an honored place in history for his ocean-going client with numerous cities, circles, Worlds Fairs, space shuttles, and universities named in his honor.

Today the spirit of Columbus lives on in the pitch letters, cold calls, faxes, and emails that pour into my office from an endless stream of dreamers, schemers, and legitimate adventurers and explorers who have their own high concepts but little means to personally fund them. They seek to gain fame and make it into the history books, or at least a yellow-bordered issue of National Geographic .

Thats where I come in. Im a public relations executive with an unusual specialty called adventure marketingthe business of connecting explorers and their projects with corporate sponsors looking to create awareness by demonstrating product performance in extreme conditions. Since my first adventure marketing promotion in 1982 for Du Pont, Ive seen how a well-told, edge-of-your-seat adventure story can hold millions of Americans spellbound. Think of Sebastian Jungers fishing boat tragedy, The Perfect Storm , or Jon Krakauers Into Thin Air , an account of a lethal storm on Mount Everest.