They're getting suspicious, I guess. Here's what I know about funding these sorts of activities:
Greenpeace started out selling shirts and buttons and things which had a pretty quick turnaround. Then they began signing up middle and upper class people to donate $10+/mo regularly. At present greenpeace has at least a million such monthly donors of $10/mo or more. As the years wore on and they became famous, wealthy people began willing their estates to Greenpeace. It was all driven by their media and communications machine: iconic images of men and women in orange jumpsuits riding zodiacs into a hail of soviet whaler bullets and harpoons just to protect endangered whales. Of course this was pre-internet so their media was distributed by mail and telex. Greenpeace has probably spent millions on postage alone by now.
I feel comfortable sharing this knowledge because just knowing this is not enough to actually make a difference in the grand scheme of things. Even if OST gets funded, without a good lawyer this Xeno Kovah person could easily have it all stolen out from under his nose in an instant. Or the other members of his organization could turn on him and purge him. Or his board could just choose to ignore his vision and completely change the direction and shape of OST.
More money, more problems. All the money in the world won't make a difference if you don't have any skills managing such a large sum. And it's hard to find mentorship for such things because usually, consistently, your mentor will decide that you are dead weight and THE MENTOR should be in charge of the whole enterprise, not you. It takes much more than just money to succeed. So I feel completely comfortable discussing fundraising techniques.
You need to elaborate now because I don't understand what you're saying? What was their assessment? What is the trap?
I just asked how he's getting his money. Then I explained how other people who ran a similar project got their money. Then I explained how there's no real harm in explaining where money comes from, because managing money is a skill in itself which few people possess.
Nevermind. Maybe Xeno was just joking when he said OST would be his "full time job" and he'd pay his instructors 100k every year. Someone would have come up with a decent answer by now if OST was a serious enterprise. As it is, I'll check back in a year and see how they're doing.
Even if he would ask for donations to keep it going, disclosing other revenue streams is a bit much to ask for someone not involved in the project.