A $50,000 MATCHING DONATIONS CAMPAIGN
“Every action and decision we take – or don’t – ripples into the future. For the first time, we have the capability, the technology, and the knowledge to direct these ripples.”Jacque Fresco
We are excited to announce that S.O.U.L., the team that produced the documentary about The Venus Project titled “A World Worth Imagining: Jacque Fresco, The Man With The Plan”, have generously offered to double each donation for a campaign for The Venus Project, up to a total of $50,000.
We are highly appreciative of their generosity, as well as the numerous people who have been supporting this direction in so many ways over the years!! These funds will enable The Venus Project to proceed with projects that can reach a wider audience, one of which has been germinating for years and the other is a new initiative.
$31,263 of $50,000 raised
The S.O.U.L. team will double all donations, up to $50,000.
Campaign ends December 15th.
DOCUMENTARY
Released on Nov 11, 2019, this is a film on the life’s work of late, legendary visionary Jacque Fresco, founder of The Venus Project. The movie features never before seen archival footage and the inspirational last interview of his life.
Please spread the word about both the documentary and fundraiser.
CAMPAIGN GOALS
Preserving Our Origins for Further Development
With the publication of The Best That Money Can’t Buy in 2002, Jacque Fresco succeeded in summarizing the vision of The Venus Project for the general public. Since that time, most of the information made available to the public on YouTube and elsewhere has been introductory and/or informal, leading many to wonder, “What else is there?”
Since 2010, The Venus Project released a series of 50 lectures (by Jacque Fresco) to the public in both audio and video form; lectures recorded from as early as 1974 to as late as 2011. These 50 lectures represent approximately 6% of the unique information recorded in audio/video form that has survived across a range of 50 years to the present.
Despite being a prolific illustrator, designer, lecturer, and model-maker, Fresco was not a prolific writer. To remedy this, 125 volunteers have worked since 2014 to transform his 864 lectures into transcripts. To date, they have succeeded in transcribing about 14%.
We have come to understand that Fresco’s lectures represent much more than education about science and a vision for the future. These lectures provide a spectrum of value ranging from innovative ideas about technology, original hypotheses for science, and statements of many problems that must be solved. They also provide personal advice aimed at helping a person cope with the rapidly changing world and people around them. Most importantly, these lectures synthesize the ideas of several fields of science and provide the rationale for The Venus Project’s social direction.
As students of Jacque Fresco striving to implement real-world projects that aim toward the vision, we would benefit greatly from these lectures as sources of information, being made more easily accessible, searchable, and citable. Without this, we fear losing the foundation that set The Venus Project in motion. As we enter into high-stakes projects that consume our time and resources, accomplishing this foundational task may become less likely. Therefore, a strong sense of urgency arises.
Internal Qualification and Scholarship
This lack of formal publications by Jacque Fresco places us in a conundrum for two major reasons.
To participate effectively in The Venus Project, members must meet standards of both external and internal qualifications. Fresco’s work represents the bulk of the source material required to suffice internal qualification. Having more information readily available from Fresco’s lectures will improve our processes of internal qualification by better educating people about The Venus Project.
The second half of our conundrum pertains to a lack of scholarly research showing that our diagnoses and proposals are well-founded. Together with Fresco’s limited output in written form, this lack of scholarship obscures the depth and breadth of our knowledge-base. Having well-researched publications will help us clarify the level of support that exists for The Venus Project’s plans from a scientific perspective. This will help us collaborate effectively with research institutions and scholars across a wide range of fields to improve our presentation.
As we synthesize with other initiatives and ideas, we still must preserve the intent of the direction and the unique approach that has grown out of Jacque Fresco’s body of work to prevent unwarranted regression toward the status quo. In the absence of both internal qualification and communication through scholarship, we risk losing the systems-oriented, complex, global, big-picture perspective upon which The Venus Project was founded.
Fundraiser
To remedy both deficits, this fundraiser will provide funds to advance securing The Venus Project’s foundation. The funds will be used to:
1.) further convert Jacque Fresco’s lectures into a more accessible form
2.) begin engaging scholars to perform formal research on our behalf
Funding will be allocated as follows:
- Transcribe the remaining unreleased 747 lectures of Jacque Fresco and systematically categorize and organize them for easier discovery of knowledge. We can then e-publish books from Jacque Fresco on important topics relevant to our global problems. These will be used to help orient scholars to The Venus Project’s ideas and further coordinate research objectives. These transcripts will also help set in motion the eventual publishing of a Collected Works of Jacque Fresco, available to the public for the first time. – 25k
- Fund scholarships and grants for scholars to perform literature reviews and publish research papers pertinent to The Venus Project. – 45k
- Continue operations and work at the Center in Venus, Florida. – 20k
Any/all remaining funds will be allocated to further our goals.
Foundations
These funds will help us secure The Venus Project’s foundations by fully accounting for Jacque Fresco’s contribution and set the stage for scholarly research aimed at better understanding existing problems and potential solutions. This will lay the groundwork for research programs at the Center for Resource Management that, in turn, lays the foundation for a transdisciplinary field dedicated to a science of Earth management.
Further announcements about Fresco’s body of work and our scholarly efforts will be provided as progress is made.
$31,263 of $50,000 raised
The S.O.U.L. team will double all donations, up to $50,000.
A sincere thank you for helping The Venus Project grow - we cannot succeed without your help.
Songs from the soundtrack to the film, one of which is dedicated to Jacque, are available here.
Photos courtesy of S.O.U.L. Documentary.