Travel Costs for New Speakers

Let’s get new faces on stage!

While recruiting people who had never spoken at a conference before, I was disappointed that some potential speakers with the most innovative topics wouldn't even submit a proposal. They had zero money to travel to the venue. 

Conference speakers tend to be the same people because only large companies can afford to pay the travel costs. And, those people tend to reflect similar backgrounds and experiences. We can help grow the speaker base to reflect everyone in the market research industry. 

My goal is to raise money to get new speakers on the marketing research stage, especially those who have no company backing or who are too junior to be chosen - yet. 

Speakers who receive your financial help  must meet specific criteria:
- They should reflect a different background and experience than the people who are usually on stage. Diversity of age, gender, ethnicity, disability, and more matters. 
- They should represent a small company that can't be expected to afford such travel,  or a social/charitable  organization
- They should have no or minimal experience speaking at conferences
- They should be part of the market research, or related, industry 

Right now, one very worthy candidate is anxious to receive funding. She meets all of these criteria and is having difficulty getting funds together to have her unique voice heard on stage. Please fund her!

If we beat the goal, we can fund even more new speakers. Let's do this!