With the help of our awesome Indiegogo support man, our campaign went live again today.  While we still have not heard back from the Office of Foreign Asset Control at the Treasury Department, OFAC, we made the decision to reactivate the campaign in order to continue fundraising efforts before the campaign expired. Thankfully, we were able to extend the campaign deadline to February 28th, giving us a little less than a month to do a final fundraising push and celebrate the end of the campaign with our Iranian friends at the highline festival in Turkey.  

Mohammed slacklining with Mt. Damavand in the background. Is it October yet?

Mohammed slacklining with Mt. Damavand in the background.
Is it October yet?

But, like I said, 4 weeks later and we still have not heard from our good ol’ friends at OFAC.  Who clearly have never heard of the 3 day rule. Starting to make a girl wonder. So we still do not know if we will be allowed to use funds to purchase US gear for our Iranian counterparts. Planning for the best and the worst, we have the following options moving forward:

Possibility 1: OFAC gives us the green light and all is well. We spend the first $1300 we raise to purchase equipment for Iran Slackline. Any extra is used to support the travel expenses of the Iran Slackline team on the US part of the exchange since due to exchange rates this will be prohibitively expensive for them otherwise. If the world smiled upon us and we raised even more than that, the excess would be used to support the expenses of the US team members and probably make some t-shirts or something awesome. 

Possibility 2: OFAC may allow the transfer of equipment if it is purchased outside of the US, as the regulations specifically target the export of US goods. If this is the case, we can move ahead as planned, only purchasing the gear from a European company instead of the California based Balance Community (don’t worry, Jerry, we’ll still buy our own gear from you!). Excess funds will be used as above. 

Possibility 3: OFAC may disallow our transferring of any gear to Iran Slackline regardless of whether it is purchased in the US or abroad. If so, we will be forced to change the focus of our expenses and any money contributed will be used towards other aspects of the campaign. Paying travel expenses to the US for the Iran slackline team is our next option, assuming OFAC does not restrict this. Basically, this money will go to the Iran side of the project if at all possible. If not it will be used to support the US half of the team, paying our own travel expenses, purchasing equipment, etc. leaving us free to help the Iran Slackline members in any way we can. 

We really can’t say enough good things about Indiegogo and their support staff.  Their concern for our campaign and help managing the situation have been invaluable.

And as always, many, many thanks to our supporters.  The support, in monetary contribution and enthusiasm, has made us even more excited for things to come.