Crowdfunding or Gofundme

Crowdfunding is the collection of finance to sustain an initiative from a large pool of backers—the “crowd”—usually made online by means of a web platform. With crowdfunding it is people with an interest in seeing a project come to life, rather than investors hoping to make money, that fund a project. We have seen this method used for creating a variety of projects.

The phenomenon have spilled over in Judo and Bjj as well.

Judo Olympic silver medalist (2016) and BJJ black belt Travis Stevens addresses the issue and explains why he is AGAINST Gofundme accounts for competitors in Judo and BJJ. For Stevens, Gofundme athletes are simply begging for help when they should be working to fund their dreams themselves. He also thinks that many of these kids are asking for help, simply do not have the level required to even have a chance to medal. He thinks that they are abusing the system and are using then funds to fund their lifestyle while they are crying poor on social media.

Stevens talks about his own case when he was coming up the ranks. He was working odd manual jobs to fund his Judo career.

Stevens aka ‘The Judo Silencer’ competed in 2008 Olympics. He participated in the 2012 Summer Olympics, losing against the previous winner of the 2008 Summer Olympics, Ole Bischof, in the semi-finals by judges’ decision and was then beaten in the bronze medal match by Canada’s Antoine Valois-Fortier. In the 2016 Olympics, he won the silver medal in the Olympics. Travis has defeated Judo legend and Ne Waza king Flavio Canto. Travis also holds a black belt in Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu under John Danaher. Danaher rewarded Stevens his black belt on November 19, 2013.

Travis Stevens went through all the BJJ Belts under John Danaher in an incredible 18 Months! . He held the rank of Brown for a year and competed at Copa Podio, and BJJ expo tournament. White-blue in weeks, then blue-purple in a month then purple-brown in a few months!

Answering comments about part 1