I am taken aback by Jonathan’s belief that the majority of people could secure five figure sums through crowdfunding. Perhaps it’s my own squeamishness about asking for money, or the scepticism of my colleagues when I brought up the subject in a meeting, but is the general public really willing to empty its pockets to help educate a stranger – particularly when there is state funding to be had? Jonathan thinks so. "I do believe that a lot of people have a surprising amount of goodwill in their network and an amazing amount of reach these days, given social media. If you don’t ask, you don’t get. It either tends to take off quite quickly [because] somebody’s got it and figured out the angle they’re going to use, or it struggles along for three or four days and then [they] abandon their campaign."