Ecotopia Biketour is a not-for-profit, DIY activist community run by volunteers. All the money that we collect from our participants during the tour, is used to cover the costs during the tour, (such as: food; donations to project hosts; first aid equipment; bike tools; printing flyers / materials) but also some money is saved for the following year to cover some of the organisational costs (such as: office hire/donation; office equipment; phone / internet costs; trailer parts; cooking pots)
We want to make participation inclusive – also in regard to money. For this reason, our money is periodically collected (e.g. for one or two weeks) as an anonymous, suggested donation of 3 – 5 EUR per day (or equivalent in other currencies).
In the past, Biketour has already used other methods of ‘solidarity economy‘ in order to finance the basic needs; e.g. it used Ecorates, an alternative currency system designed by EYFA in 1989 for the first Ecotopia Gathering.
It is important for the Biketour to directly try out and employ examples of alternatives to/within capitalism, by providing different kinds of social safety nets and by recognising economic inequality.
The average amount of daily/weekly biketour costs are hard to estimate, because currencies fluctuate, economic circumstances change every year and we cross regions with very different cost and income levels. If the suggestion for the donation had to be corrected, this would happen through a consensus decision with participants during the tour.