Hey Frank, what a nice project, I'd love to be able to do a tour like that some day.
A couple of things that I think will make the overall feel of the funding request more appealing.
1. Having some photos of you where there are currently gray placeholders, maybe even a video of yourself talking about the project.
2. On the portfolio, maybe keep a separate BW and Color folder, there's very little color in there so you may take it out all together, so it looks more concise visually.
Cheers!
Fred