I think that we would be rewarded either way. If it were a more advanced civilization, we could hopefully learn from them. If it were equal to or less advanced than us, we could still share information. It would drive us to create better and faster means of communication and transportation. I quess a good example would be the rapid development of the Galleon after the discovery of the New World. Ship building, navigation tools, and technology in general took off to exploit the finds.
Hopefully we are advanced enough not to do it just for explotation, but, our society in general needs profit in an endevour to get the funding on large scale.
It's sad, but most funding would have to come from the corporate world, who would need to see, bottom line, profit.