This is a CTP of initiative: Arche Noah (Austria)
The CTP consists of financial developments that helped the organisation to consolidate and secure its position. Predecessor of the CTP emerged when AN started to have first financial problems with public funding and voted to stabilise its position by going independent. “In the beginning we had some seed money every year from the agricultural minister. Then it looked like they stop it and that time it was maybe 50% of our annual budget. But it was still an amount we could touch.” When the interviewee became financial director in 1999 they clearly decided on a financial point of view that AN need to go to an independent direction. The core activity is to maintain a seed bank and this created the possibility to be independent with the seed bank and share the knowledge to whom we want and not to depend on regulations of ministries and government things like that. In this year it was clear to start fundraising and not depend on public money.” The main aim was “to ensure a non-governmental organisation won't go bankrupt. Basically not depending on governmental money”. The priority management task was fundraising in a very professional way. This approach also implied other activities: “We started to have more markets in Spring, extension of the gardening season. … Next we started cooperation with private sector, flower sellers and SPAR. We also gained EU funding.” AN also became a “teaching-learning organisation” in the sense that “we set up something I would call ’we bring original farmers knowledge back to the farmers - how to produce own seeds’. So we teach this to them together with the farmers’ organisation - farmers teaching the vocational training and education.”
Many developments contributed to this CTP to happen and gain independence and freedom for AN: fundraising, trainings, private businesses, reskilling of farmers, development of the seed bank. Also a diverse range of stakeholders were approached and involved in this. The CTP created a “kind of hygienic situation... It gives us self-empowerment. The clearness for everybody”. The process also significantly increased the number of AN members: “We knew that we had a very sexy topic. So gardening, plants, organic gardening, healthy eating was sexy at that time. So we had to work on how to make this into a campaign.” As a result, AN managed to establish a secure financial position: “At the moment we have 60% from the membership fee, and 40% is from donations, which is quite good.” … “So we give somewhere about a million to sources and memberships and founders and two million as fees from our teaching programmes. … I would say at this moment it is very safe. And also looking at the perspective of the next year is safe. As long as I would say gardening is high on agenda.”
The most important related event that helped evoke the CTP is the realisation that AN is financially unsustainable when relying on public funding only. The CTP ended when AN finally reached financial security through increasing membership, fundraising and business relations. As a next step AN (now an association and a company) also plans to establish a foundation for this purpose to attract other kind of funders and to secure the operation of the seed bank for hundreds of years. The CTP also has related events of political nature. Since independence in the financial sense also implies that the organisation can stay away from (party) politics. “Politicians always like nice pictures close to election campaigns blabla. And there was one who come by and can I come with, have some journalists, can I come for a picture like this. So we made a clear statement half year before the election no politicians in the garden so it is clear for everyone, for the employees. They are from the left-side party, they are from the right-side party. No! Everybody would like to have nice pictures and we excluded all. And that was very clear for let's say board and also the participants, the employees, to have a clear situation and we can do this, because we don't depend on the public money. It does not matter for us, who is governing the region or the country the next year. If there is a change in the political situation and they do not support farming any more it would not hurt us, yeah?” – as the interviewee explained.
The CTP is coproduced by a range of actors, and in fact it was linked to a decision of the board led by the managing director. The organisation outlined two possibilities: relying on public money or going independent. „This could have harmed us on some years in the beginning, we would have to cut money, we would not pay for all the employees some hours, so there were some tough years in it also, but generally it was a very straightforward strategy in long term and now I can say that it worked really well. The contestation became even more highlighted because of the context in the seed sector. It was the end of the '90s, when in the Eastern European countries a lot of public seedbanks were closed. „A lot of erosion happened in this sector. I think it was in the right time of the development of the association and the seed bank and the professors and the people who worked not for the seedbank only. The professionalization of the seedbank what kind of annual budget we need and how we can get this budget for this core thing.“
The CTP was clearly anticipated and planned to happen. “It took us some time, maybe took 2 or 3 board meetings to make a decision. The first decision was that I became treasurer, the second decision was that I became president. On the first decision it was clear that my friend who was the president trusted me in a financial way, so I knew he will support it. So I say it was very clear in-between us. So we could form within the board a common strategy and bring to new level with the new regulation -- it took us like let's say two or maybe three meetings to analyse the situation within the seed savers organisation and we had to realise we cannot wait until the unification of all the seedsaver groups or something like this. I would say we are 6 persons on board normally if we are all around. We have the contour of common sense so we debate as long as possible to come to a common ground and we make only very few decisions without common ground. So everyone can agree and disagree, bring his/her argument, we take time when it is needed.” The consequences of the CTP were positive and less expected or anticipated. For AN the core issue is to save the seed for generations and spread the diversity. “If this is the core you will have to organise other things around this. I think we did this in the right moment, and in a way we never changed this kind of strategy, so it was then and we had no debates on board - we had this clear. And after I think for three years it was successful. You know the first or the second fundraising campaign was like we put in 100 thousand Euros and we get 110 thousand Euros so it doesn't really was so successful, but that was all the beginning to set up all the structures and since then it really well developed. I also say we found good partners for this, they explained us before it may take some time and how to set it up, etc.
The CTP created important learning opportunities for AN and the interviewee: “I would say in lot of fields of my life I am very strategic and reflective thinking person so if I see it works like this, it gives me the support to do next level of the next question which comes to realization and I try to work with same mind-set what are the options, what would be the long term perspectives of the decision and then try to come to a solution.” Thus it all seems that learning happens – “as we go and find solutions and evaluating reflection and then decide what is good”. In sum, doing common analysis and joint experience became a good tradition in the organisation and informed later practice:”If things are not able to be decided, then you feel that the things cannot be moved forward, most possibly. But a good solution is normally a point, that is clear, easy to decide on. It mustn't be hard to decide. The feeling, when it comes to decision after the debate and the analysis, if it is easy then in my experience it's a right decision also. If you have to do it after very hard debate, sometimes that's not the right question to ask and decision to make.”
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