Membership Bidding Round 2019

1. What’s new this year?

Following the decision made during URGENCI’s 2018 General Assembly to amend our membership fee scheme, we are excited to let you know that the 2019 membership fee is now launched, with the new bidding model adopted by the International Committee.
Our goal is to be able from now on to raise from within our network the resources to sustain the position of the General Secretary.
We are aiming to collectively raise 40,000€ from the 2019 fees.

2. How is it going to take place?

Each member organisation, and each individual member, decides how much it can financially contribute to URGENCI.
The membership fees are collected through a bidding round from those organizations that are prepared to commit, against the backdrop of the 40,000€ objective.
Provided that URGENCI counts around 20 national or provincial networks among its members, the “guiding amount” (average amount) to be paid by each network is around 2,000 euros.

3. What do we all get from this?

URGENCI’s financial sustainability relies almost solely on funding from external projects. URGENCI is currently a project-based organisation, instead of acting as a member-fuelled global arm of national and regional networks. The objective of redesigning this scheme is not simply budgetary but to ensure that URGENCI, as the international secretariat of the Community -Supported Agriculture movements worldwide, is centred on services to members, pooling between networks rather than multiplying projects.
By collectively sustaining the position of General Secretary for our network, members ensure that URGENCI, as an international secretariat, works on

1. Coordinating experience sharing, with actions such as:
   a. Showcasing successful stories from field; and
   b. Encouraging exchange between Local, Solidarity -based Partnerships for Agroecology (LSPA).
2. Strengthening movement building, with actions such as:
   a. Providing decisive support to create nascent networks in different parts of the world, pooling of tools and experience;
   b. Strengthening the mobilisation of local producers’ and consumers’ networks;
   c. Creating alliances with other initiatives at local, regional, national, and international level; and
   d. Coordinating the actions at international level (and facilitating consistency).

3. Providing resources and tools, with actions such as:

• a. Providing access to capacity building or other forms of trainings;
• b. Developing information and communication tools;
• c. Developing tools to reinforce the viability of the partnerships
• d. Creating international financial and methodological tools to further LSPAs;
• e. Undertaking research to support the Member’s efforts; and
• f. Implementing other actions that help serve the objectives of the Network.

4. Increasing visibility, with actions such as:

• • a. Representing the LSPA movement at the United Nations (UN) level;
  • b. Supporting and advocating for LSPA policy support at the various regional levels;
  • c. Creating dialogue with public institutions; and
  • d. Developing mass mobilisation campaigns.

4. How is it going to take place?

Step 1- Together with this note, URGENCI sends out an email to all its members calling to bid for their 2019 membership fee.
Step 2- Each member responds to URGENCI at <contact@urgenci.net> before 31st of October with the amount of its bid. Members place their bids for the ongoing year, but are free to commit for multi-years pledging if it makes more sense within their own national network.
Step 3- URGENCI starts with one round of answers, but with the option in the future of coming back to the members if it falls too short of the target objective.
Step 4- URGENCI shares the result with all members.
Members pay their pledged membership fee to URGENCI (bank transfer or Paypal).

5. How do member networks collect the membership fee within their own network?

Each member organisation is free to decide how they collect the membership fee within their own national network, if applicable.

Some members charge an additional dedicated fee to URGENCI per individual basket.
Some members decide during their GA how much from its general budget it will contribute.
Some members choose to raise 1% from each share sold through CSA/LSPA to networking.
Some members charge a percentage of the CSA farms’ sales’ volumes.
The contributions may vary from one year to the other according to the budget of the member organisations.
Example: in one of the newly founded national networks, the idea is to increase the price of the share from 12 to 12,5 euro. The additional 50 cents would be divided into a 12,5 cents increase for the network and 37,5 cents for the producers. This means 1% of the price of each share goes to networking. 80% this 1% goes to the national network and 20% goes to the international network.
Etc. there are as many options as there are members!