Donation strategy and asset accumulation (financial sustainability)
The health of the honey bee has had a lot of public attention and still has. Given the broad importance of a healthy honey bee – food security affects everyone – there will be both a ‘crowd-funding’ initiative started by a, to be appointed, Communication Committee as well as a search for sponsorship by companies. Given the sustainable character of the Foundation it is assumed that companies may be interested to make sponsoring part of their “Social Responsibility” initiatives. Furthermore it will be investigated for which subsidies projects or the Foundation itself can qualify.
There is no intention to build up a large capital in the Foundation. The objective is the breeding of a Varroa resistant honey bee and most donations will therefore be used for operational activities at the Foundation, universities or institutes. For creating a financial buffer, up to 10% of the donations will be put apart, in order to create a buffer of about 1 operational year.
Decisions about the assets, tasks of the Board and the management
The Board lays down the rules for the management of assets. The Board determines the working space of the Management Team by establishing the expenditure budget. The Management Team will, within the limits set by the Board, execute the operational management of the assets.
Asset management and expenditure policy
The Foundation will base the financial management on month revenues and expenditures. This implies that gifts, sponsorship income and expenditures will be translated into an available monthly budget. The recurring gifts will be determined by month (10 euros per month is 10 euros per month, 60 euros per year is 5 euros per month). One-time gifts will be treated as 36 monthly gifts of 1/36th of the total gift.
In this way, a ‘funding level’ per month can be determined, both for income and expenditure. These funding levels will be tracked on the website. In this way, both the donors as well as the Foundation itself can keep a good view on the financial situation.
Within these funding-levels, indicative amounts can be budgeted as a percentage of the total.
The Foundation will not actively invest in risk-bearing investments, but manage the funds in normal savings accounts.
Expected annual budget donations, recruitment costs, management costs, and expenditure.
Since the Foundation is still very young, it is difficult to assess the projected annual budget. There is however, an ideal budget made for the next 4 years. In this ideal-budget, the Foundation has enough funds at the end of the first year for 2 staff members, 10 volunteers, 2 students and support of a small external project. This corresponds to a budget of 34 thousand euros per month. This budget would then, in the 4 years after that, be able to grow to 100 thousand euros per month, good for 5 staff members, 25 volunteers, 5 students, 1 PhD student and 2 external projects. The actual funding level will determine which projects can be started and with which level of commitment and priority these projects can be supported.
Cost structure of expenditures
Based on the aforementioned relationship between employees, volunteers and students, an overall distribution of the costs can be budgeted.
| Cost structure of expenditures | % |
| Salaries & taxes | 37.5 |
| Laboratory equipment & material | 12.5 |
| Bee Equipment & Maintenance | 5 |
| Travel and subsistence costs | 10 |
| Office expenses | 4 |
| Rent | 9 |
| Communication & ads | 6 |
| External projects | 10 |
| Rest | 6 |
| Total | 100 |
The ratio of the cost is similar to that of a university or Institute, but the post salaries is lower due to the use of volunteers. As a result, the non-salary cost ratio is higher. The salaries of the staff in the Foundation will be determined by using the payroll system of the University of Wageningen as a reference.
Remuneration policy makers
The Board and the Scientific Committee will not be reimbursed for the work. Travel and accommodation expenses will be reimbursed. In order to keep these costs as low as possible, meetings will also be organized using electronic media.
Description administrative organization
The management team, Board as well as financial advisors will be provided insight into the administration by the use of an online administration package. This package will be integrated with the website with relationships, donations and financial administration managed in 1 package. The administration will be carried out under the responsibility of the Management Team and under the supervision of the Board.