Category: Information

We took advantage of a recent meeting to ask Theo van Hintum, one of the people behind efforts to breathe new life into Plant Genetic Resources Newsletter about the patient’s prognosis. He said that, encouraged by the support from the community, Robert Koebner, the other guy behind the initiative, and he had tried several donors, asking for $25,000 a year for three years. Answers ranged from “no” to no answer yet, and perhaps unsurprisingly, Theo and Robert are beginning to be a bit fed up. The demand is there; what is missing is a little financial support.

We discussed three possible solutions, all of which could involve you, our readers.

Maybe $25,000 a year for three years is too little. Instead of going to the usual suspects, who put PGRN in intensive care in the first place, what if a proposal went to an individual or foundation interested in agriculture, capacity building, education and empowerment? Might they entertain a grant of $100,000 a year for three years, which would enable PGRN to hire a dedicated administrator? Of course, none of us know of such a foundation or individual. Do you?

Someone suggested Kickstarter as a source of investors. That remains a possibility; does anyone have any experience with it? Alternatively, what about kickstarting PGRN ourselves. Theo says they need $25000 a year for three years. That’s only $1000 each for 75 of us who might be able to afford it, and less if more. I will if you will.

In the end PGRN must be self-supporting and not reliant on grants and whims. Would something like Google Adwords offer a reasonable income stream? It could be worth a try, in conjunction with either of the two pump-priming investments outlined above. If all the back-issues could be made available on one effective website, I reckon there’s a good chance that there would be enough traffic … but what do I know?

Theo said that he and Robert want to go ahead only if they can secure three years of funding, “to see whether it can be a success, and then maybe the proper organizations to handle the newsletter will want it back”.

“How do you define success?”

“Visitors, submissions, feedback; the donors will judge.”

I disagree. Donors have been known to reverse their judgments. The best measure of success will be if PGRN is sustainably and independently supported. Can we do that?