In 2019, Sense-Lab created a Business Plan for the Seed Network Association from Xingu (ARSX). The construction of this plan was supported by the Partnership for Forests (P4F) and carried out by Sense-Lab, in partnership with the Socioenvironmental Institute (ISA) and the ARSX itself. Composed of almost 600 native seed collectors, ARSX proposes an effective forest restoration method and an innovative governance system. In its seed collection and sale operation, it generates many positive impacts such as strengthening community governance and territorial management, generating income for family farmers and indigenous communities, disseminating technical knowledge and valuing traditional knowledge, as well as enlarging environmental awareness.
This project aimed at identifying strategies to make the Network's operation financially sustainable, increasing its socioenvironmental impact. Therefore, we tried to answer the following questions: How to increase ARSX’s revenue? What services and initiatives can add value to ARSX products? Where are potential new customers and how can ARSX reach them? How to increase operational efficiency? How to increase management capacity? How to expand the Network without compromising the current structure?
The project was divided into 4 stages:
Diagnosis, which focused on an in-depth understanding of the Network's reality through an extensive survey about the way it operates, its strengths and challenges, leading to an initial idea of possible leverage points.
In the next stage, these initial ideas served as inspiration and basis for the design and implementation of a co-creation workshop with Network members, managers and partners, generating the mapping of levers.
The third stage aimed to prioritize, detail and validate the previously defined levers.
And in the fourth and final stage, these levers were grouped into strategies that made up the business plan, with recommendations for ARSX in different areas: institutional governance, organizational capacity, market approach, physical and logistical structure, training and development of associates, among others.
In the following years, Sense-lab not only supported the implementation of the Plan created together, but also helped to sustain and constantly adapt these structures to the Network's needs. Annually, we help with planning and tactical monitoring, we carry out some interventions with the team, in order to seek more fluidity and dynamism in the roles played by each person and in the relationship between people and we help to adapt and conduct some of the main forums and governance instances , such as assemblies, meetings of collector group managers, etc.