Interviews
Interviews
Podcast
29.10.2021
Markus Seidel founded an association 30 years ago, which has since become the Off Road Kids Foundation. To date, the organization has taken 7,000 young people off the streets, presumably saving the state hundreds of millions of euros. Seidel, however, has to fight for every penny of donations. His problem: the better he is, the less visible the problem he is fighting becomes.
That was an annual pass for the swimming pool and sauna in the neighboring town, for a whopping 610 euros. It's not that much, but it's hugely important to me. I go swimming every evening, for at least an hour after work, and then lie down on the hot planks to clear my head. I can't take a vacation this year. We are in a huge development phase. That's why I treat myself to these evening breaks. Because if you rest, you rust. I once even considered building my own swimming pool.
That is far too expensive. I can't afford that as the head of an aid organization. In the first few years of my job, I earned virtually no money at all, later maybe 1,000 marks a month and today my salary is around 60,000 euros a year. You can't build a swimming pool on that. And I can't and don't want to increase my salary either: for one thing, people look at you strangely if you pay yourself a high salary in my position. On the other hand, I would only have to work more to recoup the money I cost.
We currently receive around 10 percent from the Ministry of Family Affairs. That is a start. We generate the other 90 percent from donations. A considerable proportion of this comes from major donors such as the Deutsche Bahn Foundation, BAHN-BKK, Permira, Schwäbisch Hall, Vodafone and the project developer and building contractor Christoph Gröner, whose fundraising initiatives and private financial commitment also saved us from the slump in donations caused by the coronavirus crisis. Major sponsors make up 75 percent, the other 25 percent are private donors. But especially in crises like the coronavirus pandemic, when people are uncertain, they donate less. I can't blame them for that, but it means that we have to fight twice for every donation.
Absolutely not. Stagnation is a death sentence in our profession. If we don't get more donations, young people stay on the streets or slip into hidden homelessness, have to struggle with family break-ups and some end up dying. Currently, the problem of homelessness among young people is becoming increasingly acute because the housing shortage is so great. Students are crowding into the barely affordable one-bedroom apartments, and there is nothing for teenagers or young adults on a budget.
"The issue will become increasingly invisible if we work well. If you go to the Domplatte in Cologne today, there are no longer large groups of young people begging. That's also thanks to us"
I wouldn't say that it often fails. We have taken 7000 children and young people off the streets so far. The fact that we've been around for 30 years is only down to the fact that people donate money to us. But the issue becomes increasingly invisible if we work well. If you go to the Domplatte in Cologne today, there are no longer large groups of young people begging. That is also thanks to us. To collect more donations, we would need more attention. But our advertising budget is very limited. If we had Ströer as a sponsor, for example, things would look very different.
Thanks to the Deutsche Bahn Foundation, once a year we have the opportunity to place a free double-page spread in Deutsche Bahn's mobil magazine. This is displayed in every ICE train for a month and is read. When our ad appears there, we immediately have a significantly higher number of donors.
A counselor for young people costs us around 80,000 euros per year, including all ancillary costs such as rent and fundraising. We are currently around 50 people. This means a total of around four million euros this year. However, the economic return on our social work is impressive: we invest an average of 60 gross working hours to help a young person off the streets and give them a new perspective on life. With all the trimmings, this costs just under 3,000 euros. Our social workers make sure that the young people are given decent accommodation and that the course is set for vocational training. Of course, we don't want them to become a permanent burden on the welfare system. 3000 euros may sound a lot, but you have to realize how much money can be saved for the social security system: If a young person with an average life expectancy has to live on social welfare for the rest of their life, the payments add up to at least 900,000 euros - not including costs for illnesses and rehabilitation.
If we save 1,000 young people a year from homelessness and help them into a sustainable future, this is not only good for the young people, but also a saving of 900 million euros for society today and for future generations. With an annual investment of three million, a return of 900 million results in a whopping leverage of 300. I once said to our employees that they have nothing to hide from the margins of pharmaceutical sales representatives. If this return were our monetary annual result, investors would shower us with money. But we only save the company money and that is often overlooked.
... gets the calculator
Now I've done the math: we've taken 7,000 young people off the streets, times 900,000 euros in costs. That's 6,300,000,000 so far. More than 1000 will be added this year.
"I wish that someone would give us a successful company."
May I be open? I would like someone to give us a successful company. That may sound a bit crazy, but it would stabilize our financial situation in the long term. We are a foundation and would continue to run the company professionally and use the profits to finance the foundation's operational social work. So if someone wants to hand over a company because they don't have a successor and want to do something good: get in touch, it would make a huge difference. Company shares are also extremely helpful - three, five or ten percent and we could use the dividends to save even more young people from homelessness.
I saw a lot of reports on the subject in the fall of 1992 and was amazed that this was still a big problem in Germany, a G7 country, many years after "Christiane F.". After all, we have the best child and youth welfare laws in the world. I was 25 years old at the time, and I asked myself whether we, as young citizens, were allowed to effectively remedy a grievance even in a completely regulated area such as youth welfare, or whether we, as the next generation, were only meant to maintain what had already been created. Today I know that young citizens are allowed to change society, but they have to bring the money with them to do so.
"My father was a dental technician, my mother an artist, so I couldn't expect my parents to feed me"
I quickly found 50 people I knew who were willing to set up an aid organization. However, I first wanted to get a picture of the actual situation on the streets myself and set off across Germany to talk to young people about how they ended up on the streets, how they survive there and how they imagine their future. This research resulted in the book "Straßenkinder in Deutschland - Schicksale, die es nicht dürfte geben", published by Ullstein-Verlag. The public response was enormous. The book research gave rise to a completely new type of supra-regional street social work. From the very beginning, we were the bridge between the young people in the big cities and the families and responsible authorities in the home area. A real direct hit. That's why I made a very conscious decision to leave my well-established advertising agency and journalism behind and work for ten years free of charge to set up and test an aid organization. We then wanted to see if we could bring about a change and, if so, set up the aid organization professionally. That worked out.
My father was a dental technician and my mother an artist, so I couldn't expect my parents to feed me. But I had earned quite well with my advertising agency, and this cushion helped me for the first ten years. After ten years, we took stock and decided that it made sense for me to develop the aid organization full-time.
At the time, I considered whether I should first try to earn a wealth to finance the aid organization. But I decided against it, because immediate help also saves lives immediately. Without this decision, many of the young people we were able to help would be dead, seriously ill or addicted to drugs. I would have earned a lot more in the advertising industry and would probably be doing my laps in my own swimming pool today. I am very happy with my decision. Hopefully one day in the distant future, on my deathbed, I will have the certainty that I have really changed something for the better. That lets me sleep very peacefully.
Personal details: Markus Seidel used to be a journalist and head of an advertising agency. He then became a book author and founded the Off Road Kids e.V. association together with friends in 1993, which became the Off Road Kids Foundation in 2008.
Interviews
29.10.2021
Nils Wischmeyer
Markus Seidel, head of the Off Road Kids Foundation, talks about young people without a home, the willingness to donate during the crisis and why his foundation is generating a crazy return, which unfortunately nobody will ever notice.
Markus Seidel founded an association 30 years ago, which has since become the Off Road Kids Foundation. To date, the organization has taken 7,000 young people off the streets, presumably saving the state hundreds of millions of euros. Seidel, however, has to fight for every penny of donations. His problem: the better he is, the less visible the problem he is fighting becomes.
That was an annual pass for the swimming pool and sauna in the neighboring town, for a whopping 610 euros. It's not that much, but it's hugely important to me. I go swimming every evening, for at least an hour after work, and then lie down on the hot planks to clear my head. I can't take a vacation this year. We are in a huge development phase. That's why I treat myself to these evening breaks. Because if you rest, you rust. I once even considered building my own swimming pool.
That is far too expensive. I can't afford that as the head of an aid organization. In the first few years of my job, I earned virtually no money at all, later maybe 1,000 marks a month and today my salary is around 60,000 euros a year. You can't build a swimming pool on that. And I can't and don't want to increase my salary either: for one thing, people look at you strangely if you pay yourself a high salary in my position. On the other hand, I would only have to work more to recoup the money I cost.
We currently receive around 10 percent from the Ministry of Family Affairs. That is a start. We generate the other 90 percent from donations. A considerable proportion of this comes from major donors such as the Deutsche Bahn Foundation, BAHN-BKK, Permira, Schwäbisch Hall, Vodafone and the project developer and building contractor Christoph Gröner, whose fundraising initiatives and private financial commitment also saved us from the slump in donations caused by the coronavirus crisis. Major sponsors make up 75 percent, the other 25 percent are private donors. But especially in crises like the coronavirus pandemic, when people are uncertain, they donate less. I can't blame them for that, but it means that we have to fight twice for every donation.
Absolutely not. Stagnation is a death sentence in our profession. If we don't get more donations, young people stay on the streets or slip into hidden homelessness, have to struggle with family break-ups and some end up dying. Currently, the problem of homelessness among young people is becoming increasingly acute because the housing shortage is so great. Students are crowding into the barely affordable one-bedroom apartments, and there is nothing for teenagers or young adults on a budget.
"The issue will become increasingly invisible if we work well. If you go to the Domplatte in Cologne today, there are no longer large groups of young people begging. That's also thanks to us"
I wouldn't say that it often fails. We have taken 7000 children and young people off the streets so far. The fact that we've been around for 30 years is only down to the fact that people donate money to us. But the issue becomes increasingly invisible if we work well. If you go to the Domplatte in Cologne today, there are no longer large groups of young people begging. That is also thanks to us. To collect more donations, we would need more attention. But our advertising budget is very limited. If we had Ströer as a sponsor, for example, things would look very different.
Thanks to the Deutsche Bahn Foundation, once a year we have the opportunity to place a free double-page spread in Deutsche Bahn's mobil magazine. This is displayed in every ICE train for a month and is read. When our ad appears there, we immediately have a significantly higher number of donors.
A counselor for young people costs us around 80,000 euros per year, including all ancillary costs such as rent and fundraising. We are currently around 50 people. This means a total of around four million euros this year. However, the economic return on our social work is impressive: we invest an average of 60 gross working hours to help a young person off the streets and give them a new perspective on life. With all the trimmings, this costs just under 3,000 euros. Our social workers make sure that the young people are given decent accommodation and that the course is set for vocational training. Of course, we don't want them to become a permanent burden on the welfare system. 3000 euros may sound a lot, but you have to realize how much money can be saved for the social security system: If a young person with an average life expectancy has to live on social welfare for the rest of their life, the payments add up to at least 900,000 euros - not including costs for illnesses and rehabilitation.
If we save 1,000 young people a year from homelessness and help them into a sustainable future, this is not only good for the young people, but also a saving of 900 million euros for society today and for future generations. With an annual investment of three million, a return of 900 million results in a whopping leverage of 300. I once said to our employees that they have nothing to hide from the margins of pharmaceutical sales representatives. If this return were our monetary annual result, investors would shower us with money. But we only save the company money and that is often overlooked.
... gets the calculator
Now I've done the math: we've taken 7,000 young people off the streets, times 900,000 euros in costs. That's 6,300,000,000 so far. More than 1000 will be added this year.
"I wish that someone would give us a successful company."
May I be open? I would like someone to give us a successful company. That may sound a bit crazy, but it would stabilize our financial situation in the long term. We are a foundation and would continue to run the company professionally and use the profits to finance the foundation's operational social work. So if someone wants to hand over a company because they don't have a successor and want to do something good: get in touch, it would make a huge difference. Company shares are also extremely helpful - three, five or ten percent and we could use the dividends to save even more young people from homelessness.
I saw a lot of reports on the subject in the fall of 1992 and was amazed that this was still a big problem in Germany, a G7 country, many years after "Christiane F.". After all, we have the best child and youth welfare laws in the world. I was 25 years old at the time, and I asked myself whether we, as young citizens, were allowed to effectively remedy a grievance even in a completely regulated area such as youth welfare, or whether we, as the next generation, were only meant to maintain what had already been created. Today I know that young citizens are allowed to change society, but they have to bring the money with them to do so.
"My father was a dental technician, my mother an artist, so I couldn't expect my parents to feed me"
I quickly found 50 people I knew who were willing to set up an aid organization. However, I first wanted to get a picture of the actual situation on the streets myself and set off across Germany to talk to young people about how they ended up on the streets, how they survive there and how they imagine their future. This research resulted in the book "Straßenkinder in Deutschland - Schicksale, die es nicht dürfte geben", published by Ullstein-Verlag. The public response was enormous. The book research gave rise to a completely new type of supra-regional street social work. From the very beginning, we were the bridge between the young people in the big cities and the families and responsible authorities in the home area. A real direct hit. That's why I made a very conscious decision to leave my well-established advertising agency and journalism behind and work for ten years free of charge to set up and test an aid organization. We then wanted to see if we could bring about a change and, if so, set up the aid organization professionally. That worked out.
My father was a dental technician and my mother an artist, so I couldn't expect my parents to feed me. But I had earned quite well with my advertising agency, and this cushion helped me for the first ten years. After ten years, we took stock and decided that it made sense for me to develop the aid organization full-time.
At the time, I considered whether I should first try to earn a wealth to finance the aid organization. But I decided against it, because immediate help also saves lives immediately. Without this decision, many of the young people we were able to help would be dead, seriously ill or addicted to drugs. I would have earned a lot more in the advertising industry and would probably be doing my laps in my own swimming pool today. I am very happy with my decision. Hopefully one day in the distant future, on my deathbed, I will have the certainty that I have really changed something for the better. That lets me sleep very peacefully.
Personal details: Markus Seidel used to be a journalist and head of an advertising agency. He then became a book author and founded the Off Road Kids e.V. association together with friends in 1993, which became the Off Road Kids Foundation in 2008.
About the author
Nils Wischmeyer
Nils Wischmeyer writes about financial markets, investments, banks, banking regulation and white-collar crime.
