Herbal Business School for Sustainability

United Plant Savers founded in 1994 is a non profit dedicated to native medicinal plant conservation. We are membership based and have an extensive network of business members who are looking for sustainable sourcing of plant material to go into products. The launch of an herbal Business School would provide critical classes for sourcing, gmp compliance, and critical herbal knowledge to succeed.  A big issue is direct access to growers and harvesters. Our school would develop a tool to make critical connections in the supply chain. Gathering important data that also helps growers to plan out the season for growing herbs. This tool would allow small scale companies to connect to regional farmers. We will be celebrating 30 years as a non profit and already have nearly 10,000 members of people who care about medicinal plants. And nearly 200 business members. This tool would allow us to link our members and communities for successful health of herbal small scale entrepreneurs. Our demographic is mostly women - as you could imagine women love to tend their families and communities with caring passion. We have been providing classes on sustainability sourcing and already have a forest grown verified program for medicinal plants and this would allow us to scale up. Helping the plants ? the farmers and the small herbal businesses! 

During Covid we launched the first online international herb symposium and with the success of over 3,000 participants from around the world we realized that technology can amplify our mission. We can build a global herbal village that connects people, plants and communities. Anther big gap in the herbal supply chain is data and how that data can inform consumers and conservation. The herbal business school would use various types of technology. The school would consist of online classes using the basics and power of zoom. There real innovation would be an interactive app that would gather data on supply chain needs such as types herbs and how much plant material. Location information and planning platform for the businesses who enroll. These technologies are thriving in other business models, it's a transformative dream to bring this to the herbal world designed by a non-profit on the frontlines of advocating for at-risk native medicinal plants for three decades. We have developed atat-risk tool that is easy to use, this tool is based on a similar tool for fisheries. This is an example of how we can use other tools for sustainable practices and industries and apply these tools to protecting medicinal plants. Barries to sustainability are the supply chain and transparency. Block chain technology and the power of crowd sourcing data would be transformative information that would help mitigate the biodiversity crisis.

Knowledge is power and traditional knowledge and the healing traditions are at the core of this proposal. See our international herb symposium learning center for the depth and diversity of classes, teachers and resources. We are a small organization with a big mission. We are unique in our mission and the work we do. Being small helps us to be grassroots and adaptable advocates for the plants. We believe that with the people and plant relationships can be transformative given the best data and resources to make positive decisions on plants to sources. We have seen the impact on local sourcing of food and the growth in organic. Where our medicine and herbal products come from is the next frontier for sustainability and healing of the planet and people. 

United Plant Savers founded in 1994 is a non profit dedicated to native medicinal plant conservation. We are membership based and have an extensive network of business members who are looking for sustainable sourcing of plant material to go into products. The launch of an herbal Business School would provide critical classes for sourcing, gmp compliance, and critical herbal knowledge to succeed.  A big issue is direct access to growers and harvesters. Our school would develop a tool to make critical connections in the supply chain. Gathering important data that also helps growers to plan out the season for growing herbs. This tool would allow small scale companies to connect to regional farmers. We will be celebrating 30 years as a non profit and already have nearly 10,000 members of people who care about medicinal plants. And nearly 200 business members. This tool would allow us to link our members and communities for successful health of herbal small scale entrepreneurs. Our demographic is mostly women - as you could imagine women love to tend their families and communities with caring passion. The membership is diverse from across the country so both urban and rural. We have been providing classes on sustainability sourcing and already have a forest grown verified program for medicinal plants and this would allow us to scale up. Helping the plants ? the farmers and the small herbal businesses! Women are creative and love to start business that take care of people they love. Our demographic are women 25-65.

The concept for an Herbal Business School for Sustainability is solution to loss of medical plant biodiversity that is at the core of United Plant Savers mission. Our demographic is our membership and network of people who care about plants, the planet and sustainability. Beyond the basics of classes on sustainable business practices the technology that would be developed would be in an app that would allow for crowdsourcing data that would help in Business development & procurement: Connecting small business owners to vendors, suppliers, and networks that will transform their ability to do business.

Data for plant material is nonexistent, there are no rules or regulations around plants in trade. This data is super critical for plants and for the businesses that rely on the herbal supply chain. This fits the Data and impact: Capturing, synthesizing, optimizing, and/or displaying data for business intelligence, impact evaluation, and/or improved decision making for resource allocation.

The global nutraceuticals market grew from $372.27 billion in 2022 to $409.12 billion in 2023 at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 9.9%.This is a huge industry with amazing growth and opportunity for women entrepreneurs. This is great report that highlights major concerns for herbal companies around supply chain and transparency.

The  problem is loss of plant biodiversity- and medicinal plants are the ingredients to so many products. The theory of change is that if we can connect and educate women on how to sustainably source plant material we can reverse the paradigm of a problem into a solution. Linking growers to buyers on a small scale - allows for plant material to shift from wild collected to cultivated. Collecting data helps determine need and reduces redundancy. Providing tools to educate best practices that include plant knowledge such as which plants are endangered- which plants to use instead - how to launch a new product that takes into consideration the sustainability of the plant material etc. 

how will we test our theory? The app component will gather data that will track how our system is working. We will also conduct routine feedback and engage in interviews to help guide the school and process. There is very little reporting happening in the herbal trade and this is critical data to help guide plant conservation and help businesses. This concept was in part inspired by the medicinal plant legislation in Bulgaria that requires companies to submit annual requests for plant material and permits for growers and harvesters are given based on this data. This helps both the companies and protects plants from being over harvested. 

We currently have 10,000 members and 200 are business members that we serve. We reach over 40,000 in our emails and through social media around 60,000. We have tremendous traffic to our website, we are the wiki of medical plant conservation, the go to source for information. We imagine that with this support that our numbers would double in five years. The herbal business school for sustainability could potentially impact 500 business members in the next five years. When we launched our International Herb Symposium online we had 3,000 people sign up and our herbal business classes were some of the most popular classes bringing critical information to small scale herbalists looking to launch into herbal products in the market place.

We define our stake holders as our members, people who care about plants, our business members, and our botanical sanctuary network members. Stake holders are also the growers and the wild crafters represented in those who are enrolled in on our forest grown verification program and we work closely with the USDA and our partners organizations and researchers. Our video on our conference Ginseng and Forest Botanicals conference linked above is a good example of the work we do that engages our stake holders. We also published a book on the conference and how we gathered data from attendees to help chart the work we do advocating for plants and sustainable commerce.

We build trust as an organization with three decades of working on the issues and engaging with our members. We send our members seeds and roots, we speak at events, we do podcasts, videos, and in person educational events. We are grass roots and we build trust through meaningful authentic engagement. We provide critical insight and information to business members that help them make informed decisions that are non biased and based on the plants biology and habitat. We have published the book planting the future and multiple educational information we provide for free to those looking to support plant conservation. We are in the field working in the dirt with folks who care about plants.

We have a sanctuary in Rutland, Ohio where we grow and propagate native woodland medicinal plants. Our mission is conservation of native medicinal plants. When plants thrive people thrive. When we heal the planet we heal ourselves. When biodiversity in the ecosystem thrives we thrive by having clean air, clean water, and healthy food. We are based in an area in Appalachia hit hard by strip mining, industry pollution, poverty and so as we create a green economy based on plants and create a model we believe we are impacting not just our communities but also the next generation of healers and change makers. We believe our work is transformational. SEE the amazing movie the Sanctity of Sanctuary which highlights Paul Strauss who was a key founder of the organization that highlights the work of our community around tending our botanical sanctuary. Once the sanctuary was established we believed that we needed to empower others to start their own sanctuaries and build community. Now we are the seed of many sanctuaries across the country. This is an example of how we have scaled the work we do!

Plant conservation in the market place is tricky and layered because plants are such a critical part of the supply chain. The support that would be afforded such as a needs assessment, peer-to peer networks, and the wrap around services through the retreat I think would provide amazing opportunities to level up the work we do in the market place and enhance the vision of sustainability in regards to medicinal plants and the biodiversity crisis. the inter-connected network of the world we live in depends on leadership and solutions that are scaleable. Certainly we see our barriers as financial but networking, skill building, and resources are a key to how an organization can become more transformational towards its mission.

Our partnership goals would be to dive deep into technology and the right software and data analysis of the herbal market trade. We would absolutely love to enhance our branding and marketing, and social media mojo. It's such a dynamic and constantly changing landscape and we want to reach a younger audience as they are the future caretakers of the planet. Talent on the board, we would love legal talent to join our board and the opportunity to reach new people who have the time and the expertise to contribute to our board would be amazing. It's pretty exciting to see how social capital and knowledge can help us save plants. This seems like a golden ticket opportunity and a wonderful way to engage in meaningful way - to be a part of the conscious leadership retreat. I am going to hold the dates. I hope who ever is reading this that you have enjoyed learning about plant savers.