Both organisations share one common subject: the hippotherapy, commonly known as physiotherapy on horses. People with neurological disorders experience great benefits, as the horse’s movements transfers to the human body and mimics the human gait’s movement.
Despite the success and importance of the therapy, it is not covered by insurances, thus the patients usually have to pay for it themselfs. This comes with downsides for both parties: a large part of the patients, usually paying for several other therapeutic oder medical stuff due to their diseases, can’t afford a high price tag for the therapy, and even lower prices are often too much for their financial situation (on top of the diseases, often severely impacting the daily life and the ability to work, the german law forbids people with invalidity pension to have assets). Therefore, the therapy cannot have the price tag it should have to be able to work sustainable, and suppliers need additional ways of earning money—usually through sponsors, investors or foundations, or other services which can compensate the financial loss.
Secretary and member of board at
Hippotherapienetz e.V.
Therefore, the non-profit charity association Hippotherapienetz e.V. has set itself the task of supporting patients—with knowledge about the therapy, its network of patients, therapists, doctors and sponsors, and most of all financially.
In 2016, I was elected sectretary on the board, and am responsible for public relations, corporate identity and IT infrastructure. Since then, we grew from 300 to over 500 members in three years, and—at the moment of writing in 2019—fully finance the therapy of around 40 individual patients.
Event organisation for
Schlössle berührt!
Schlössle berührt! is a joint series of events of both institutions, taking place at the Schlössle Scharnhausen. Four times a year, different types of events with up to 1000 guests per day are organised and managed completely voluntarely by a small team, including myself.
There are several tasks to manage, especially since we have almost no budget, as every profit we make is used to fund the therapy for underpriviliged people. Therefore, we are not only dependent on long-standing partners and sponsors, but also a huge amount of volunteers—up to 60 people—for preparation, follow-up and during the events itself.
Next to organising the volunteers and monitoring open tasks, I am responsible for the event design, including posters and website, pricelists and signage.
Design consultant at
HPZ Scharnhausen
Since the company’s foundation in 2012, I’m responsible for creating and maintaining the corporate identity of HPZ Scharnhausen. Tasks include the creation of the logo, color palette and typography guides (the initial ones where updated in an evolutionary process in 2016 during a company restructure), all sorts of print design including a concept for several brochures, flags, signs, and the website.
Through the years, I also began consulting the management in a variety of questions, usually regarding the company’s future in services, structures, and processes. We update the business plan regulary together and constantly look out for things to optimize—as written above, the hippotherapy is very important and successful, though due to german law is not paid by insurance, and therefore not very profitable.
Apart from those tasks, I am responsible for the IT infrastructure, maintaining the company’s hardware, mostly iPads, for organisation (with Minerva) and hard- and software for communication—phones, mails, and everything belonging.