Organisation and legal entities

Anyone looking at the structure of the Forum for the first time sees a lot of names: one co-operative, two associations, two civil-law partnerships, one limited company. Behind that is no tangle but a simple principle: every task sits with the legal form that suits it best. The structure grew out of the founding initiative of 1972, piece by piece, always when a new task needed its own body.

Two organisations form the foundation. The Förderverein owns all the land and grants heritable building rights, which keeps the ground permanently out of reach of speculation. The housing co-operative lets the 88 flats to its members. Anyone living here is tenant and landlord at the same time.

How one association became seven legal entities

At the beginning there was a single charitable association with a long name: „Forum Kreuzberg, Zentrum für wissenschaftliche, künstlerische und soziale Arbeit e.V.“, founded in 1973. It held everything, the buildings as well as the projects.

In 1993, after an extensive organisational development process, this became a threefold structure. The main association kept the properties and has been called Förderverein ever since. All the fields of work, that is the kindergarten, after-school care, the children’s club, youth work, theatre and acting school, moved into a newly founded project association, today’s Forum Kreuzberg e.V. And for the management and administration of the buildings the Forum Kreuzberg Mietergenossenschaft eG was created, which later renamed itself Wohngenossenschaft.

Between the Förderverein and the co-operative there was at first a lease over twenty years. When it ran out it was replaced by a heritable building right that gives the co-operative rights equivalent to ownership over all flats for 99 years. Of the roughly 10,000 square metres of floor space in the block, about 6,500 are residential and therefore with the co-operative; the Förderverein is responsible for around 3,500 square metres of commercial space.

In legal terms the co-operative and the Förderverein are jointly the holders of the heritable building right, as a so-called notional co-ownership community, while the Förderverein alone is the grantor. It therefore stands on both sides of the contract. That sounds convoluted but serves a simple purpose: the land stays with the charitable association and thus permanently out of reach of speculation.

Forum Kreuzberg Wohngenossenschaft eG

The co-operative is the legal body for housing. It was founded in 1993, after the Forum had operated as an association for two decades, and gave shared living a form built to last: whoever moves in subscribes shares, has a vote at the general meeting and shares the responsibility. It pays out no profits; surpluses go into maintenance, modernisation and keeping the charges affordable.

Forum Kreuzberg Förderverein e.V.

The Förderverein is the oldest organisation in the group and the one that owns the land. Since 1973 it has worked on a charitable basis for art and culture, education, and social participation including care for older people. Because it owns all the land and grants it to the users through heritable building rights, nobody can sell the buildings. With the income from the commercial space it supports projects in the house and in the neighbourhood, from the theatre to educational trips. It is a co-partner in Naturkind Forum Kreuzberg gUG and in Vorratskammer UG and has just under 40 members.

ARGE Forum Kreuzberg GbR

Six buildings need running, no matter who owns which floor space. That is exactly what the ARGE has been there for since 2012: it brings administration, maintenance, refurbishment and building projects together in one place, carried jointly by the Förderverein, the co-operative and Forum Hauswirtschaft GmbH. This is where the office sits and where the threads of daily operations come together.

Forum Hauswirtschaft GmbH

The Forum produces its own heat and a large part of its own electricity. The technical operation is handled by Hauswirtschaft GmbH: combined heat and power units, heat pumps with ground probes and air heat exchangers, heat recovery and photovoltaics. The limited company form provides the right framework for this, because generating and trading energy follows rules of its own. It is supported technically by the voluntary working group for energy.

Forum Kreuzberg Energiegesellschaft GbRmbH

Perhaps the most unusual construction in the group: the energy installations belong to the people who use them. 94 partners hold shares, alongside the Förderverein and the co-operative almost every household and commercial tenant of the Forum. As the largest partner in Hauswirtschaft GmbH it makes sure the energy supply stays in the hands of the community instead of belonging to an outside utility.

Forum Kreuzberg e.V.

The project association carries what makes up the Forum beyond housing: the Waldorfkindergarten, the Michael Tschechow Studio and the child and youth work of HeldInnen Raum. As a charitable association it can raise funding, employ staff and put educational and artistic work on a reliable footing. Historically it continues the founding association of 1972, which understood education and culture as the core of the project from the start.

theaterforum kreuzberg e.V.

The theatre in the former ballroom has been carried by an association of its own since 2005. The beginnings of theatre at the Forum go back to 1982; with the founding of the association the operation got its own legal body. More on the page theaterforum kreuzberg.

Electricity from the community itself

What began as a small photovoltaic installation a good twenty years ago has grown into an energy utility of its own: more PV installations, four combined heat and power units, seven geothermal probes and several air-source heat pumps. These activities are bundled in Forum Hauswirtschaft GmbH.

Most of the share capital of that company is held by the Energiegesellschaft, in which all the individuals who draw electricity at the Forum have joined together. The community therefore sells its members the electricity it produces together. The sun helps a good deal.

Partners‘ meeting

So that the interplay of the legal entities works day to day, the responsible representatives of all the companies meet once a quarter at a partners‘ meeting of Forum Kreuzberg. Together with further appointed people, around 30 persons work there continuously on the questions that shape the community.

Suggestions about which tasks need a working group of their own often come from this circle. That is how the roughly 18 working groups came about. Whoever misses something founds a new one.

How decisions are made

The co-operative follows the German Co-operatives Act: the general meeting elects the supervisory board and the board, every member has one vote. Alongside that, around 18 working groups, the ForumsEhren, work as organs of self-management.

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