Dear FIFTITU% members! Dear friends!

We are contacting you to inform you that the extremely precarious situation of FIFTITU% - Networking Agency for Women* in Art and Culture has now grown into an existential problem.

FIFTITU% has been working for almost two decades to improve the conditions for women* in the arts and culture sector and is the only platform of its kind, not only in Upper Austria, but nationwide.

Our activities include cultural and women's political work, national and international networking in this field and various artistic projects in and on this topic, as well as concrete advice and support for artists and cultural workers. This is also perceived and utilized as an important service.

We are now in danger of not surviving the current financial year financially as an organization and no longer being able to work in 2018 for our 20th anniversary.

We are currently facing funding cuts from the state (Department of Culture) of at least 1/4 of the funding amount, as well as from the BMGF of more than half of 2015. We have no other option but to reduce our staff once again. This was already necessary in 2016, and now we can no longer afford even one full-time employee.As we only received informal feedback on the funding applications we submitted in November in the course of July (we have not yet received any formal approval or rejection) and have already implemented projects or are currently doing so until the end of the year, we have to deal with a financial deficit of around €10,000 at the end of the year despite the further reduction in staff and utilization of all other savings opportunities.

We are currently trying to tackle this situation with great personal commitment, voluntary work and private funding. However, we cannot keep this up for much longer.

It is not only a personal catastrophe for the employees and those who benefit from our work, but in view of social developments and especially in view of the upcoming 100th anniversary of women's suffrage and a new women's referendum, it is a fatal signal for women's policy that work in this area is no longer considered necessary by political actors and therefore no longer worthy of support.

We hope all the more for your support in terms of content and ideas, so that women's policy does not just lead to better economic usability for women, but to real personal and social improvements in the situations of different women!

With feminist greetings

The FIFTITU% - Team & Board of Directors

Andrea Reisinger, Jerneja Zavec, Oona Valarie Serbest, Edith Paule, Gerlinde Schmierer, Amina Lehner and Elisabeth Ertl