Support for changemakers2021-12-02T20:06:13+00:00

Build­ing bridges
to the future — together!

Let’s make the world a bet­ter place.
Get sup­port for your com­mu­ni­ty project.
Together we can achieve more!

Support

for changemakers

Our expe­ri­ence has taught us that there are many extra­or­di­nary char­i­ta­ble projects out there — and com­mit­ted peo­ple who bring them to life. These inspir­ing cre­ative sparks make the world a place worth liv­ing in.

bridgebuilder e.V. is a non-prof­it asso­ci­a­tion. We sup­port social, eco­log­i­cal or cul­tur­al projects free of charge. Are you part of such a project? Then secure our sup­port now!

How it works

How we support you

Look­ing back on many years of expe­ri­ence in cam­paign devel­op­ment and fundrais­ing, we sup­port emerg­ing ini­tia­tives or cam­paigns that are already underway:

  • We offer advice on the organ­i­sa­tion and devel­op­ment of campaigns.

  • We pro­vide tech­ni­cal sup­port for web and IT projects, for exam­ple, set­ting up online char­i­ty shops and launch­ing online fundrais­ing campaigns.

  • We help non-prof­it organ­i­sa­tions, asso­ci­a­tions and pri­vate indi­vid­u­als com­mit­ted to the com­mon good to suc­ceed — with our pro­fes­sion­al know-how we help kick-start your project.

  • Together we are build­ing a net­work for change­mak­ers who are address­ing impor­tant issues of the future.

How you get support

Which case applies to your project?

Case A

You represent an organisation that is recognised as a non-profit organisation in Germany.

  • We can pro­vide you with con­sul­ta­tion as well as organ­i­sa­tion­al and tech­ni­cal sup­port. All dona­tions will con­tin­ue to be han­dled direct­ly through your own organisation.

Case B

Your non-profit organisation is registered in another country.

  • We can sup­port you in an advi­so­ry, organ­i­sa­tion­al, tech­ni­cal and fundrais­ing capac­i­ty. This means that bridgebuilder e.V. can also col­lect dona­tions for our joint cam­paign, issue dona­tion receipts in Ger­many and for­ward the mon­ey to your non-prof­it organisation.

Case C

You would like to start a charitable project as a private individual.

  • We can sup­port your activ­i­ties in an advi­so­ry, organ­i­sa­tion­al, tech­ni­cal and finan­cial way. In any case, we will set up the project together and you will work in the name and on behalf of bridgebuilder e.V. bridgebuilder can then also col­lect dona­tions for our joint action.

Requirements

  • Your project is non-prof­it accord­ing to the legal definition.

  • Your project has already been ini­ti­at­ed or is ready to be launched. It is ambi­tious, real­is­tic, prac­tice-ori­ent­ed and already very mature.

  • You have a strong entre­pre­neur­ial per­son­al­i­ty: a will­ing­ness to take risks, per­son­al respon­si­bil­i­ty, self-man­age­ment and intrin­sic motivation.

The process

  • Step 1: Contact
    a) You briefly explain your project: moti­va­tion, overview of the key points, con­crete goals, etc.
    b) You describe to us where you need support.

  • Step 2: Meeting
    We meet (online) to get to know each oth­er and explore more con­crete­ly how we can cooperate.

  • Step 3: Agreement
    We con­clude a writ­ten agree­ment that pre­cise­ly reg­u­lates the type, scope, time frame and all oth­er details of our cooperation.

  • Step 4: Let’s get started!

* We only sup­port peo­ple who are ready to real­ly get start­ed with their project and who want to help oth­er peo­ple, the envi­ron­ment or soci­ety direct­ly and on a prac­ti­cal lev­el. We do not sup­port any vague ideas or the­o­ret­i­cal con­cepts. We also do not fund projects that are not tar­get­ed at peo­ple in need of help. Your appli­ca­tion should explain how bridgebuilder will help you achieve your char­i­ta­ble goals.

Our mission:

find a way into a live­able future

What kind of world do we want to live in?

While we are busy con­nect­ing the world with cables, destroy­ing ecosys­tems and mak­ing our­selves redun­dant in the face of arti­fi­cial intel­li­gence, we often for­get this ques­tion. All of this can be quite frus­trat­ing — and you may be won­der­ing where this will lead?

In our vision, the col­lec­tive over­load of cli­mate change, unjust dis­tri­b­u­tion of resources and dis­rup­tive tech­no­log­i­cal devel­op­ments is part of a gigan­tic devel­op­ment process. It is forc­ing us humans to reor­ga­nize our coex­is­tence and devel­op at a breath­tak­ing speed. Imag­ine the pos­si­bil­i­ty to trav­el freely through many coun­tries, equal access to edu­ca­tion for all sex­es, free­dom of expres­sion, a social sys­tem, work­ers’ rights, free choice of part­ner, same-sex mar­riage… All these social achieve­ments have devel­oped only recent­ly in human his­to­ry and we often take them for grant­ed (at least us Europeans).

But the sta­tus quo is far from per­fect — and for fur­ther devel­op­ment we need to under­stand the fol­low­ing: Humans are not only com­posed of their phys­i­cal bod­ies and their intel­lects - their emo­tions and their spir­i­tu­al­i­ty are equal parts with­in them.

About spir­i­tu­al­i­ty and meaning
Maybe the word “spir­i­tu­al­i­ty” makes you imag­ine hip­pies in sack­cloth sit­ting together in a cir­cle and talk­ing about their feel­ings. How­ev­er, we are con­cerned here with the entire world of life and work, which nowa­days often seems com­plete­ly soul­less: peo­ple are locked into auto­mat­ed process­es like cog­wheels and any­one who does not run smooth­ly is removed.

Recent­ly, how­ev­er, more and more “seri­ous” busi­ness peo­ple in suits are real­is­ing that remain­ing suc­cess­ful in this increas­ing­ly com­plex sys­tem requires new per­spec­tives. Being aware of the mean­ing of one’s own activ­i­ties and hav­ing access to one‘s emo­tions are becom­ing increas­ing­ly impor­tant in this con­text. After all, those who learn to recon­nect with their own and oth­ers’ emo­tions can deal more empa­thet­i­cal­ly with chal­lenges and together find solu­tions that could not be achieved cog­ni­tive­ly on their own.

Those who devel­op their own spir­i­tu­al­i­ty can estab­lish an active con­nec­tion to them­selves and all life and draw from this an enor­mous strength and moti­va­tion for their work.

Our task as bridge builders is to shape our lives and our work in a holis­tic and sus­tain­able way and thus open up new paths for oth­er peo­ple. We do not have ready-made solu­tions for this — but we do have tools that have been tried and test­ed in prac­tice! We use them to build exam­ples that com­bine tech­nol­o­gy and intel­li­gence with empa­thy and mean­ing. In this way, we trans­form rigid cog­wheel sys­tems into organ­i­cal­ly grow­ing liv­ing environments.

For a bet­ter under­stand­ing of how we envi­sion an orga­ni­za­tion of the future, we rec­om­mend Fred­er­ick Laloux’s book “Rein­vent­ing Organizations”. Have a look at this short video to get an idea of what it is about.

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Fre­quent­ly Asked Questions

Would you like to find out more about bridgebuilder.eu and the con­di­tions under which we will sup­port you? Then have a look at our FAQ section.

Ques­tions about the organisation

Who are the peo­ple behind bridgebuilder e.V.?2022–11-05T22:44:20+00:00

The ini­tia­tor of bridgebuilder is Matthias Lind­ner. Matthias is a polit­i­cal cam­paign­er and exhi­bi­tion design­er as well as the own­er of ARac­tion GmbH, a soft­ware com­pa­ny for aug­ment­ed real­i­ty projects.
Together with an inter­dis­ci­pli­nary team, Matthias found­ed the bridgebuilder e.V. (a reg­is­tered association):

  • Sebas­t­ian Adler (Nau­ti­cal offi­cer, B.Sc.)
  • Veroni­ka Czies­lik (Ener­gy and Process Engi­neer­ing, M.Sc.)
  • Nike Schödl (Eng­lish and Amer­i­can Stud­ies, BA)
  • Christoph Lind­ner (Dr. jur., lawyer and lecturer)

As part of the bridgebuilder advi­so­ry board, we will decide on your appli­ca­tions for sup­port. We will also dis­cuss how we can best use our pro­fes­sion­al expe­ri­ence to sup­port you in the imple­men­ta­tion of your projects.

Where does the fund­ing for bridgebuilder come from?2022–11-05T22:43:51+00:00

Most of the work for bridgebuilder is done on a pro bono basis. To ensure that bridgebuilder con­tin­ues to func­tion in the long term, it is our goal to raise more funds for our projects. If you would like to donate some­thing, please con­tact us here. Dona­tions are tax deductible, as the non-prof­it sta­tus of our asso­ci­a­tion has been recog­nised by the tax office.

Why not sim­ply sup­port an exist­ing foun­da­tion or NGO?2021–11-30T18:28:57+00:00

We have been think­ing for a long time about whether it makes sense to set up our own ini­tia­tive. After many years of expe­ri­ence in NGOs such as Green­peace, the Econ­o­my for the Com­mon Good and after dis­cus­sions with the soci­ol­o­gist Har­ald Welz­er and mem­bers of Fri­days for Future, we decid­ed to take this step. Since we have a lot of expe­ri­ence in found­ing our own com­pa­nies, we believe that this is the way we can achieve the most.

Is bridgebuilder a reg­is­tered asso­ci­a­tion?2021–11-30T18:31:36+00:00

Yes, it is! “bridgebuilder e.V.” was found­ed on the 21st of Feb­ru­ary 2020 by eight com­mit­ted peo­ple and is reg­is­tered in the reg­is­ter of asso­ci­a­tions at Land­shut Dis­trict Court under the num­ber VR 201072. The asso­ci­a­tion is based in Dieters­burg. The asso­ci­a­tion is recog­nised as a non-prof­it organ­i­sa­tion by the tax office.
The statutes of the asso­ci­a­tion are avail­able for down­load here.

What is the mean­ing of the cog­wheel and the leaf in your logo?2021–11-30T18:31:25+00:00

The cog­wheel stands for work­ings of the “old” eco­nom­ic sys­tem: In too many com­pa­nies and cor­po­ra­tions, peo­ple are treat­ed like machines, like “cogs in the sys­tem”. They have to func­tion smooth­ly, or they will be force­ful­ly replaced.

The leaf in our logo sym­bol­izes the “new” social sys­tem, in which work and life are seen as an organ­ic process. Here, peo­ple and organizations devel­op in self-gov­­ern­ing struc­tures and nat­ur­al hier­ar­chies, com­pared to a com­plex ecosys­tem.

The cog­wheel and the leaf are also intend­ed to express our desire to con­tribute to a rec­on­cil­i­a­tion between tech­nol­o­gy and nature. What would a world look like in which nature and tech­nol­o­gy are sym­bi­ot­i­cal­ly linked and do not exploit or fight each other?

What tools does a bridgebuilder use?2021–11-30T18:31:49+00:00

Net­worked technology:
Project man­age­ment soft­ware (Click­Up), data clouds, mes­sen­ger ser­vices, ver­sion con­trol tools, Cre­ative Cloud, 2D and 3D visu­al­iza­tions, Aug­ment­ed Real­i­ty, Word­Press, tools for online col­lab­o­ra­tion, etc.

Organ­ic Organisation:
Non­vi­o­lent Com­mu­ni­ca­tion (NVC), Sys­temic Kon­sens­ing, Sozioc­ra­cy / Holoc­ra­cy, “Sense & Respond” instead of “Pre­dict & Con­trol”, Iter­a­tive Design instead of the water­fall mod­el, Spi­ral Dynam­ics, Design Think­ing, Drag­on Dream­ing, etc.

Spir­i­tu­al tools:
Med­i­ta­tion, Bin­au­r­al Beats, expres­sive dance, Holotrop­ic Breath­work, Pos­si­bil­i­ty Man­age­ment, Yoga, Play­fight, Con­tact Impro, etc.

What’s the dif­fer­ence between bridgebuilder and oth­er change­mak­er net­works?2021–11-30T18:32:03+00:00

Some change­mak­er net­works require you to invest large amounts of mon­ey and/or time in attend­ing sem­i­nars before you can become part of the network.
At bridgebuilder we believe that you already have the nec­es­sary skills and can best devel­op them in a prac­ti­cal process. We want you to take action right away and not let any­thing dis­tract you from your project. That’s why we will imme­di­ate­ly pro­vide you with very prac­ti­cal sup­port when it comes to imple­ment­ing your ideas and solv­ing prac­ti­cal prob­lems such as fundrais­ing, online com­mu­ni­ca­tion, project pre­sen­ta­tions, IT and much more!

Can I become a mem­ber or donate some­thing?2021–11-30T18:32:19+00:00

We’d appre­ci­ate it very much if you decid­ed to sup­port bridgebuilder! You can do this in the fol­low­ing ways:

  1. You can donate to our non-prof­it organ­i­sa­tion by bank transfer:
    bridgebuilder e.V.
    DE36430609671066941000
    GENODEM1GLS
  2. You can become a sup­port­ing mem­ber accord­ing to arti­cle 4 of our statutes and the valid con­tri­bu­tion reg­u­la­tions.

If you are inter­est­ed, please con­tact Matthias Lind­ner, bridgebuilder’s initiator.
You can do this via email or mail to bridgebuilder e.V., Graben 1, D‑84378 Dietersburg.

Ques­tions about our support

Who can apply for sup­port?2021–11-30T18:34:44+00:00

Any­one, regard­less of age, gen­der, ori­gin, reli­gion, edu­ca­tion­al back­ground, skin colour, nation­al­i­ty or favourite food can apply — as long as they already lead a char­i­ta­ble project or are about to start one. It is impor­tant to us that you work pro­fes­sion­al­ly, are high­ly orga­nized and deter­mined, and have expe­ri­ence in your field. It would be great if you are self-con­­fi­­dent, yet real­is­tic and reflec­tive and have already spent some thoughts on your pur­pose and vision of life. We assume that you are inter­est­ed in polit­i­cal, social and maybe even philo­soph­i­cal ques­tions any­way — oth­er­wise you prob­a­bly would­n’t be on this page. 😉

What are the fund­ing con­di­tions?2021–11-30T18:34:56+00:00

  • There is no legal claim to support.
  • The advi­so­ry board is free to decide who, when, how long and to what extent bridgebuilder fe.V. sup­ports some­one in the con­text of their char­i­ta­ble commitment.
  • The statutes of the found­ed bridgebuilder e.V. define the deci­­sion-mak­ing frame­work for the committee.
  • Sub­mit­ted con­cepts will not be remunerated.
  • All sub­mit­ted ideas and con­cepts are “Open Source”. They are hand­ed over by the author under the license CC0 1.0 Uni­ver­sal (CC0 1.0) Pub­lic Domain Ded­i­ca­tion. Fur­ther infor­ma­tion: https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/deed.en
  • All doc­u­ments, ideas and sub­mit­ted media may be freely used and pub­lished by bridgebuilder e.V.
  • Fund­ing amounts received can be reclaimed if the recip­i­ent does not ful­fil his oblig­a­tions as project man­ag­er or uses the mon­ey for oth­er pur­pos­es than described in the fund­ing application.
  • The col­lab­o­ra­tion and sup­port can be ter­mi­nat­ed by either par­ty at any time with­out giv­ing rea­sons and with imme­di­ate effect. (How­ev­er, we will always talk to you first if any prob­lems arise!)
  • bridgebuilder e.V. may change the sup­port con­di­tions at any time with effect for the future.
  • Please also read the FAQ arti­cles about the fund­ing peri­od and your oblig­a­tions.
  • All details of the coop­er­a­tion are reg­u­lat­ed by a writ­ten agree­ment between bridgebuilder and the sup­port­ed organ­i­sa­tions / com­mit­ted individuals.
How long will I be spon­sored?2021–11-30T18:35:26+00:00

In short, this will large­ly depend on your project and the type of sup­port. When we decide to work together, we will spec­i­fy this in detail with­in the frame­work of the agree­ment we con­clude. If our col­lab­o­ra­tion will last over a longer peri­od of time, the board will decide at the end of each year whether or not to con­tin­ue the collaboration.

Does bridgebuilder sup­port organ­i­sa­tions or indi­vid­u­als?2021–11-30T18:35:38+00:00

Both. We sup­port oth­er NGOs, asso­ci­a­tions, activists, social entre­pre­neurs, cam­paign­ers, start-up founders and oth­er com­mit­ted indi­vid­u­als on the con­di­tion that the sup­port received is used for char­i­ta­ble projects. The use of funds in accor­dance with the agree­ment must be proven, e.g. by doc­u­ment­ing the hours con­tributed to the non-prof­it project. See also here.

Do you expect some­thing in return? What is the legal frame­work for the sup­port?2021–11-30T18:35:51+00:00

The sup­port by bridgebuilder is pro­vid­ed free of charge.

Before we coop­er­ate with NGOs, asso­ci­a­tions and oth­er organ­i­sa­tions that are recog­nised as char­i­ta­ble in Ger­many, we con­clude a writ­ten agree­ment that reg­u­lates the con­di­tions of the cooperation.

If you want to be sup­port­ed as a nat­ur­al per­son in the imple­men­ta­tion of char­i­ta­ble pur­pos­es, we will ensure through a con­tract with you that you are active as an “aux­il­iary per­son” (see also § 57 AO) for bridgebuilder e.V. and that our asso­ci­a­tion can pre­cise­ly deter­mine your activities.

The agree­ments reg­u­late the following:

  • Con­tent and scope of the coop­er­a­tion and activities
  • Char­i­ta­ble pur­pose to be pursued
  • If applic­a­ble, nam­ing of partners/organisations with whom coop­er­a­tion will take place with­in the frame­work of the activity.
  • If finan­cial sup­port is grant­ed: Amount of funding.
  • Peri­od of support
  • In the case of nat­ur­al persons:
    Oblig­a­tion of the per­son to doc­u­ment the num­ber of work­ing hours in a time sheet and to sub­mit it to bridgebuilder e.V. for examination.

Fur­ther­more, it is necessary

  • that you inform us open­ly and trans­par­ent­ly about the progress or pos­si­ble prob­lems in your project;
  • that you dis­close fig­ures, cash flows, staff struc­ture and con­nec­tions to oth­er pri­vate or pub­lic actors in a trans­par­ent man­ner;
  • that you sup­port oth­er bridge­builders in their projects as far as possible;
  • that you get involved in the bridgebuilder net­work and con­tin­ue as a “bridgebuilder alum­nus”;
  • that you sup­port us in the fur­ther devel­op­ment of bridgebuilder e.V.

We would like all bridge­builders to see them­selves as a large, joint team that works together sym­bi­ot­i­cal­ly: every­one has their focus, roles and respon­si­bil­i­ties, but we sup­port each oth­er where we can.

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We will con­tact you only once a month -
and only if there are rel­e­vant news. Promised.

Con­tact us!

If you have any ques­tions, do not hes­i­tate to con­tact us.




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