In one week to an EU "non-profit status". Wow, what a wild ride and agile sprint. It has been a paradigm hyperjump as well. 

Last Week: 

The direct 2024 seed funding ended last December, leaving me with 1.45€ in total assets. I design-jammed and published a support online shop in 8 hours last Friday. Here, I sold a cheap web design package, a web design course, and a private chef art and culinary dinner to finance my real work: the continuation of the common good project, Smart Waste Agency Game (The SWAG), which we launched last December as an Early Access alpha tabletop and card game.
 

On Saturday, I received a message from a donor asking if, instead of buying one of my support products, he could just donate 1000€ without any conditions or deals attached. This allowed me to focus on the work that calls me. The same day, I could pay my January rent, electricity, web access, and some food. WOW! I was blissed and deeply grateful. Active trust and faith are magical things. 

On Monday, I could just focus on my "BlissNess". We developed the first version of the game within the German documenta City of Kassel, with 63 kids, 3 city administration departments, and 3 non-profit teams. I served as the coordinating Creative Producer, Developer and Designer. The game was created in German and in the context of our specific waste types and recycling methods in Germany. 

This year, 2025, I wanted to take our game "out of town" and into Europe—our beautiful, diverse Union countries, cultures, languages, spirits, talents, and ways of doing things. Europa.
 

Ok, let's think European then and find a way to have a legal, financial, non-profit, common good entity within the EU that can efficiently handle all the administration that comes with such an organization, be radical, open, and publicly transparent with a real-time flow of all finances within our coop collective. 

And then I jumped deeper into the Open Collective roots, YouTube videos, TED Talks, essays, people, and my gut told me: Heaven yes. This is the kind of paradigm of open-source democracy + tools and infrastructure that  just feels right. And agile, too. Super fast and no longwinded bureaucracy in which we could continue to develop in a couple of months once the common ways of doing things have completed their long-winded journey with many stops. 
 

On Wednesday, I sent my website EU expansion proposal to Open Collective Foundation EU Europa in Brussels. It resonated well on their side. The Smart Waste Game project has been done in the same spirit from the beginning. Cooperative, multiple actos, sharing the funding, etc.

On Thursday, I had a wonderful video talk with Igor from OC Europe, and it resonated as well. 

On Friday—today—our SWAG common good coop collective is live, and we are gratefully fiscally hosted under the Open Collective EU Foundation in Brussel. The first donation already came in and supported not only our collective but also the people running it and the people working on this platform. 

I am just beginning to realize what a beautiful other way of doing things in our democracy I, we have just entered.