NGO Status of A4E

Paper work for registration

We want to set up a German non-profit (e.V. for “eingetragener Verein”, registered association) so that we can start collecting and spending money and hire staff for doing campaigns and advocacy. We expect to be able to move forward with this in the second half of the summer. People interested in helping to set this up — and possibly with legal, tax, or organisational experience in doing so — are invited to join the discussion in our Slack space at #chapter_germany.

Earlier this year, we already participated in the Generation-D startup competition with the idea for a startup that offers fully digital conferencing services that obviate the need for in-person meetings, i.e., cater for the networking and social aspects, too. This would both drastically reduce CO2 emissions especially for intercontinental meetings, and make meetings more inclusive for astronomers with little funding or travel impediments. We got through to the second round, but unfortunately no further. Nevertheless the feedback we received at the end of April on our second-round submission in fact was encouraging: we have a wide network, a credible team, and address both climate and inclusiveness among the SDGs. However we would need to work on our business case in more detail and make the numbers work, and we should make it clearer what sets us apart from existing online conferencing services. If there are more people interested in working on this, it might be worth pursuing further. Who wants to contribute? Please get in touch with Sebastian Jester.

(July 2, 2022)