Next steps for partnership building

The Reef
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We agreed what follows:

  1. We badly need a better map of how decisions are made in Brussels. Without this, we will be considered lightweights. Also, we need political allies for our approach.
  2. So, we start our partnership building by making a better map. We contact, in this phase, only the actors that are potentially most sympathetic to our approach and best informed. This means:
  3. To these entities, we send contact emails. A paragraph to introduce the Reef is below.
  4. Before sending out emails, please make sure that https://thereef.brussels is beautified. @matthias, when do you think the look-and-feel of the site will be finalized?
  5. There is another opportunity around municipalities. They alone (but only in partnership) can apply to funding for Urban Innovative Actions. The Reef is a perfect urban innovative action. Unfortunately, the 5th call (out now) is not a great fit for what we do, but @marina and I will keep an eye on the initiative.

An introductory paragraph for the email

Dear XXX,

my name is
 and I represent Edgeryders. We are a social enterprise, dedicated to finding innovations that emerge at the edge of society (hackers, activists, artists) and scaling them up to the mainstream. Most of our clients are international public sector organizations like the World Bank, the United Nations Development Programme, UNESCO.

We are currently working on a new concept for urban living: a hybrid living-working space that can nurture a social, happy, “deep green” behavior in the people that live in it. We call it The Reef. To realize it, we have partnered up with EIT Climate-KIC, Europe’s main climate innovation initiative. Climate-KIC has already contributed seed funding to our initiative.

We would like to deploy the first-ever such space in Brussels. This is because we believe there is an appetite for it, but also for personal reasons: many of us live in Brussels, love the city and we would like to contribute to its continued prosperity.

We believe this is a great opportunity to rethink urban living, and put Brussels at the forefront of the European Green New Deal that the new Commission has committed to. However, we are aware that, to proceed, we need to build a solid and diverse coalition behind this idea.

We know you have a deep knowledge of urban dynamics in Brussels. Would you agree to meeting me and one or two of my colleagues to discuss the idea, and point us to the stakeholders that, in your opinion, are a good fit to help make it happen?

A presentation of The Reef can be found at https://thereef.brussels.

[SALUTATIONS]

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I’ll get the graphics work next Tuesday (2019-10-15) for this website, so I’ll have it up on the site 1-2 days afterwards.

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So Geert from Community Land Trust (director) called me to invite us to a session they are hosting on the cooperative model for what they call ‘fond fonciere’. They are looking into governance too.

my search:
Une sociĂ©tĂ© fonciĂšre , plus communĂ©ment appelĂ©e « FonciĂšre » est une sociĂ©tĂ© commerciale dont l’objet est la constitution, la gestion et l’exploitation d’un portefeuille immobilier. Il peut s’agir de tout bien foncier et/ou immobilier, dotĂ© d’une affectation commerciale, industrielle, d’exploitation, d’habitation, etc.

@alberto : can you attend on 14 November? it will start at 13:00 as far as I understood. They will send us an email official invite.
I can’t go because it is during the same day as our 2nd workshop.