Crowdbuilding: Doughnut Design Case Study

01 | Brief Summary and Key Facts

CrowdBuilding is a steward-owned business dedicated to making community-led housing the norm.

• Location: Amsterdam, The Netherlands
• Founded: 2024
• Size (turnover, employees): expected turnover of EUR 1,2M in 2025, 15 staff   
• Sector: IT & Real estate
• Legal form: Private Company, Steward Owned
• Website: crowdbuilding.com  
• Main products/services: platform offering information, plots, tools and experts to successfully build a community-led housing project

Highlight of their unique approach

CrowdBuilding focuses on bottom-up initiatives by working directly with municipalities to unlock building plots. It provides citizens with the tools, knowledge, financing options, and expert support they need to take action. 

Unlike a top-down development model, CrowdBuilding helps citizens take control of their own housing projects rather than being limited by market-driven solutions.

Highlight of their unique design

The design of CrowdBuilding reflects its commitment to bottom-up decision-making. As a steward-owned company, it reinvests in its mission instead of maximizing shareholder profits, ensuring it stays true to its purpose. The organization also operates under Holacracy, a self-steering system that replaces traditional management hierarchies with a structure based on sensing and responding. This reduces the need for traditional managers, instead giving employees autonomy and responsibility. 

With a 100-year time horizon, CrowdBuilding is set up for long-term sustainability, challenging extractive financial models and strengthening community-led housing solutions.

02 | Founding Story

CrowdBuilding is built on 15 years of experience with collective self-build projects.

Sascha Glasl, Tjeerd Haccou, and Marthijn Pool founded the architecture firm Space&Matter in 2009, during a crisis when real estate development had nearly come to a standstill. However, the situation also created an opportunity to collaborate with citizen collectives and realize some of the first Collective Private Commissioning (CPO) projects in Amsterdam.

Their work with resident initiatives, such as the iconic floating neighborhood Schoonschip in Amsterdam-Noord, demonstrated that collectives are capable of developing highly ambitious and innovative projects. These initiatives not only excel in sustainability and community building but were also accomplished without a profit-driven approach.

Recognizing the added value of collective housing over standard real estate development led the founders to create CrowdBuilding — an online platform designed to raise awareness and make collective housing more accessible.

In early 2024, Brian Garret, co-founder of the successful platform 3D Hubs, joined as an investor and co-founder. With his expertise in building community-powered platforms, he plays a crucial role in scaling the movement. 

Today, CrowdBuilding empowers collective housing initiatives by helping them find plots, secure financing, and navigate development with expert support.

They believe that the European housing shortage is best solved by the residents themselves and that it is possible to build a fair and sustainable housing system together.

03 | Industry Context

The Netherlands is facing a housing crisis, with a need for an additional 1 million homes by 2030. Yet the homes that are being built today often come with a heavy price — literally and figuratively. In cities across the country, young families, students, and retirees are struggling to find homes they can afford. Meanwhile, new developments often prioritise profit over livability, leaving a growing portion of the population without viable housing options.

Additionally, the housing sector is one of the largest contributors to carbon emissions in the Netherlands. Current building practices rely heavily on resource-intensive materials, which only deepen the climate crisis. If we are to meet national and global sustainability targets, the way we build homes must change. 

Imagine an alternative: a housing system that brings people together to create their own homes, bypassing an extractive development model and removing unnecessary intermediaries. Imagine a system where communities and the environment, not profit margins, are at the heart of design and decision-making. 

CrowdBuilding is doing more than imagining the alternative; it’s helping to create it. CrowdBuilding challenges the current extractive model by placing the community at the centre of housing decisions. Their platform enables people to bypass profit-driven developers, create affordable homes, and design spaces that truly reflect their needs and values. By aligning housing with people and the planet, CrowdBuilding is paving the way for a regenerative housing future.

Their mission is to build the collective self-build movement — both in the Netherlands and, eventually, worldwide. They believe that building together not only strengthens social bonds but also creates resilient neighborhoods where people genuinely support each other. To that end, they collaborate with others who want to make a real impact. 

Their founders explain: “We are guided by the principles of the Doughnut Economy, where the balance between fairness and sustainability is key. This way, we’re not just building homes — we’re building a better future for everyone.”

04 | Regenerative & Redistributive Strategies and Ambitions

CrowdBuilding’s ambition is bold: enable 100,000 community-built homes in the next decade. This isn’t just about numbers; it’s about proving that when people come together with the right tools and support, they can transform the housing market into a force for equity and sustainability.

By building a network of individuals, communities, and partners, the CrowdBuilding movement can tackle challenges like securing land, navigating financing hurdles, and making sustainable practices the norm. Every project is a step toward a system where housing serves people and the planet.

At its core, CrowdBuilding is about regeneration — of communities, ecosystems, and housing practices. By removing unnecessary intermediaries and empowering people to take control of their housing journey, CrowdBuilding is redistributing power and creating spaces that are as inclusive and resilient as the communities they serve.

05 | How the Deep Design Enables Strategy and Action

Purpose

The purpose of CrowdBuilding goes beyond financial growth — it is about ensuring that housing serves both people and the planet. Their goal is to create a regenerative and redistributive housing system that prioritizes community well-being, environmental sustainability, and long-term resilience over short-term profit.

By empowering citizen-led housing initiatives, they help redistribute power in the housing market, enabling communities to shape their own living environments. Through steward-ownership, they ensure that resources are reinvested into the mission rather than extracted for uncapped profit. By embracing circular and bio-based construction, they reduce the ecological footprint of housing and contribute to a built environment that stays within planetary boundaries.

CrowdBuilding addresses key ecological and social challenges in the housing sector. They reduce carbon emissions, minimize waste, and mitigate resource depletion. They combat housing affordability by empowering people to create their own homes, moving beyond profit-driven systems. 

Their platform builds strong communities and combats isolation by supporting collective housing projects. By redistributing power, they give citizens a voice in housing decisions, and as a steward-owned company, they ensure long-term, sustainable development focused on community and livability.

Several transformative strategies could advance CrowdBuilding’s mission but are not yet fully feasible due to regulatory, financial, or systemic constraints. These include:

• Community Land Trusts for Permanent Affordability – Establishing community land trusts (CLTs) would ensure that collective housing remains affordable in perpetuity. However, this requires regulatory changes and significant upfront investment to acquire land.
• Municipal partnerships for plot allocation – If municipalities earmarked plots exclusively for community-led housing, it would accelerate the movement. While some municipalities are open to this, broader policy shifts are needed to make it a standard practice.

Over the next five years, CrowdBuilding is committed to prioritizing long-term impact over short-term gains, which means making strategic trade-offs in the following areas:

• Purpose over profit: Rather than maximizing profitability, they will focus on maximizing impact. With capped returns for financiers, founders and employees they  reinvest into the community using the CrowdBuilding Foundation. This might mean foregoing higher-margin business models that rely on traditional real estate market dynamics.
• Steward-owned, not shareholder owned: They are relinquishing control over key decisions to stewards rather than shareholders. This  protects the mission of the company and serves the broader movement and community. 
• Traditional investment models:  They will forgo extractive investment models that prioritize short-term returns, ensuring that the steward-owned structure remains intact — even if it means turning down investors who don’t align with the social and ecological mission. As they expand, they expect to pass on certain services or partnerships that compromise core values, such as working with large-scale developers who do not prioritize sustainability or affordability.

Networks

Long-term Partnerships: CrowdBuilding works with suppliers, communities, and industry partners who share their commitment to sustainable and affordable housing. Instead of one-off deals, they build lasting relationships by collaborating on practical solutions — helping municipalities tender plots to organised citizens, connecting architects with citizen initiatives, and accelerating the transition to sustainable materials. 

Building a movement: CrowdBuilding sees itself as much more than an organization; it sees itself as part of a broader movement. As the Founders explain: “We're dedicated to collaborating with other businesses, organizations, and groups who share our vision for change. By partnering up, we can strengthen the movement for more sustainable, community-led housing. These partnerships help us support new ideas, push for policies that promote collective housing, and create a space for sharing knowledge and resources. Together, we can speed up the shift toward a housing system that's fairer and more inclusive for everyone.”

Governance

Inclusive Voices: CrowdBuilding’s steward-owned structure allows for electing steward representatives from different groups in order to protect the mission. Representatives will include a mix of collective housing advocates, experts, and community leaders to balance financial oversight with social and environmental priorities. The steward board will grow as the company does to ensure the necessary voices are  heard. To start, there will be seven stewards: 3 founding stewards, 2 employee stewards, 1 investor steward and 1 independent steward.

Representation for the Planet: Initially, three stewards will represent the interests of the planet. Longer-term, the company intends to elect a dedicated steward to represent the needs of the planet.

Decision-making Processes: Stewards will be tasked with protecting the mission and will do so by applying Doughnut principles. 

Ownership

Stakeholder Owners: Community members, employees, and long-term partners could become stewards of the business.

Voting Rights: To protect CrowdBuilding’s mission, voting rights are structured to prioritize long-term impact over short-term profits. A steward-ownership structure ensures that voting power remains with mission-driven stewards rather than financial shareholders.

Structuring Ownership: Steward-ownership will be the foundation, with capped returns for investors, founders and employees. Reinvestment clauses will ensure profits flow to the CrowdBuilding Foundation where they are reinvested into efforts that further the mission and strengthen the broader movement and community.

Finance

Adapting Margins: CrowdBuilding has not yet finalized its approach to margins. Models like pay-what-you-want are being explored. 

Reinvestment and Capped Returns: A significant portion of profits (currently estimated at 75%) will be directed to the CrowdBuilding Foundation to be reinvested into furthering the mission and community. CrowdBuilding is  implementing capped returns of 3-4x for financiers, founders and employees in order to reinvest those profits.  

Prioritising purpose

CrowdBuilding puts purpose first, while recognizing the need to remain financially viable. The Founders put it like this: “In principle we prioritise our purpose first. Part of our mission is to grow the collective building movement; therefore, we need to remain a financially healthy business, so we can invest in the growth of the platform, the awareness, tooling and availability of financing. As there is no option for outsized financial returns, there is much less tension between profit and purpose, as profits get reinvested into our purpose.”   

06 | Reflections and Lessons for other Businesses

While CrowdBuilding was launched in 2024,  there are a few useful insights to be gleaned already.

Fundraising

Fundraising is much more difficult as a steward-owned business. The traditional VCs and most of the big name Impact VCs are not (yet) able to invest in businesses with capped  returns. Unless an investor indicates that they are familiar with steward-ownership, it is likely not a good use of time pursuing them.

Moral ambition

There is a growing group of talented people looking for companies with moral ambition. They are an ideal match for a mission-driven company and are much more fun to work with.

Movement building

A company that follows the doughnut economy model and is steward-owned will find many open doors.  Government organizations value the transparency and for-purpose structure. Other organizations and individuals in the field want to collaborate, making it possible to build a coalition of like minded people united by a shared mission.

This case study was researched and written by Sascha Glasl in collaboration with DEAL.