The foundation intends to achieve its goals by:

• Organizing symposia, giving public lectures, interviews, seminars, conferences and training courses
• Giving study and project assignments
• Publishing (scientific) publications
• Liaising with governments, educational institutions, enterprises, think-tanks, new political/social initiatives in connection with the Renaissance of the city-states
• Entering into partnerships with institutions, organizations active on the basis of related objectives
• Setting up and building an online platform on which all the initiatives mentioned here can be disseminated, shared and contribute to the social debate;
• and, in general, anything that can help to achieve the objective.

The Foundation launched three initiatives/projects during the course of 2024:

1.
A follow-up to the interviews I conducted with Vincent Bijlo during the COVID years. We formed a duo under the name degoedebijlo V.C.N.C., meaning Before Corona and After Corona, and held around fifty conversations with administrators, policymakers, opinion leaders, and a number of engaged young people.

We are now five years past the COVID period. The interviews are currently being transcribed, and the interviewees will be asked to write an afterword/epilogue. In addition, we will write a prologue for the book. Publishing house Querido will publish the book. The intention is for it to appear in late 2026 or early 2027, and it will be presented at a location that captures the imagination.

2.
The Moveable Feast project (moveablefeast.org): my search for independent bookstores across Europe in 2024 and 2025. In 2024 mainly in the Netherlands due to recovery from surgery, and afterwards throughout Europe. So far, more than 100 bookstores have been visited out of a total of 3,000. Inspiring encounters with booksellers, meetings with people in the shops, and during the train journeys. Visitors do not come there only to buy books, but also to attend lectures and other events.

Bookstores are a vital part of civil society. That civil society is being threatened and undermined both from within Europe and from outside it. We must stand up against this.

At the end of March 2025, the annual conference of the European and International Booksellers Federation in Riga was opened by the Latvian Minister of Culture. She addressed us in English: “It is a pleasure and honor to be here in a room with 300 booksellers from Europe and the rest of the world. For me this is a dream and it is a nightmare for dictators and autocrats.”

In short, booksellers, writers, and literary publishers are a vital part of a democratic society.

3.
Inspired by the encounters in bookstores, antiquarian bookshops, libraries, museums, and other cultural institutions, and during train journeys both in our own country and elsewhere in Europe, the idea arose to establish the European Literary Forum. A number of booksellers, writers, and people from our network are involved in its founding.

One of the supporters, the director of the Dominicanen Bookstore (Maastricht), indicated that there is no shortage of ideas, energy, and vision for the launch of the ELF (European Literary Forum) project and the continuation of Moveable Feast. The execution, of course, is the most difficult part and requires extensive work on many fronts. He is willing to cooperate once sufficient funding is available and enough manpower is in place to organize and develop the initiative further. An initial rough estimate suggests that an amount of €50,000 will be required. The Dominicanen Bookstore is willing to contribute to the fund, provided others also translate their enthusiasm into concrete financial support.

Furthermore, the director of the Dominicanen Bookstore will take a seat on the board as a member. The first ELF in Maastricht is realistically not expected to take place before autumn 2027. Theo Bovens (among other roles, he served for ten years as King’s Commissioner in the province of Limburg) has also expressed his willingness to contribute. This is how we have set this ambitious project in motion.

There is a certain coherence between these three initiatives and the Foundation’s objective.

The Board of the Lorenzetti Governance Foundation consists of three members:

• Dr. J.D. Albarda, chairman (†)
• M.F. Driessen, treasurer
• I.S.L. Lebrocquy, secretary

The management is led by D. de Goede, founder and director of the Lorenzetti Governance Foundation. The board members work unremunerated for the foundation. The Foundation does not aim to make a profit and was founded on 24 March 2020 as a public benefit purpose institution.

The Board
The first chair of the Lorenzetti Governance Foundation was Dr. Erik Albarda, who passed away on 12 February 2024. A new chair is currently being sought, and several candidates are under consideration.

Ton Harmes, director of the Dominicanen Bookstore, will become a member of the board. Given the European character of the ELF project, two additional board members are also being sought elsewhere in Europe. In the coming months we will announce the exact composition of the board.

The Executive Management
Vincent Bijlo, comedian, musician, and writer, has been involved with the Foundation from the beginning and forms the executive management together with David de Goede, founder of the Foundation.