What Matters is a global initiative sustained by the independent, privately owned nonprofit CO-LAB for Future Economics, headquartered in Vienna.

Since our official inception in 2023 (and building on more than a decade of pre-fieldwork across industries and perspectives), What Matters has focused on regenerative community economy development in township communities as well as underserved settlements across multiple countries, always within the informal economy.

Long before we became an initiative, our work grew from years of listening, observing, working within a Western-dominated corporate economy, as well as alongside communities. We studied economic systems from multiple angles.

What stayed with each of us who are now part of What Matters was a simple but persistent realization: economies are deeply social practices. What Matters emerged from this understanding.

Today, What Matters brings together partners from different backgrounds, disciplines, and geographies, united by a shared vision: an economy that serves humanity. What connects us is not a single model or ideology, but a commitment to staying close to reality, asking hard and uncomfortable questions, and doing the slow, relational work that real transformation requires.

What Matters is not a project with a fixed endpoint. It is an evolving practice and a long-term commitment to shaping economic systems with care, courage, and intention.

We don’t have all the answers. But we hold space for the right, bold, messy, and necessary questions. Real transformation isn’t clean or linear. It’s relational, iterative, messy, and deeply human.

So, welcome to the questions, the people, the practice, and the daily work of reclaiming humanity in the economy.

Welcome to What Matters ❤️

Our Story

Philosophy

Our mission is Reclaiming Humanity in the Economy. We believe humans are not only participants in economic systems but also responsible creators of businesses, organizations, and the systems themselves.

We focus on township communities not out of a savior complex, but because that is where economic life actually happens and where we find the best conditions for an economy that serves humanity. Our work does not start with theory. It starts with people, relationships, and lived experience.

From the beginning, What Matters has rejected the logic of charity or traditional aid. We do not arrive with blueprints, ready-made solutions, or external funding. Instead, we work alongside communities that care about shaping their own future. We follow a co-creative economic approach that strengthens ownership, income, job opportunities, community impact, and above all, dignity.

Most importantly: What Matters is our lifestyle. We do not preach a paradigm; we apply everything we want to see change through our work to our own private and professional lives. Our philosophy: If we can do it, our partners can too.

Principles

Economies are human-made.
We shape them consciously.
Economies exist to serve people, communities, and our precious planet.

  1. Co-Creation
    We design, build, and learn together. No top-down instructions or answers, but shared experience.

  2. Self-Actualization
    We strengthen self-reliance, capacity, and leadership, not dependency.

  3. Presence
    We prioritize relationships, dialogue, and lived experience over blueprints, frameworks, or output-driven performance. Silence is not an option.

  4. Transparency
    Expectations, contributions, assumptions, and questions are named clearly and honestly.

  5. Accountability
    We foster self-responsibility without needing to “get it right.”

  6. Rootedness
    We honor timing, seasons, and the pace of relational change. Systemic shifts take time.

  7. Contribution
    We honor each other’s roles, recognize shared work, and collective pathways forward.

  8. Capital beyond Money
    We value social, cultural, intellectual, spiritual, and environmental capital as much as financial capital.

  9. Unnegotiable Commitment to Humanity
    We do not sell dreams, provide funding, or act as a charity. Our work is relational, iterative, and a long-term practice of and for reclaiming humanity in the economy.

Focus Areas

  • Building local and bioregional economies that unlock ownership, job opportunities, income generation, self-actualization, and dignity.

    We focus on strengthening real economic life where people live, trade, and build.

  • Equipping communities with practical skills for entrepreneurship, business operations, financial management, and resource stewardship.

    Economic participation requires capability. We build it.

  • Supporting leaders, connectors, and socio-economic fabric-weavers to guide change from within their communities.

    Economic transformation requires people who hold responsibility, coordination, and direction locally.

  • Facilitating conversations across gender, age, race, industries, and institutions to strengthen mutual understanding, collective decision-making, and future-oriented economic development.

    We bring lived realities into structured spaces.

  • Promoting multiple forms of capital (social, cultural, intellectual, spiritual, and environmental) alongside financial capital in economic development.

    We work to ensure investment strengthens community economies and bioregions rather than extracting from them.

Meet the Team.

One Vision. Diverse Backgrounds.

  • NICOLE BASTIEN

    Founder & Principal Partner at What Matters
    Founder & President at CO-LAB for Future Economics

    Vision, Capital & Community Economy
    Transformation

    Vienna, Austria
    & Munich, Germany

    MEET NICOLE

  • ANNEEN MAREE

    Partner & Head of South Africa


    Community Economy Development
    & Regenerative Ecosystems

    Bloemfontein, South Africa

    MEET ANNEEN

  • KARAN SIKRI

    Partner


    Marketing & Communication
    Business & Financial Literacy

    Hamburg, Germany

    MEET KARAN

  • ANJA SCHERBE

    Co-Founder at CO-LAB & Partner


    Governance & Compliance, Policy

    Vienna Austria
    & Germany

    MEET ANJA

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