Many from our community have built lives that don’t follow the usual blueprint. For many of us our families are the ones we chose. Our homes are the rooms where we could finally breathe. And the question of what stays behind one day is, for queer people, rarely answered by default.

German law has a default, though. Without a will, your estate goes to relatives in a fixed order – whether or not they were part of your life. Partners you never married, friends who held you for decades, and the community that gave you a place don’t appear in that order at all. A will is how you can have an influence.

You can use that decision to look after the people you love first. And, if you wish, to let a piece of what you built stay in the community.

we are village is a place and a platform where queer people come to belong and grow. We offer free and low-threshold spaces for connection, embodied practice and learning – for queer masculinities and femininities, trans*, non-binary and inter people, across generations. We work against loneliness, we bring 20-year-olds and 70-year-olds into one room, and we make sure that queer experience is passed on rather than lost.

Spaces like this need to outlast grant cycles and changing political tides. Including we are village in your will is one way of helping make that future possible. It is not charity for a cause far away – it keeps a door open in your own community.

Most people choose a Vermächtnis: a fixed sum, a percentage of your estate, or a specific item that in your testament is listed as an inheritance for we are village, while your heirs remain your heirs. There is no expectation that you leave everything – a smaller legacy makes a real difference. Possible spouses and kids keep their legal share regardless, and as a registered charitable non-profit we pay no inheritance tax, so the full amount arrives where you intended it.

Together with Erblotse, we offer a free, step-by-step online tool for creating your will that includes the village as an option and inserts the correct wording for you. You can change your will at any time; it only reflects what matters to you right now. Erblotse is currently available in German only – if that’s a hurdle, get in touch and we’ll help you through it.

This is an offer, not an ask. Nobody will ever press you for a decision, and we don’t give legal advice – when needed we’re happy to point you to an independent lawyer or notary. If you’d like to think it through with someone who knows both the topic and the community, you’re welcome to reach out. Every conversation stays confidential.