The Spirit is a platform for people who believe the world holds wonder.
About the Spirit
The Spirit opens houses of worship to everyone regardless of background, age, gender, or how you spell God. We bring in art, music and makers from outside religious tradition, creating a programme you won't find anywhere else.
What started as a single festival in 2024 is now a year-round organisation with three propositions: the Festival as engine, The Spirit School as learning track, and a Platform for houses of worship to programme themselves.
These places hold something rare: a gentle compulsion toward openness. In a church you grow quieter. In a mosque you take off your shoes. That small sacrifice makes you drop your hurry, your phone, and your defences. It's why a poem lands differently here than in a hall.
Our Track Record
In two years, The Spirit grew from a single festival idea into a year-round programming organisation. We've done this full-time, at our own risk, for three years running. What began as a weekend has become a network of more than fifty houses of worship across four traditions, built on trust.
12,000
Visitors in 2024
13,000
Visitors in 2025
6,000
Subscribers
70+
Media Features
77%
Return Visitors
70%
Makers want to come back
80%
Return Venues
How we do it
01.
Activating sacred spaces. Centuries-old heritage put back into use.
02.
Making rituals and religious language accessible. Ancient wisdom in language and form that works today.
03.
Beauty with social urgency. Art moves and disarms.
Religion, culture, and philosophy help us see new possibilities. We bring together as many sources of inspiration as possible and encourage people to dare to dream of a more loving, more connected world.
OUR OFFERINGS
Our foundation: 1 brand, 3 propositions. Everything we make follows the same method: we enable inspiring and socially engaging experiences through art and culture in houses of worship.
01. The engine
3 days, 11 houses of worship, over 60 programmes. For visitors who otherwise never walk through those doors, or haven't set foot in a church for a while. We also programme year-round at the Keizersgrachtkerk: concerts, meals, rituals .
02. The deepening
A place for spiritual development, for those who want to go deeper after a single festival evening. A learning track across different spiritual traditions, running all year and aimed at young adults. Old wisdom as a living practice for today.
03. The sustaining
The digital guide that connects makers and houses of worship. This lets houses of worship soon programme Spirit events themselves, carrying the method forward without us needing to be everywhere ourselves.
[coming soon]
Our Entrypoints
Every programme we build across the Festival, the School and the Platform connects to one of 4 experiences. Together, they're the core of our method.
Wonder
People want to truly feel resonance again. Poetry, light art, dance and music do that work: the heart opens to the unexpected.
Deepening
People are overwhelmed with information. Talks, lectures, dialogue and workshops offer insight: you don't have to know, you're allowed to search.
Stillness
People seek calm in a world that never stops. Meditation, breathwork and contemplative music bring someone back to their own core.
Connection
People want to feel part of something bigger. In a concert, spoken word, or a participatory ritual, the other person gets a face.
Why does this matter now?
The world is on fire
War on nearly every continent, climate disruption, gridlocked politics. It reaches you through every screen. People feel pessimistic about the future and searching for a place to come to a standstill.
Disappearing connections
A big population of Dutch people feel lonely. We've gone from pillars to bubbles, increasingly passing each other by. What's missing is the place where you truly meet the other again.
Attention is running out
People no longer truly find rest. Screens replace encounters, the brain never quiets down. The hunger for stillness grows against the current.
A new form of meaning
Many of us no longer have any religious affiliation anymore. It's especially young people who embrace ritual, meditation and breathwork as anchors.
Visible counter-movement
The flip-phone is making a comeback, phone-free formats are growing. There's a hunger for places that make you wonder and for doing something yourself. Not another dialogue, but an experience.
Our Partners
The Spirit is a collaborative project. A platform. A huge network. Without partners from places of worship, cultural institutions, social organizations, and the business community, this platform would not exist.
Umbrella partner of the participating Protestant churches.
Advises on reaching new target groups, as a partner for access and with speaker contributions. [in discussion]
Volunteer partner: recruitment and coordination of a minimum of 200 volunteers
Home base: year-round programming and the four Spirit evenings of the run-up period (3.1).
Carrying partners: opening up space, tradition and community, co-owners of the programme.
The wider network from two editions, connected via De Vredesroute.
Research partner: co-developed the Theory of Change and conducts audience research.
Stadspas, CJP, COA, GGD and safeguarding-network partners: joining forces for accessibility.
The makers' network the curators draw from.
Under exploration: Amsterdam Fringe, Amsterdam Alternative, The Offline Club, We Are Public, and a national media partner.
Why we do this
Misunderstandings are on the rise. Social media reinforces prejudices, politicians fuel polarization, and world leaders demonstrate how fragile trust can be. The result is a society in which pessimism prevails and belief in each other or in something greater fades into the background.
What can turn this around is imagination: the ability to imagine, shape, and share the unthinkable.
In two years’ time, this initiative grew into a platform for social practice: an artistic method in which artists work with communities to visualize new perspectives. This mainly takes place in places of worship because they are morally, historically, and practically aligned with our mission.
In 2024, in the run-up to the festival, we made the film Geloof (Faith) that reflects with our own values.
Where do we want to go?
The Spirit is at the beginning of a new phase.
After its first edition, the ZERO BPM program has grown into an independent project, with shows at Lowlands, ADE, and again during The Spirit in 2025. In 2025, we will also develop an app and platform to make meaningful programs at unique venues easier to find and access.
Starting this year, we will explore a structural collaboration with the Keizersgrachtkerk and the Thomaskerk, and investigate the possibilities of entering into collaborations in other cities in the future.
We are working towards:
-
ZERO BPM as a format in which silence, soundscapes, and sensory experiences come together, with its own identity outside the festival.
-
The Spirit Platform, a digital environment where audiences and creators can find each other and hidden gems can be programmed.
-
The possible opening of one or two of our own locations as permanent places for stillness, encounter, and experimentation.
OUR PARTNERS
Core Team
Robert-Jan Glas
Founder & Creative Director
Role: Creative & Strategy "Our beautiful planet has everything we need. Unfortunately, most of it isn't fairly distributed. I believe we can change that with activism and creativity."
Roel van Reenen
Managing Director
Role: Business Leadership & Strategy "The world calls for moral rearmament against the hostility of this era. 'Take good care of our city and of each other,' van der Laan wrote. I believe there need to be more places where this shared humanity and compassion can arise."
Laura Jibra'eel
Artistic Director
Role: Content Direction for Curators & Makers "The good life begins on the inside. Religions and spiritual traditions have carried that wisdom for generations. We invite makers to embody that theme from new perspectives, in music, art and shared experience. That's how meaning is carried forward"
Floor Brasjen
Head of Production
Role: Guiding Curators & Makers "I love bringing ambitious plans that seem impossible into execution, and have focused these past years on projects and programmes that connect culture and society."
Azra Adenwala
Head of Design
Role: Artistic Brand Identity "We live in a messy world. Loud, chaotic, inspiring, and honestly, beautiful. I love creating mess with a clear vision. Mess that shakes something loose. At the very least, scepticism. But preferably: a new, hopeful perspective."
Network of Freelancers
The core team is small and fixed. Around it works a shell of freelancers who move with the season: small in summer, at full strength in the months before the festival. For most positions, we already know who that is by now. Some have worked on previous editions. That's how we keep fixed costs low and knowledge within the organisation.
Board of Advisors
Marc Rasmussen (chair)
Impact investor with a background as CFO and business developer in the social and creative sectors.
Cristina Berta Jones
Chief Commercial Officer at Picnic Technologies, with broad experience in e-commerce and marketplace development.
Amberley Bernabela
Artist and cultural strategist working at the intersection of art, health and community.
Suleyman Turan
Owner of ST Finance & Consultancy, expert in compliance and financial management.
Tanja Priems
Strategic legal advisor and executive advisor at the Municipality of Amsterdam.
Janneke Zuidhof
Partner at Synergie | Business for Good, focused on purpose, leadership and impact strategy.
Council of Wise
Boaz Cahn & Selma Boulmalf
Deel de Duif - Jewish and Muslim young people who give guest lectures with #DeelDeDuif on dialogue and breaking through polarisation.
Mpho Tutu van Furth
Minister, writer and speaker, dedicated to justice, inclusivity and spiritual formation.
Rikko Voorberg (The Peacewalk)
Theologian, writer and activist, initiated the international Peacewalk to Jerusalem as a pilgrimage of hope and peace practice.
Mercedes Zandwijken (Keti Koti Tafel)
Social therapist and founder of the Keti Koti Tafel, dialogue tables on the legacy of slavery and colonialism.
Alaeddine Touhami (School van Vrede)
Educator and director of primary school School van Vrede in Almere, where peace and intercultural dialogue form the educational philosophy.
Operations + Policies
The Spirit operates as a hybrid organization. The foundation forms the substantive and social foundation and develops cultural and social programs, often in collaboration with creators, funds, communities, and religious institutions.
The collaborative partner company TSOA B.V. carries out commercial activities, such as operating its own locations, memberships, training courses, and corporate events. In doing so, the BV supports the social mission of the foundation, never the other way around. Profits realized in the BV are partly returned to the foundation.
The foundation’s application for ANBI status is currently pending.
The Spirit receives multi-year support from the Kerk en Wereld fund, the PKA, and the PKN.
The municipality of Amsterdam Fonds 21, VSB, vFonds, AFK, Cultuurfonds, Stichting Woudschoten, Vrijzinnige Fondsen, Porticus, and Insinger Fonds also contribute.
The Spirit Foundation was formally established on 25 April 2025.
This means that there is no annual report or financial statement for the year 2024, as the foundation did not yet exist at that time.
In 2024, all festival activities were organized under the umbrella of the company TSOA B.V.. No profit was realized in that year. To strengthen the cultural and non-profit character of the initiative, all festival activities have since been transferred to the foundation.
To give an impression of the scope and content of our work, we refer to the Festival Report 2024, which provides a detailed overview of the first edition of The Spirit (91 programs at 38 locations, reaching 13,000 visitors).
The first official annual report and financial statement of the foundation will be published in 2026, covering the year 2025.
Board members receive no remuneration for their duties. Reasonable expenses incurred in the performance of their role may be reimbursed.
Employees and contracted creators are compensated in line with market standards and according to the principles of the Fair Practice Code (fair pay, fair chain, fair share).
The foundation is committed to transparent and responsible financial management, ensuring that funds are used to support cultural, artistic, and social objectives, never for private gain.
The report on the 2024 edition can be read here: Festival Report 2024.
Policy plan can be read here: Beleidsplan 2025
Organization
The Spirit operates as a hybrid organization. The foundation forms the substantive and social foundation and develops cultural and social programs, often in collaboration with creators, funds, communities, and religious institutions.
The collaborative partner company TSOA B.V. carries out commercial activities, such as operating its own locations, memberships, training courses, and corporate events. In doing so, the BV supports the social mission of the foundation, never the other way around. Profits realized in the BV are partly returned to the foundation.
The foundation’s application for ANBI status is currently pending.
The Spirit receives multi-year support from the Kerk en Wereld fund, the PKA, and the PKN.
The municipality of Amsterdam Fonds 21, VSB, vFonds, AFK, Cultuurfonds, Stichting Woudschoten, Vrijzinnige Fondsen, Porticus, and Insinger Fonds also contribute.
Reporting
The Spirit Foundation was formally established on 25 April 2025.
This means that there is no annual report or financial statement for the year 2024, as the foundation did not yet exist at that time.
In 2024, all festival activities were organized under the umbrella of the company TSOA B.V.. No profit was realized in that year. To strengthen the cultural and non-profit character of the initiative, all festival activities have since been transferred to the foundation.
To give an impression of the scope and content of our work, we refer to the Festival Report 2024, which provides a detailed overview of the first edition of The Spirit (91 programs at 38 locations, reaching 13,000 visitors).
The first official annual report and financial statement of the foundation will be published in 2026, covering the year 2025.
Remuneration
Board members receive no remuneration for their duties. Reasonable expenses incurred in the performance of their role may be reimbursed.
Employees and contracted creators are compensated in line with market standards and according to the principles of the Fair Practice Code (fair pay, fair chain, fair share).
The foundation is committed to transparent and responsible financial management, ensuring that funds are used to support cultural, artistic, and social objectives, never for private gain.
The report on the 2024 edition can be read here: Festival Report 2024.
Policy plan can be read here: Beleidsplan 2025
Contact information
The Spirit Foundation
RSIN: 867915146
Chamber of Commerce: 97112054
Address: Nieuwe Herengracht 18, 1018DP Amsterdam
IBAN: NL46 RABO 0127 3906 85
