Borussia and beyond – Dortmund and other German fans funding local communities | OneFootball

In an era when elite football is shaped by global broadcasting deals, international tours and commercial branding, it can be easy to forget the power of supporters at the heart of a club. Yet in Germany, where fan influence is structurally enshrined through the 50+1 rule and culturally embedded in matchday life, supporters are increasingly proving that their reach extends far beyond the stadium.

At Borussia Dortmund and St. Pauli, fan communities are turning collective passion into tangible social action – from climate initiatives to anti-racism work and community investment – offering a model of what modern football culture can look like when supporters take ownership of the environment around them.

At Borussia Dortmund, this ethos has been deliberately woven into the club’s sustainability strategy. Dortmund’s “Responsibility” framework explicitly identifies fans as central partners in the club’s social and environmental programmes, emphasising volunteer work, conscious travel and local engagement. BVB’s official reporting highlights the significance of these supporter-driven contributions, noting that they form part of Dortmund’s approach to reducing environmental impact and strengthening community ties.

One of the most notable fan-connected initiatives is the “Strom09” energy programme, which encouraged supporters to switch household electricity contracts to a green energy partner associated with the club. According to reporting on fan-led climate action, this programme contributed to reductions of more than 81,000 tonnes of CO₂ by the end of 2019 – a figure that underlines the scale of supporter participation.

Some revenues linked to the initiative were directed into community organisations via club-supported funding. Dortmund’s programme created a recognisable flow of fan participation into local benefit – rare at elite-level football clubs.

Beyond this, Dortmund have integrated sustainability into their infrastructure. The club have installed photovoltaic systems on several buildings, including its FanWelt service centre; they have also upgraded to LED lighting across facilities and introduced heat pumps at the youth academy. All of this sits alongside club-level ambitions to reach carbon-neutral status by 2040. And the key point is that supporters are represented throughout the club’s language and strategy, not merely as spectators but as partners in shaping Dortmund’s social and environmental footprint.

Where Dortmund’s model emphasises scale and structure, St. Pauli’s approach is rooted in identity and activism. Known globally for their left-wing, anti-fascist and anti-racist supporter culture, the Hamburg club use their matchdays, communications and community presence to articulate those values.

This isn’t a marketing exercise; it has been part of the club’s DNA for decades. Slogans such as “Kein Fussball den Faschisten” (“No football for fascists”) and “Kein Mensch ist illegal” (“No person is illegal”) are long-standing parts of St. Pauli’s culture, appearing in stadium displays, supporter banners and club-sanctioned messaging. These expressions reflect a fan base that sees football as part of a broader social struggle.

One of the most significant supporter-connected initiatives to emerge from St. Pauli is Viva con Agua, founded in 2006 by former player Benjamin Adrion and rooted deeply in the club’s fan culture. What began as a local campaign has become an international NGO network focused on access to clean drinking water and sanitation. Its growth – spanning projects on multiple continents – owes much to the mobilisation of St. Pauli supporters, musicians and cultural partners, illustrating how a football club’s community can seed a global social movement.

St. Pauli’s supporters also contribute heavily to local anti-racism and social inclusion projects. Reports and academic studies on the club’s culture highlight workshops, memorial tours, refugee support programmes and fundraising drives connected to both fan groups and club-community departments. Supporters are involved in political education, anti-discrimination campaigning and social outreach that extends well beyond 90 minutes on a Saturday.

Taken together, the examples of Dortmund and St. Pauli point to a wider trend in German football: supporter culture evolving from passive attendance into active social participation. At Dortmund, this manifests through structured sustainability programmes, fan-linked energy projects and investment pathways that feed back into the local area. At St. Pauli, it is expressed through activism, community solidarity and the international reach of fan-inspired initiatives like Viva con Agua.

The significance of this shift becomes clearer given football’s broader environmental and social criticisms. Stadium travel, energy use and consumption patterns make football a sizeable contributor to carbon emissions, while the sport’s globalisation has often diluted local identity. German supporters are demonstrating that this doesn’t have to be the case. Through organised community efforts, they have shown that fandom can be a driver of positive change rather than merely a by-product of commercial strategy.

What unites Dortmund and St. Pauli – despite their differing size, budgets and footballing expectations – is the conviction that a club’s role extends into the communities surrounding it. Supporters are not only consumers but stakeholders, volunteers, donors and activists. The football club becomes a platform for community development, solidarity and sustainability, anchored not in glossy branding but in grassroots commitment.

For all the talk of modern football’s excesses, these German supporters reveal another side to the sport – one where the excitement of the game coexists with a responsibility to the world outside the stadium.

Whether through local energy projects in Dortmund or anti-racism organising in Hamburg, these fans are reshaping what it means to support a club. And long after the full-time whistle, their impact continues in classrooms, community centres and the global communities touched by their activism.