Many thanks for these comments. (I’m posting this mostly to check if the forum really is working again!)
I’ve also thought about the option of having a self-standing organization. We even made statutes for such an organization (Based on the statutes for the Nordic Society for Phenomenology). The problem I have encountered is that at this level, we really need funding towards research-type events. Other types of events distract from our main needs. However, it might well be possible to do both, and I noticed that e.g. COST is open to applications from all sorts of organizations.