The Hans Sauer Foundation is supporting transformative citizen science projects on societal aspects of sustainability. These receive marginal support, while at the same time offering innovative collaborative or co-creative approaches to social transformation. Based on the experience with the funding program, the foundation developed 17 criteria for transformative citizen science. A first draft was discussed at the Austrian Citizen Science Conference 2023 in Linz. The revised version is presented in this article. The criteria can offer orientation for actors who want to initiate a citizen science project that aims to generate social-ecological impact, and assistance to institutions developing (funding) programs to support such projects. This article is an invitation to the citizen science community to adapt and further develop the criteria for their contexts.