I think the step to take is transitioning from “common location for discussion” to “organized community”, e.g. having an individual or (preferably) group/committee that meets regularly and tried to make decisions that benefit the community

Steve has been pretty overworked recently, so maybe if he appointed a core team / committee it'd a good way to keep the group advancing and solving organizational problems without everything falling on his shoulders.

If there's anyway to formalize an actual business or organization or whatever on this kind of work / research, that would be amazing. Has anyone already been (or is now) involved with it have connections to anything like that?

I’d suspect that anything more formal than handing out a list of responsibilities would just make more work than it’s worth.