Funders Circle

Antonis Schwarz is an activist, philanthropist and impact investor of Greek-German descent and driven by the ideas laid out in the Guerrilla Foundation’s mission. He has used his inherited wealth (that originated from the selling of pharmaceutical company Schwarz Pharma) to support a variety of social causes since 2011. In 2013, Antonis co-founded Vouliwatch, a Greek parliamentary monitoring organization that aims to increase political accountability. He also co-founded the Center for Sustainable Finance at the University of Zurich. In his free time he enjoys skateboarding and playing Magic the Gathering. You can find out more about his work on the website Good Move Initiatives.

Claudia has worked in the arts, social entrepreneurship, no profit and coaching sectors wondering how to build a world we can be more proud of. Moving to London and away from home, was one of the main turning points in recognising how much easier life had been for her and how this easiness needs be attached to a responsibility to do something about it. She is inspired by the local heroes around us – anyone who has the courage to dare to push for change around their communities, and fighting to improve our democratic systems and the role they play in fostering equality and in protecting our planet beyond boundaries.  Mother of three energetic kids, loves having a house full of people (and food), and she is grateful to have discovered that meditation and yoga practices do help navigating life.  She aspires at becoming part of a movement that challenges the role of funders in shifting the conversation on what trust, collaboration and fairness across systems mean.

We are a family of six, including four wonderful children. We love going on long walks in nature, spending time with family, friends and neighbours. Cheese and wine are our sweet (sometimes guilty!) pleasures. Our journey began in Paris where we met while studying architecture and business. We then built a path as successful social entrepreneurs in South America, while also being the 17th generation of a winemaking family that deepens the connections to our roots – the landscape, the territory and our lineage. Recently we joined the pool of shareholders of another family business that is a global company. As a result we’ve received a huge polycapital (financial and influential) that exceeds our needs. We’ve fully dedicated these resources to Impact endeavours that we make through our recently founded investment company. Guided by a commitment to projects that put both people and the planet before financial returns, our investment company aims to contribute to a culture that redefines business success by its regenerative potential, meaning, the capacity to contribute to social and climate justice over profit. As individuals with privilege we believe it is also our duty to pursue that same goal in our philanthropic journey. As an uncle used to say, if you give and it doesn’t hurt…you haven’t given enough.

Marlene is a 30 year old long-term student of German literature and language who will always find an excuse to read. Upon receiving a pretzel-like around the corner announcement of a large inheritance, she was forced to put the foot down on principle. So, she started talking to everyone she knew and trusted about everything related to wealth and power. This journey has had her figure out family dynamics, work with the Guerrilla team on radical philanthropy, get in touch with organisations such as Resource Generation and it gave her enough determination to co-found taxmenow, an initiative of wealthy people using their privileged access to mainstream media in order to talk about the democratic necessity of wealth taxation so as not to perpetuate an elitist system of inequality in ownership of land wealth and power. To her, giving back has become redistribution and it simply states the fact that wealth comes from society and it must stay in flux between individuals and communities. She finds not only relief in letting go of excess wealth and power but also sees it to be a democratic duty of those who – for whatever reason – hold excessive access to wealth. She keenly reads constitutions and the universal declaration of human rights to figure out how we can tell a legal story of sharing among equals. Among the stronger voices in her thoughts are Hannah Arendt, Albert Camus, Katharina Pistor, Fran Lebowitz, Ariadne von Schirach and Herta Müller.

Paolo had already quit his alienating banking job when his mother tragically died. He was then confronted with his privilege by inheriting significant wealth that was originally accumulated by his great-grandfather in the alcoholic beverage sector. He’s since worked to change capitalism mainly by using his financial skills within the belly of the beast. First, by consciously reinvesting all his capital and advising others on how to generate positive impact in the fight against climate change, for gender equality, and for more sustainable supply chains. He’s also consulted for big corporations on their sustainability strategy. Supremely frustrated with the slow pace of change, he’s been wanting to support grassroots activism thanks to its promise to more radically question the root causes of our ecological, social, and democracy crises. Paolo is especially keen to shake up traditional philanthropy by transferring power to the people with lived experience of the problems we all need to tackle. He lives with his husband and two kids in London, loves adventure travel, is an Ayurvedic practitioner, and can cook a mean curry.

Simon used to study physics and doing his best to forget about those shares of a pharmaceutical company owned by his family, which he had inherited in his youth. At the end of his studies he started to realize that just shying away from the wealth would not resolve the conflicts with his own values and he started to seek out for a community, to tackle those conflicts.

Starting at the Bewegungsstiftung he got in touch with the people setting up Resource Transformation, which turned out to be the place he had been looking for. Fast forward a few month, he figured out, that him not wanting to take decision on whom to give his money and which activists to support may also have a structural component connected to the questions of whose voices are heard and whose opinions are valued.

Nowadays he is looking for projects, where the decision making power is shifted to people, who understand the problem they are tackling from lived experiences.

When he is not trying to redistribute the money he inherited, Simon loves to get lost in open source software and spend his time in the mountains hiking and climbing all the mountaintops he can find.

For a long time, Stefan has felt out-of-place in the deeply extractive, life-crushing and wealth-concentrating system we live in, especially because of his position on the « winner’s » side. Having quit his job just before the pandemic hit, he was presented with a crossroads by the news of a significant inheritance coming his way, originating from the sale of a large pharmaceutical company by his grandfather. Instead of continuing to hide his wealth and privilege, he decided to learn how to actively use them in order to tinker with alternatives to the dominant system. He quickly realised that the world of traditional philanthropy and (impact) investing blatantly misses self-criticism of its raison-d’être for it to be truly transformational. So his learning journey brought him to organisations like Resource Generation and Guerrilla, who are unafraid of naming the problematic entanglements of wealth and power, in order to support grassroots activism and its promise of a radically more just, ecological and democratic world. He also enjoys thunderstorms, is learning how to paraglide (when there are none), and riding his bicycle to far-away places whenever he has a moment.

Thomas is an active member of Resource Transformation, a German speaking community of people with class privilege and access to wealth who want to commit to social justice transformations and redistribute their wealth to social movements. He inherited a large amount of wealth that was created by the employees and the workers in the supply chain of a family-owned retail company that his grandparents founded. He is convinced that in a just and democratic world, wealth and power accumulation like his should not be possible in the first place. Readings about systemic injustices, oppressions and collective liberation greatly moved and influenced him. He also owes it to good friends and colleagues for investing the difficult emotional work to confront and challenge him in his privileges. Thomas is committed to redistributing his wealth to social movements that fight for a better world for all; something that he is wholeheartedly convinced is possible and feasible. He gets excited about cycling, acapella music and chips/crisps (but only plain salted).