Stefan Binder

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.