Becoming a good ancestor with Giorgiana Notarbartolo

“I’ve been on a journey of seeing, accepting and embracing how this privilege came with externalisation of social and environmental costs.” – Giorgiana Notarbartolo D. says of her activism.

Around 10 years ago, Giorgiana realised that the biggest impact she could have on the world was by steering her family’s wealth. Up until then, she’d preferred to largely ignore the sizable inheritance she’d received at the age of 18.

“It became very clear to me that I didn't make this money, I would probably never make as much money as I was inheriting, and I didn't need that much money for my life,” she remembers. Gio borrows a phrase from Sid Efromovich, the co-founder of Generation Pledge , explaining she “won the ovary lottery” – something she played no role in. 

“What changes” she says, “is how you take ownership of your wealth, of what might come with that, and what you do about it.” 

Once she’d come to this realisation, there was just the small task of impressing her strongly held beliefs on her – rather large – family. 

“There was a sense of impossibility and a feeling that things just are the way they are,” she remembers of those early conversations. Nonetheless, over the course of two years, she was able to change hearts and minds. 

Now her family office, PFC Family Office, has the mission to invest, grant and advocate for social and environmental justice. The investments have a focus on equity, both listed and private, going from sustainable large-cap to impact finance-first private equity. They support anything from education to circular consumption initiatives or clean energy.

Gio is keenly aware that she has lots of tools at her disposal and is alway looking for new ways to make an impact. 

Acting on behalf of her family office (for which she is Head of Impact and Philanthropy), Gio started looking into how they could push the companies they have shares in to do right by their employees and the environment. 

She came to the realisation that the wealth management system often defaults to following the decisions of companies and their bottom line. Their private bank in Switzerland didn’t have a system in place that would let her family office directly vote at shareholder assemblies.

She asked the bank to build a mechanism so her family office could cast its own votes. This has created a ripple effect: others can now choose to have a similar impact. 

While her family has filters around where they do and don't invest, she believes it’s still important to have influence over “investments that might not fully align with our vision, in order to shift certain policies. For example, employment policies, or remuneration policies, or diversity and inclusion.”

This is just one tool in the impact toolbox, Gio explains, and a great example of her ability to creatively champion her beliefs within the confines of a family office. And her understanding of impact is developing and shifting: 

“I came into impact investing with a very critical vision of philanthropy as part of the problem. And after almost five years of my journey, I realised that some problems do need philanthropic capital. So I spent about a year educating myself of how we can actually do philanthropy in a more impactful way, a way that is not perpetrating the broken system.”

Gio’s office has now introduced clear strategy, focus, and impact goals into their philanthropic efforts. Over just two years, they’ve grown their giving budget to support systemic change initiatives. 

“Hopefully there will be a ripple effect for other people in a similar position to us where people can start doing long term granting, and strategic, core granting.” 

Gio’s strategy is to approach grant giving by asking which issue areas have been neglected, what will make the biggest impact to the largest number of people, and how feasible it is to make lasting change. And of course, everything is also seen through the lens of systems change: 

“If we want things to change down the line, we need to change the systems that have created the problem.”

One neglected cause area Gio is committed to personally is tax justice:

"It's highly neglected in terms of funding. It can impact everyone and has shown success in the last 20 years," Gio continues, "and if we just had a fair tax system, we wouldn't need to depend as much on philanthropy." 

To this aim, Gio is currently looking to bring more funding into the tax justice space, and is keen to hear from other wealth holders who could share their ideas.

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