This is a guest post by Marina Feffer Oelsner, Co-Founder of Generation Pledge, a global community that aims to improve the quantity and quality of philanthropic donations. Generation Pledge fosters a community of commitment from ultra high net worth heirs to donate a percentage of their total inheritance within the first five years of inheriting.
I was gifted with being born into a very loving family that offered tenderness, access to a multitude of resources, and abundant love. This combination led to a secure attachment bond and helped me develop a deep sense of belonging. Yet, when I was about 10 years old, something deep in me changed; I began to look beyond my familial environment and notice the inequality that existed around me.
Gradually, it became hard to reconcile the fact that I was born into a family of financial wealth from a fourth generation family business in Brazil, with Brazil being (and still is) one of the most unequal countries in the world. At the time, I began to disconnect from that sense of belonging. (Not from the people, which I continue to feel bonded to, but to the fundamental feeling of belonging itself.)
Tough Questions
As a young girl, I found myself full of existential questions about how harsh it was to acknowledge the discrepancies that created Brazil’s financially unbalanced societal structure. There is a statement that perfectly expresses how I was feeling at the time, a mantra that still guides me to this day: “Others matter.” I quickly realized that there was a ceiling to how well I could feel when so many other people around me were in extremely vulnerable and intolerable situations.
Trying to make sense of all of this—and being very attentive to different personalities, lifestyles, and how mindsets are forged—I decided to pursue a Bachelor’s degree in psychology. During this time, I was intrigued by how people build a mindset that will ultimately become the raw material for any decision-making process. This was the question that motivated me to go to university, and is still a question that I sit with.
My Path
I want to share how this question—which I believe is connected to my life’s work—has guided me through three different careers, and brought me to where I am today.
My career path began at age 17 when I began working as a clinical psychologist. During this time, I worked in extremely vulnerable social situations, and with NGOs on public policies. Even though I felt satisfied, I also felt incomplete; I wasn’t working on a more systemic level, which had always been an aspiration of mine.
At 23, I had a huge “aha moment” during my debut in a shareholder’s educational program; I realized that coming from a family business could be used as leverage to get the results I was looking for. I understood I had to own my story by learning how to operate from within the family enterprise and capitalize on external opportunities. This led me to pivot my career, and for the next three years, I began working as an executive. I worked in the corporate world (in a Holding Group in the Sustainability Department of a multinational company, and in a Real Estate company), and also participated in the governance of my family’s business by joining three councils (Shareholders, Family, and Philanthropic councils).
A New Chapter
After acquiring the skills to work in my family business, I looked both inside and outside of myself and understood that at that time, whatever I would do within our businesses was not unique—others could do what I was doing equally well or even better. Yet, there were other issues not being worked on in the world that I believed to be extremely important. These issues also played to my strengths, including working in the wealth space and having a background in psychology and impact sciences. This was a combination that seemed new and potent, and it mobilized me!
At the same time, I began collaborating with an old friend from childhood, Sid, the only person I knew who had the same vision and aspirations as myself. First, we founded a consultancy company called Zest Impact working with UHNW families who wanted to deploy capital effectively towards positive impact. After some time running this company, we realized there was an audience that captured us completely and made it clear that we had enough reasons to focus on one, and only one, demographic: inheritors.
Together, we learned the world needed to pay more attention to inheritors because, in the next 50 years, we would see the largest wealth transfer in history, with predictions ranging between US$30-70 trillion. While this financial capital might not be available to inheritors until some time in the future, we can deploy other types of capital—such as political and social capital—now.
Generation Pledge
Due to this deep realization, we decided to create Generation Pledge, a non-profit designed to work with inheritors and convert tremendous amounts of wealth and power into positive social impact. We work to significantly and systemically influence the design of the future.
At Generation Pledge, we influence positive change by building a community of inheritors who not only share an expectation of receiving financial capital, but who also have what we call a “Diamond Spine.” Inheritors with a Diamond Spine have a willingness and ability to ask themselves questions that would otherwise be back-breaking, questions that challenge the status quo and inspire new solutions for the flow of resources. But because they have or develop a Diamond Spine, they sustain the tension that comes with these questions. Asking these questions is essential if we are to shift the norms from preservation of wealth to preservation of life.
Looking to the Future
If we look to the future, we see two possible paths of multigenerational wealth: One is where the culture of wealth preservation and growth stays the same. Another is where we change it; where families use their incredible abundance to shift and build systems that create a better planet for all. Yes, it could take time to make this change—it could even take one full generation to make this happen—but imagine if all it took was one generation?
Mobilizing inheritors to repurpose their wealth is an aspiration that drives me every single day, and it is through Generation Pledge and our vibrant community that we have the opportunity to create a world with less suffering, social, environmental and existential risks, and more flourishing.