Founded at the end of 2024 by a group of young Sicilian professionals inside and outside the island, the Marea Foundation is a new reality of Venture Philanthropy that aims to build an ecosystem of social innovation in Sicily, combining skills, resources and time of “sicilians of inside, Sicilians out and Sicilians of heart”. Elena Militello – jurist, researcher and today head of Legal & Research of the Foundation – tells the idea born from Antonio Perdichizzi, the philosophy of the “pionieri”, the first results of the program “Onda” and the vision that will lead to New York, where Wednesday 3 December will present their mission to the Sicilian community in a “Meet Marea”. In the middle, a bet: transform the diaspora into a development lever and counteract the dramatic migration trend that empties Sicily.
What is the Marea Foundation?«The Marea Foundation is a brand new foundation of Venture Philanthropy, born last December with the ambition to bring together all Sicilians of good will and bring innovation – in particular social innovation – in Sicily today».
And what is his role within the foundation? “I’m the Legal & Research Manager, so I’m dealing with legal affairs and research. With my legal and academic background I follow all issues related to structure and governance, but also research on Sicilian diaspora and the construction of partnerships and alliances with a broad network of stakeholders at national and international level”.
How did you get to work in territorial development and in this project? “After a legal-academic path, for five years I have been involved in territorial development and public policies for Sicily. In 2020 I founded the association of social promotion “South Working – “Working from the South” – and through that path I met the other activists of the foundation, in particular the creator Antonio Perdichizzi, who last year involved me to make more institutional, through a foundation, the effort from the bottom that so many of us already did, each in their own little one”.
President Antonio Perdichizzi during the foundation event of the Foundation, on 18.12.2024 at Palazzo Biscari in Catania
Can we say that your mission is to offer concrete opportunities but also a new narrative of the island?«Absolutely. We are working a lot on presenting the foundation, with pioneers – our supporters – and beneficiaries, i.e. the projects we support, within a narrative of a Sicily of innovation that surpasses the stereotypes linked to the chronicle. We want to tell a Sicily where so many realities are born or growing, but they often dialogue little between them. The idea is to create a network between innovation policies, involve all people who want to do something for Sicily and return something to the island. In this way we can develop an ecosystem of social entrepreneurship, which today is not very widespread and often proceeds without sharing good practices, risking repeating errors already made by similar realities not far away”.
Your bet is that today Sicily is ready for this step?«Yes. The big bet is to activate this network, a giveback mechanism and a philanthropic culture that historically do not belong to the narrative of Sicily. The challenge is to create a bridge between those who live outside and is more exposed to forms of volunteering and donation, and Sicily today. The goal is to convey these energies to improve the status quo and overcome the cat’s narrative of the impossibility of change. We have already interacted with hundreds of people convinced that change starts from below, from individual Sicilians who have developed experiences and skills inside and outside the island, without waiting for a solution from above or from the public sector. The infrastructure is necessary, of course, and we must continue to fight for them, but we cannot wait for decades: we can start today, together».
This vision also recovers a strong cultural heritage, that of Giovanni Falcone, which she herself mentioned. “Yes, it binds a lot. I was born in Palermo in 1992, in a family of jurists, and that phrase of Falcone – “only because things have always been done so does not mean that they have to continue to be done like this” – he led my commitment both in association and in the foundation”.
Why do you call your “pionieri” supporters?«The idea comes from the dictionary: pioneers are those who see and support the possibility of a change before this is visible. It is a perfect word for those who believe in an innovation still in power. A pioneer also recently made me notice a more American call to the figure of the pioneer looking for golden pepite with sieve in the river bed: metaphor that we like very much, because we try to find and support high potential Sicilian realities that need support to emerge. One of our pioneers, Fabio Raineri, also used the pepinier metaphor, the rice mill where the seedlings are protected until they are ready to be transplanted. This is what we want to do: protect and grow projects before bringing them “in open field”.
President Antonio Perdichizzi at a Meet Marea (Milan) – photo by Vincenzo Ingrassia
The pioneers, therefore, are not simple donors?«Exact. We want to create a community. Each pioneer donates 1,000 euros – a significant donation in a context where philanthropy is not widespread – and offers a minimum of three hours a year of its expertise. Training, participation in committees or mentorship may be in the projects we support. For us every pioneer is a piece of a puzzle: we master skills and experiences and when a project or committee needs something, we activate the right person. The skills range from legal and tax areas to strategy, communication and more. And it is beautiful to see how varied this community has been.”.
A very diverse community, from what he says. “Yes, it is one of the aspects we are most proud of. We have very different pioneers for age, gender, professional sector and geographical origin. It is a true Pansicilian foundation, which surpasses bellylism and includes people from all provinces, often also from internal areas. Then there are the Sicilians outside, who live elsewhere, and the “hearts”: foreigners who have tied to the island or people who have invested in Sicily and want to return something to the community. They represent between 10 and 15% of pioneers.”.
He was talking about “sicilians inside, out and in heart”. How do these three categories interact? “They are categories that already dialogue, but not enough. The Sicilians of inside do a lot on the territory, and we support them when possible. The Sicilians outside often organize themselves in local groups, without a reference that has direct impact on Sicily. The Sicilians of heart sometimes risk taking more than they return. The foundation allows everyone to participate in a balanced way, providing resources and skills, and creating concentric beneficial effects on the territories. This is why we focus on new social enterprises: we want to support realities that create local impact, rooting and opportunities for return or stay, not start-up born perhaps with the goal of exit”.
One of your most important horizons is diaspora. These days she is in the United States: how is the involvement of Italian Americans? “Very well. Our fundraising manager, Francesca De Marco, is Italian American: her great-grandparents emigrated looking for opportunities and she, paradoxically, returned to Italy fifteen years ago to work at Bocconi. He then chose to join us for his strong identity bond. For Italian Americans the mission is very strong: there is a palpable desire to recover the roots. In our five-year strategic plan we have planned different stages to involve communities abroad. This year we started with the first generation Sicilian expats. But we are already in dialogue with the first Italian American generations born in the United States. For the second, third and fourteen generations will need a broader approach, based on the change of storytelling on Sicily. And in the next few years we also want to allow donors to invest in projects in the Ccomuni from which their families come: a sort of “adoption of the territory””.
We come to the event in New York: what is it?«We will take the Fondazione Marea in New York on Wednesday 3 December, with a lunch “Meet Marea” from 12 onwards, at our partner foundation, Myriad USA. In fact, we have close international partnerships – in the United States, the European Union, the United Kingdom and Switzerland – to allow donors to completely defiscalize their donations, here much more convenient than in Italy. Myriad USA, which is based on Fifth Avenue near Bryant Park, will host the event in its splendid Art Déeco building on the corner of 45th (551 Fifth Avenue). We invite the Sicilian and Siculoamerican community to know the foundation and the 13 projects we support”.
What is the aspect of your activity that has not so far emerged and which considers it essential to underline? “I would say exactly the job on the projects. We launched a program of pre-incubation of business ideas, “Onda”, with a summer tour in all the Sicilian provinces to bring out ideas from every territory. For 13 available slots we received 417 events of interest and 174 full entries. We have selected 13 – at least one per province – thanks also to our pioneers. The ideas range from education to care of the person, from the valorisation of artistic-monumental patrimonies to innovative agriculture: all enterprises with high social impact. The 13 groups involve 64 participants, more than half women, with an average age of 32. We will follow them for three years: not only in the initial phase, but especially in daily accompaniment – where difficulties often arise. Thanks to the network of pioneers we can offer continuous mentorship, legal, fiscal, strategic, communicative, on any topic or obstacle can arise. And every year we will open a new cohort of the program, creating a community of beneficiaries that grows together with that of the pioneers”.
One of the presentations of the Onda project in Sicily (in Palermo), on 4 July 2025, presented Elena Militello – photo by Vincenzo Ingrassia
So not only economic support, but a constant accompaniment?«Exact. We provide training, then an economic contribution to the best projects, and especially three years of mentorship. The Pionieri time bank allows beneficiaries to gain access to valuable skills: from the lawyer who devotes an hour to a legal issue to social media counseling, taxation or human resource management. We want to train entrepreneurs and entrepreneurs attentive also to the judicial approach and the well-being of the collaborators”.
An ambitious and very structured project. What is the demographic and migratory context from which this urgency arises?«The context is crucial. Sicily lives a significant emigration: SVIMEZ estimates that 50,000 people leave every year. By continuing, the population would halve by 2080, with huge effects: depopulation, intellectual desertification, demographic decline. Today it is estimated that there are 5 million Sicilians outside Sicily, more than the residents in Sicily itself. Only members of the AIRE are 844,000, the highest number in Italy. Our challenge is to look at the diaspora not only as a loss, but as an opportunity: if even only 1% of these 844,000 Sicilians wanted to create a bridge with the island, we would have thousands of people ready to contribute to the puzzle of Sicily”.
L’articolo The Marea Foundation, the push from the bottom that unites the Sicilians in the world, arrives in New York proviene da IlNewyorkese.
