Communications Director for GoFundMe in Europe and Mexico. Twenty years as a journalist, podcaster, screenwriter and TV writer. A deep passion for video games as culture.
The thread running through everything is storytelling: understanding a story, choosing the right language, making it land. And training the people who want to do it.
All my interests in one drawing. Illustration by Jecolart
I was born in Catania in 1982 and started telling stories with a thesis on I Siciliani, the newspaper of Giuseppe Fava, killed by the mafia in 1984. From there: grassroots anti-mafia work in Catania and with daSud in Rome, print and online newspapers, a graphic novel on Antonino Caponnetto, a documentary on the Sicilian elections, political communications in the Italian Chamber of Deputies, television, the Italian Red Cross and other non-profits. And a petition that in 2017 won a pension for Riccardo Orioles, the man who had founded that newspaper with Fava.
Today I'm Communications Director for GoFundMe, the world's largest fundraising platform, coordinating the platform's communications across ten European countries and Mexico with a team of agencies and freelance professionals.
I've always wanted to try new things: understand how they work, take them somewhere else. I like working with curious people and, when I can, making them more curious than before. Outside work I play, as a gamer parent, and I share it on @frigogames.
«C'è bisogno di agitare culturalmente questo Paese.»
"This country needs a cultural shake-up." Interview with La Voce di New York, 2015
Thinking about the next pieceThe sea, whenever I canCoffee first
Leading
At GoFundMe since 2018. Before that, three very different schools: politics, the non-profit sector, television.
GoFundMe, since 2018
Communications Director
I coordinate the platform's communications across ten European countries and Mexico: press office, agencies and freelance professionals, creators and ambassadors, crisis communications, media monitoring, content and SEO, campaigns. I personally look after Italy, Spain, Portugal and Mexico.
I'm the director with the most experience and seniority on the team, and the part of the job I care about most is helping storytellers grow.
10 + 1European countries, plus Mexico
4markets I look after personally
2018the year I started working at GoFundMe
Interviewed by Rai News 24
2013–2015
Italian Chamber of Deputies
Spokesperson and press officer for MP Celeste Costantino, assistant on the Culture and Constitutional Affairs committees. That's where #1oradamore started.
Here I learned social and political communication, public relations, and how to work with people who want change.
Italian Red Cross
2016–2017
Italian Red Cross
Journalist and content strategist for the Red Cross: telling the story of relief work after the Central Italy earthquake and of local committees across the country.
Here I learned how a large non-profit organisation works from the inside.
Here I learned to build video content. Today's reels and podcasts come from there.
Telling
The campaigns and stories I've built, with my role in each. When something worked, the facts say so, not me.
2016–2017, petition on Change.org
Mandiamo in Pensione Orioles
Montecitorio, 2017: Riccardo Orioles, Speaker of the Chamber Laura Boldrini and me with a copy of I Siciliani. Around it, the artwork artists gave the campaign: Manlio Truscia, Marco Pinna, Mauro Biani.
"Let's get Orioles his pension." Riccardo Orioles founded I Siciliani with Giuseppe Fava and spent his life writing about the mafia. At 67 he had no pension. On 26 December 2016 I launched a petition asking the President, the Prime Minister, the Speakers of both Houses, the Journalists' Order and the journalists' union to grant him the Bacchelli Law, Italy's fund for distinguished citizens in hardship. Within weeks: over 31,000 signatures, the hashtag #MandiamoInPensioneOrioles, support from newspapers, cartoonists, wineries and associations, two pages in il manifesto. On 21 March 2017, Italy's day of remembrance for mafia victims, the answer was yes. My degree thesis was about his newspaper: this is the thing I'm proudest of.
A petition to bring relationship and emotional education into Italian schools, backing the bill MP Costantino filed in 2013. Over 25,000 signatures in the first days, and the bill later reached the Culture committee. Ten years on, Italy is still debating it, and the problem is still there.
Five words about migration, used every day and almost never understood: migration, asylum, welcome, humanity, dialogue. The campaign gave them their meaning back, joining Treccani's #leparolevalgono with the Red Cross's #protecthumanity.
The report The orange slaves traced the citrus supply chain of Sicily and Calabria from the fields to the shelves, and held big retail to account. In 2016 Italy passed its law against forced labour in agriculture. For Terra! I also worked on #ASTEnetevi, against double-downward auctions.
A documentary shot right after the 2012 Sicilian regional elections, from Palermo to Catania, among those who voted and those who didn't. It sat in a drawer for three years, then came out with a title borrowed from Sciascia.
«Te lo dico in siciliano: la gente era disfiziata.»
My role: author, with directors Corrado Fortuna and Gaspare Pellegrino. The full documentary (in Italian)
daSud, Round Robin editrice
Antonino Caponnetto. Non è finito tutto
The father of Italy's anti-mafia pool told as a graphic novel, drawn by Luca Ferrara with a foreword by Andrea Camilleri. A story that needed a language able to reach people who would never open an essay.
For Terra!, a new identity and website redesign. For AIL, materials and claim for the five-per-thousand tax campaign and donor mailings. For Latte Creative, managing the Worth Wearing platform. For daSud, over the years, press office, social media and social campaigns.
My role: strategy, content, editorial design.
Languages
Every story has a right format. Over the years I've tried almost all of them.
Writing
Registered journalist since 2002. Society, new media, rights, environment, culture. The outlets I've written for:
«Ho lavorato come giornalista in televisione, testate online e quotidiani fatti di carta!»
"I've worked as a journalist in television, online outlets and newspapers made of paper!" From my bio on Il Fatto Quotidiano
Podcasts
Seconda Visione, a video podcast for daSud Mediacivico: the mafia and the fight against it, told through TV series, films, documentaries, photographs, music, books and video games. One scene per episode, and how it entered the collective imagination. On Spotify, on YouTube.
Tante care cose, an independent project: good news only, stories and people from the social sector.
Writer on Beati voi on TV2000 with Alessandro Sortino, and on Il Programma del Secolo with Michele La Ginestra. Two reports: Sicilia tropicale and Homo georgicus.
Art direction
I laid out newspapers before I ran their communications: Il Quotidiano di Sicilia, Nuovo Paese Sera (the monthly's design, with Avenida), infographics, ebooks.
On video
A few things I've done in front of, or behind, a camera. All in Italian.
Palermo, Centro Paolo Borsellino: the Caponnetto graphic novel, told to the kids
Playing and experimenting
Video games are one of the most underrated forms of cultural expression of our time. I cover them the way I cover film, politics or social issues.
Instagram
@frigogames
My gaming life, one post at a time: what I play, what I buy, what I remember. It's where I talk about video games most often and most gladly, with the sensibility of a gamer parent, pop culture and the eye of someone who has lived the medium since the 1980s.
If you're looking for me outside work, that's where I am.
I've always liked technology; today I'm interested in artificial intelligence. I use it every day to take repetitive work off my plate and my team's, and to understand what it really changes about telling stories. Happy to talk about it.
Path
From the latest stop to the first.
Since 2018
GoFundMe. Joined as a media campaigner; today Communications Director for ten European countries and Mexico.
University of Catania, Communication Sciences (110 cum laude), and Erasmus in Girona. Then Siena, master's degree in Communication Theory and Persuasive Language, with a thesis on I Siciliani by Giuseppe Fava.
In parallel
daSud: spokesperson, campaigns, the Caponnetto graphic novel, the documentary. The podcasts. GameCvlt. Bylines as a journalist since 2002.
Contact
For a project, an interview, some advice if you're starting out, or to talk about video games.
Message me
The easiest way is a message on LinkedIn. I reply in Italian, English and Spanish.
