Who we help Family Wealth
Preserve your legacy and prosper as a family.
Over time, enterprising families will grow their financial, intellectual, social and human capital. We work with families to articulate their vision for the future of their capital. Then we help them implement plans, processes and structures that ensure the continuity of both family financial assets and family relationships.We work closely with a family's leaders, current advisors and, when appropriate, a family office and non-family executives.
We also partner with families who are anticipating or have recently experienced a liquidity event. By educating these families on family dynamics, decision making and family governance, we prepare them for the realities of their new future together.
Education & Communication for the Next Generation
Understand how a legacy was built, and what it takes to carry it forward.
How do you prepare the next generation to be good stewards of your legacy? In part, by helping them understand how your family’s financial wealth was created and how it’s managed. And by developing an appreciation for the responsibilities that come with financial assets -- responsibilities to the family and their communities.Families need ways to talk about wealth that are productive, positive and pragmatic. Worries about entitlement become discussions on responsibility. We facilitate talks that educate beneficiaries so, when it’s their turn to lead, they’re equipped to make wise decisions for their families.
Leadership Development & Family Alignment
Make effective decisions as a group to grow and sustain your legacy.
It can be a fine line to walk between preserving family wealth and still satisfying the family’s current needs, ensuring financial assets are deployed so they benefit everyone touched by those assets. Families benefit from a clearly articulated family vision, fair decision making processes and effective communication.We work with families to develop those crucial leadership capabilities that will help shape their future prosperity. And we help establish structures and processes that enable good decisions and equip family leaders to manage the increase in responsibility and complexity that inevitably come as families and their assets grow.
Family Wealth Continuity Planning
Think strategically about how your plans can support the family’s changing needs.
Families who have financial and estate plans in place can often benefit from a review of how their current strategies will affect or be affected by family strengths or challenges. Do the current plans adequately consider who family members are, and their wishes, now and in the future? Has thought been given to family challenges that might undermine the plans in place?
We can offer an assessment of how estate and wealth transfer plans may affect or be affected by family dynamics, and ensure continuity plans are aligned with family values and dreams. And we’ll work with you and your advisory team for smooth and effective intergenerational transitions of family wealth.
I define family wealth continuity as: success at preserving both a family’s material assets (such as a family business, a family foundation or other financial assets) and good family relationships.
David Lansky in his book Family Wealth Continuity: Building a Foundation for the Future
Common Questions About Family Wealth
We have deep experience helping wealthy families find solutions to their challenges, both common and unique.
Decisions about whether and how to sustain, grow or philanthropically donate shared family wealth are significantly enhanced by a clearly articulated family vision, by fair decision-making processes, and by effective family communication.
Wealthy families who seek a prosperous future benefit greatly from developing structures and processes that enable and support good decisions and equip family leaders to manage increasing responsibility and complexity.
Wealth managers, family office executives and family members served by family offices most often express concern about the development and adjustment of family members who stand to inherit significant wealth. We help families develop plans and processes that ensure family assets are viewed as a resource to be respected and nurtured rather than as an entitlement or financial windfall.
Next generation family members need to be prepared to be responsible wealth owners. We facilitate family education, meetings and conversations around wealth to prepare family members to understand it, manage it and use it effectively. Thoughtfully educated and engaged wealth owners are more likely to make mature decisions and flourish.
The key to successful wealth continuity — preserving both family relationships and family assets — lies in ensuring that the structures created to preserve family assets are aligned with the hopes, dreams and capacities of family members. Too many one-size-fits-all and elaborate continuity plans fail to account for family conflict or communication problems that can cause estate plans to fail. We make sure that the right foundation is in place to support and perpetuate your family and wealth for many generations to come.
We can help guide development of or evolve a family office to protect and grow family wealth by making sure its structure and services support the owners’ mission and values.