Donors are reassessing their giving to maximize impact and to ensure their money is being utilized effectively and efficiently by the non-profit organizations they support. Meantime watchdog organizations are grading the non-profit community and posting their ratings online.
Mission investing offers the opportunity to potentially shape and scale desired social outcomes as a complement to effective grant making and other philanthropic activities. Success requires planning, blending program and financial teams, rigorous investment processes, and building applicable social metrics.
This paper highlights a number of approaches that may guide philanthropists in choosing their investments and in encouraging entrepreneurship. Alongside these examples, the paper features a series of case studies showing how philanthropists worldwide invest their wealth, their experience, and their skills to unlock entrepreneurial potential.
Clarifying donor intent at the outset of any conversation regarding charitable giving, and properly documenting that intent, will help both parties feel good about giving and receiving. To avoid confusion after a gift is made and to prevent costly proceedings when the intent of a gift is insufficiently documented, here are a few practical tips to g...
Philanthropically minded families are vulnerable to the misuse of the personal financial information contained in mandatory filings that become public. However, these families are not defenseless; by following the best practices in this paper, they can greatly reduce the likelihood of being victimized.
Businesses worldwide are increasingly using social media networks to advertise and communicate with potential customers and constituents. Regardless of whether a business is using social media, its employees certainly are. Here are four reasons to establish rules for how employees use social media sites.
This paper offers a practical look at how an individual or family might plot a successful road map that aligns and grows with their unique abilities, needs, and personality. The authors detail the steps in a philanthropic asset allocation process involving fact-finding, planning, and continuing assessment as seen through the eyes of three hypotheti...
Investors and advisors focused on wealth growth and preservation may see environment, social, and governance/socially responsible investing as taxing a portfolio's performance. This paper offers a framework with associated metrics for assessing ESG/SRI integration into the portfolio with the same rigor and discipline used in all other fiduciary dec...
Newsletter of the Synergos Institute dedicated to disseminating best practices and innovations in philanthropy and social investment around the world.
Understanding what drives behaviors is a starting point for establishing acceptable family norms as well as addressing the unacceptable. It also may provide insight that can help reduce conflict, establish better communication patterns, and increase levels of trust among family members.
Creating an educational experience that fosters peer exchange and involvement entails more work and risk than a simple lecture, but family members will leave the session with practical skills, deepened relationships and enjoyable memories.
In addition to guiding the family office, helping owners to think about issues that impact their family's goals is an important part of the family office CEO's role. While important to all financial families, these principles and practices become more critical as families grow in size and complexity and should be revisited regularly.
The key to overcoming the paradoxes is looking at a family not as the sum of its wealth, but as a collection of living, breathing individuals drawn together through their affinity for the family. It requires a willingness to fight the natural impulses that lead other families to return to their shirtsleeves.
Family meetings can serve to update and educate family members on business and investment issues, reinforce family ties, and resolve conflicts. They can also be a lot of fun. But figuring out how to get the family members to the event, how to keep their attention once they've arrived, and how to make it fun in the process is no easy feat.
Selling the family-owned business is one of the most important financial decisions and transactions that any family will face. Business owners, their children and grandchildren will live with the results for a long time to come. Getting it right is important to maximize family wealth, and some basic advance planning — even several years in advance ...