Publications
For many years Wise Counsel Research has been at the forefront of producing thoughtful research on practices that allow families with significant wealth to flourish amid wealth over generations. Below are just a few of our books that have proven useful to thousands of family members around the world.
Please take a moment to reflect on where you are in your journey of family wealth and which of these resources may be most relevant to you.
For Parents
Giving is at the core of family life, but making significant financial gifts to family members opens up many questions, such as, “What do I want to achieve with these gifts?” and “How can I ensure that gifts enhance my family members’ lives rather than create dependency or entitlement?” The Cycle of the Gift offers givers practical advice on how to clarify and communicate their wishes, how to balance a desire for control with the intent to promote recipients’ autonomy, and how to give well various types of assets, from money to business interests to family properties.
For Rising Generation Family Members
Growing up in a family with significant wealth has some unique challenges. How do you find fulfilling work if you don’t need the money? Do people like you for who you are or for what you have? What really do you have? And who can you talk to about these things? The Voice of the Rising Generation speaks directly to family members who find themselves living with those questions and who are seeking to pursue their dreams and find their voice. If you are a young person who is starting your life’s journey and wondering about how to navigate parental expectations, trusts, or a family business, this book will offer you questions, reflections, and lessons-learned to help you find your own path.
For Beneficiaries, Trustees, & Trust Creators
Family Trusts is a step-by-step guide for anyone involved in a “trustscape”: trust creators, trustees, beneficiaries, and advisors. It provides a hands-on primer that marries the practical and emotional aspects of family wealth while tackling such difficult topics as expressing and honoring the grantor’s intent and wishes, selecting wise trustees, communicating effectively with beneficiaries, and managing special needs, mental illness, or substance abuse. Family Trusts shows you how to make a trust a true gift of spirit.
For All Family Members
Complete Family Wealth is a comprehensive resource for growing, maintaining, and managing financial and qualitative wealth across generations. It covers the “what,” “who,” and “how” of family wealth management. It contains clearly-delineated chapters that allow you to identify and read the sections most relevant to your situation: from the principles of family enterprise, to family governance, philanthropy, and more. Complete Family Wealth is a one-stop reference for ensuring a positive legacy for present and future generations.
For Family Leaders
Wealth of Wisdom offers guidance and tools to help families successfully manage significant wealth. By compiling the 50 most common questions surrounding family wealth, it offers a compendium of knowledge from experts around the globe and across disciplines. Case studies highlight how other families have handled the dilemmas you may be facing today. Wealth of Wisdom provides a definitive resource of practical solutions from the world’s leading practitioners.
For Members of Multi-Generational Families
This book shares the real-life stories and the collected wisdom of nearly 100 global family enterprises. These families have generated rather than reduced their wealth across generations by engaging members across generations and developing collaborative governance for both family and business. The result of Wise Counsel Research’s 100-Year Family Study, this book is an essential resource for families who want to chart their next hundred years.
For Couples
Prenuptial Agreements takes on one of the greatest challenges a couple can face: navigating love, money, the law, and often the dynamics of their families of origin. This practical guide describes what a “prenup” includes, how best to approach it as a couple, and how parents of the prospective spouses can be most productively involved. It aims at making the prenup process strengthen rather than weaken a couples’ future life together.