Chosen Family Office (CFO): 101 Stewardship Cohort Development 1. Embodied Divestment 2. BUSTED: Breaking Up Sequestered Trusts and Endowments for Distribution 3. Heir Preparedness: Aligning Redistribution Across Generations

There are increasing educational opportunities, convening spaces, and resources available to wealth holders with assets they wish to redistribute. However, even those with liberatory frameworks often feel daunted by the prospect of: 1. Battling the deeply siloed, convoluted, and entrenched financial/legal systems that compose the Wealth Defence Industry. 2. Moving through the shame that accompanies cultural paradigms and beliefs related to wealth holding, hoarding, and redistribution. These obstacles lead to paralysis, inaction, and bottlenecking of financial assets within high net wealth families. In overcoming this paralysis, we have found that two key components are missing:  1. Transparent storytelling: Models from those who have taken big leaps in their redistribution journeys, told with nuance, honesty and concrete examples. 2. Aligned practitioners: Licensed professionals able to navigate and implement  radical and reparative financial and estate planning strategies on behalf of wealth holders.

The purpose of this project is to build infrastructure for translocal collaboration between the US and the UK that will support curriculum development for wealth stewards and wealth professionals who are seeking to unlock, divest, and re-allocate capital in alignment with social movements across national contexts.    Phase 1: Curriculum development  This project will serve as a container for CFO and collaborators to exchange expertise and learnings, as together we develop the curriculum for multi-month cohorts for wealth holders and practitioners connected to the Wealth Defence Industry.  For each cohort, we will rely on a curriculum blueprint developed in collaboration with those deeply familiar with, and already working to combat, obstacles within the Wealth Defence Industry: Good Ancestor Movement, Capital J Collective, Somatics of Money, Iris Brilliant, Sarah Deluca and others — conversations that have already begun and are ongoing as we build out a translocal network of aligned practitioners, and strategize international interventions for wealth holders.  Cohorts will be facilitated by the Chosen Family Office (CFO) team and translocal collaborators, with topical deep dives led by members of our ecosystem — Good Ancestor Movement, CFO advisory council members, co-practitioners, alternative fund managers, politicized wealth holders, etc. Throughout each cohort, participants will hear from and engage with practitioners across specialties in our ecosystem (advisors, attorneys, coaches, etc.), informing the development of their own redistributive vision plans.  Upon leaving the 101 cohort, participants will have gone through the process of understanding and articulating their own story, creating a plan that begins to redistribute wealth and power, and hearing and learning from each other as well as practitioners that can help execute their redistribution vision. Cohort participants will have the option to work with these practitioners directly following cohort completion, closing the gap between integration and action and enabling continued personal transformation alongside concrete money movement.  Concurrent phase: Story Harvesting  Stories are one of the most powerful organizing tools — not only to teach, but to motivate toward action. As we develop curriculum, CFO will simultaneously be gathering stories of those who have liberated stuck capital — initially focusing on divestment, trust-busting, and family organizing, each of which will be explored in depth through separate cohorts.  These stories will live in an archive that itself will be a place to turn to for inspiration, validation, and guidance. It will serve multiple audiences:  1. Wealth holders craving models for stewarding and redistributing wealth in non-traditional ways.  2. Practitioners seeking clarity on how to best hold their clients accountable through the process of redistribution.  3. Movement organizers and philanthropic disruptors seeking examples and allyship from places of, and individuals with, concentrated wealth. 

This hack is primarily centered around moving together in right relationship, in order to build shared processes and infrastructure that support our translocal objectives. It offers a site for intentional collaboration and collective strategy building — something that is often missing or hurried through in spaces that are constrained by time and resources.  Our desire for collaboration comes from recognizing the interconnectedness of global systems that allow and enforce concentration of wealth, as well as the parallel behaviors and obstacles faced by wealth stewards regardless of nationality. Linked in their histories of colonialism and racialized capitalism, the US and the UK are necessary leaders in shifting economic patterns and behavior.  Through this collaboration, we aim to address the gap of incorporation between ideology and action — building and sharing curriculum that matches the inner work necessary for the ongoing redistribution of wealth, power, and privilege with the external conduits. Having practitioners from across national contexts not only facilitate, lead, and engage with each wealth holder cohort, but also come together as members of an integrated care team that is accessible to participants following a cohort’s end, will facilitate the transition from theory to community of practice and implementation. This will give participants immediate integrated professional and emotional support in actualizing their redistribution vision while simultaneously holding the practitioners (wealth defenders) accountable to the participant’s radical and reparative plans. Through this work, practitioners move from gatekeepers to gateways, and cohort participants receive coordinated support as they navigate their own personal and financial transformations.