The Maturity Scan for Family Offices

The Maturity Scan for families addresses the issue of economic inequality by guiding Family Offices towards impact investments that balance financial returns with positive social and environmental outcomes. It helps families identify strategies and products that build community wealth rather than simply consolidating personal wealth, aligning financial goals with values that benefit people and the planet.    Market information   - The investment landscape is shifting as more individuals seek to make a positive impact with their investments.  - 81% of adults (according to the UK’s Financial Conduct Authority) want their investments to generate both financial returns and contribute to the greater good.  - Family offices are uniquely positioned to lead this transformation due to fewer constraints compared to institutional investors, allowing them to act swiftly on social and environmental issues.  - The global wealth managed by family offices exceeds $10 trillion.  - This wealth is expected to grow significantly as part of the great wealth transfer, where substantial assets are moving between generations.  - In the UK, an estimated £5.5 trillion will be transferred between generations over the next 30 years (Financial Times). 

The Maturity Scan for Family Offices is designed to support family offices and wealth owners in their impact investing journey. Impact investing can be complex and highly personalized, and family offices are uniquely positioned to create meaningful social and environmental change through their investments. However, balancing financial returns with social and environmental impact presents challenges.      The Maturity Scan helps address this by guiding families toward strategies that align with their values, fostering both financial success and community wealth.     The scan is a quick, 10-minute process that provides personalized insights, benchmarking family offices’ impact investments against other investors. Families receive a report detailing their position on the impact journey, including comparisons with peers and tailored tips for improvement. This empowers them to identify their specific needs, challenges, and opportunities in moving towards investments that build community wealth, promote sustainability, and create long-term value for both people and the planet.    Additionally, we introduce alternative approaches to wealth management, challenging traditional trustee models. We actively engage with the steward ownership community, believing that companies should be owned by themselves and led by stewards who prioritise long-term sustainability. The Maturity Scan also emphasizes financial models that make investment decisions more inclusive, participatory, and democratic, reflecting our commitment to creating a fairer and more transparent wealth system.     Key areas the Maturity Scan focuses on include:  - Impact Strategy & legacy   - Portfolio management  - Impact measurement & management  - Ecosystems & community   - Organisation & structure     In short:  - This technology supports holistic investment and financial planning decisions  - It’s an alternative tool that supports investing in impact economies for Family Offices and Wealth Owners  - Maturity Scan currently in soft launch (typeform), hard launch scheduled 15 November 2024   - Sprint planned between November, December 2024  - The Maturity Scan can be significantly advanced with GBP 15,000 over a 4 - 8 week sprint with a   - 1. Technology upgrade of the scan  - 2. Marketing efforts to reach +50 family offices,   - 3. Publish inaugural annual report on the challenges and needs of family offices in mobilising wealth to create meaningful impact.   - Developed for UK market and building on the work of peer impact investing organisations (Impact Investing Institute and others)    The Maturity Scan is a practical, personalized tool that enables family offices to navigate their unique impact journey. It guides families away from traditional wealth-consolidating financial products toward investments that prioritize community building, sustainability, and long-term positive impact. Through the scan, families receive the clarity, benchmarks, and insights they need to confidently pursue impact investing. We teach HNW individuals to reflect on shifting power, trust-based philanthropy, and challenging norms and beliefs, helping them make more intentional and transformative decisions in their giving and investments. 

The Maturity Scan offers several positive impacts for family offices when they use it, leading to meaningful changes:  1. Enhanced clarity: It helps family offices gain a clear understanding of where they stand in their impact investing journey, allowing them to identify areas for improvement.  2. Better alignment with values: By assessing their current investments, family offices can align their financial goals with social and environmental values, promoting more sustainable and ethical investments.  3. Benchmarking against peers: The scan provides a comparative benchmark, helping family offices understand how their impact efforts measure up against others in the industry, fostering continuous growth and improvement.  4. Fostering community wealth: It guides families away from traditional wealth consolidation towards investments that build community wealth, promote sustainability, and create long-term social benefits.  5. Accelerated impact: The scan helps family offices identify practical steps to quickly implement changes that enhance their impact, driving more immediate and tangible outcomes.  6. Strategic influence: With a clearer understanding of their role and potential in impact investing, family offices can influence broader positive change, given the significant wealth they manage globally.     In essence, by using the Maturity Scan, family offices can transform their investment approach to create lasting social and environmental benefits.  In terms of Justice, Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion (JEDI), the Maturity Scan can drive significant positive changes for family offices:  1. Prioritizing inclusive investments: The scan encourages family offices to evaluate and prioritize investments that promote equitable opportunities and access, ensuring marginalized communities benefit from financial growth and development.  2. Addressing systemic inequities: Family offices can use the insights to focus on investments that challenge systemic injustices, such as racial, gender, and economic disparities, by supporting businesses and ventures that champion social justice causes.  3. Diversifying portfolios: By guiding family offices to consider a wider range of sectors and impact areas, the scan promotes portfolio diversification that includes businesses led by women, minorities, and underrepresented groups, fostering diversity in leadership and entrepreneurship.  4. Embedding equity in decision-making: The tailored recommendations help family offices incorporate justice and equity into their investment strategies, ensuring that financial decisions do not perpetuate inequality but instead contribute to creating more inclusive economies.  5. Supporting communities: The scan can help family offices shift towards investments that support community wealth-building, focusing on initiatives that empower local communities, reduce income inequality, and offer equitable access to resources.  6. Amplifying diverse voices: By engaging in impact investing with a JEDI lens, family offices can help uplift and support ventures that elevate diverse perspectives and drive inclusive social change.     We believe in systemic change, particularly in building a wealth system that is inclusive, with distributive ownership and governance, and a focus on empathy, decency, and inclusivity.