Shortly after our founding in 2003, we realized that this novel, emerging industry needed to have definition.

At the time, there were four main origins of Multifamily Offices (MFOs):

◇ Single-Family Offices “opening their doors” to non-family members as clients

◇ Institutions, mainly bank trust departments, creating dedicated MFO units

◇ Independent, fee-only RIAs increasingly serving sophisticated, complex, multi-generational private clients

◇ Law and accounting firms that forming dedicated family office service practices

Each of these organizations were motivated to find a better way to serve their clients and at the same time form the basis of a sustainable business model. Seeing this evolution, our founder formed an ad hoc advisory group in 2004 with the express purpose of creating a first-ever set of standards for multifamily offices. After working for the better part of a year, The Family Wealth Alliance released the first Multifamily Office Standards in 2005 to provide a reliable and objective classification tool, independent of regulatory designation or marketing language.

When this ad hoc advisory group met, it struggled with describing, much less defining, this new type of wealth management creature. A linear format did not fully capture its essence. They landed on a multi-dimensional approach which, when taken together, helped described and later define this space.

This is how they did it.

◇ All from established MFOs themselves, our advisory group knew their firms were largely defined by the type of client they served. Thus, the first dimension was born. Standard #1: Whom do they serve?

◇ They knew they were able to separate themselves from other wealth management firms by the type of services they delivered. We defined ten core services which have set the standard for multifamily offices ever since. Standard #2: What services do they offer?

◇ Beyond a list of services, they understood their clients benefited most from how these services were delivered – in an integrated manner tailored to the unique needs of each client. Standard #3: How do they deliver these services?

◇ They also realized that to be truly best-in-class, the organization and its professionals must have the right credentials and a proven track record of serving multi-generational private clients. Standard #4: What experience do these firms have?

The Family Wealth Alliance is proud to be the first firm to have publicly released these standards so that firms – and the private families who would seek their unique experience – can benefit from objective guidelines.

This expanded version of our MFO Standards is meant to refresh and bring new life to these important industry-setting benchmarks.