Where Most Needed has an excellent piece, with well chosen links, on philanthropic advisory services for the wealthy. The tone of caution is justified. The emerging profession attracts the best and the worst elements of upscale advisory services. The best are looking to combine good citizenship and personal passion with their profession. The worst see giving as the last great tax dodge and see values based planning as a good way to emerge in wealthy circles as a charismatic soul-catcher. (Rasputin today would call himself the Tsar's Family Values Based Planning Consultant.) The best, like TPI and Inspired Legacies, are so public spirited that they do not rack up tons in billings or gifts for themselves. There may be models combining both "a good living for the advisor," good advice for donors, and a driving commitment to public good, but those models are just now emerging. IFF Advisors seems to be doing quite well. At Harvard Charles Collier is leading the way towards philanthropic consulting in the context of family values and family dynamics. I just received from him an invitation to a seminar he is giving at $3,500 per attendee. Yikes!
My business model, that of walking around naked giving unsolicited, free moral advice to America's wealthiest families is doing ok too, in that I have not yet been jailed.
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