Several prominent RIA firms, including Mariner Wealth Advisors, Halbert Hargrove, Modera Wealth Management, Perigon Wealth Management and Wealthspire Advisors, are joining forces to launch a new consortium to promote and disseminate best practices on “net positive” strategies. ” for customers and communities.
Other founding member firms in the Net Positive Consortium include Andrew Hill Investment Advisors, Brighton Jones, Cornerstone Wealth Group, Crestwood Advisors and Sentinel Group. Solution providers, including AdvoKate IQ and Bento Engine, also signed on.
Talks about the group began about a year ago between GYI Financial Strategies CEO Gerry Goldberg and Grant Rawdin, founder and CEO of Wescott Financial Advisory Group (both firms are founding members, while Goldberg and Rawdin co-chair the consortium).
CEOs were inspired by the book Net positive: How bold companies thrive by giving more than they take and began discussing ways to apply the book's lessons to the wealth management space with other firms.
In an interview with WealthManagement.comRawdin said the hope was to reach out to other companies that may already be doing community, civic or employee things.
“Some firms, especially on the smaller side, don't even know how to start doing it, or they don't know they're doing it and how to maximize their impact,” he said. “The thinking was that no one was really coming together around these things.”
According to its executive summary, the consortium aims for firms to focus on five broad areas or “pillars”, focused on customers, workforce, industry, community and planet.
Specifically, the consortium intends to focus on education and support for clients, particularly “financial literacy, impact investing and charitable giving;” emphasize a workplace culture that supports the “holistic” well-being of employees; “pay it forward” within the industry by supporting mentoring, student internships and better knowledge sharing at conferences; and urge firms to consider how they can minimize their carbon footprint and support the communities in which they work through “charitable giving, volunteering or partnering with non-profit organisations”.
The consortium will facilitate the sharing of best practices and the sharing of experiences through webinars, thought leadership content and in-depth videos that guide firms on how to incorporate these philosophies into their business strategies. Firms wishing to join the consortium must complete an inventory assessment and demonstrate that they have initiatives running in at least three areas within the group's five pillars.
According to Suzanne Siracuse, an industry consultant who helped facilitate the consortium's launch, the executive summary and inventory assessment are the immediate results (which can be found at website).
There is a consortium membership fee, which currently ranges from $1,500 (for advisory firms under $250,000 in AUM) to $5,000 per year (for firms with more than $2.5 billion). The fee for solution or technology providers is based on revenue and ranges from $500 per year for companies with less than $1 million in revenue to $7,500 for those with more than $10 million in annual revenue.
Ideally, the consortium hopes to recruit five more firms and other funding partners before the end of the year (Syracuse said it has already received inquiries about potential support in the hours since the launch was announced).
According to Goldberg, initiatives like the Net Positive Consortium can help bring people together in increasingly polarized (and sometimes toxic) environments. They can also help firms gain a reputation for caring about communities and not just providing a “solid value proposition” to their clients.
“It gives you a qualitative advantage, in addition to the fact that you're doing well,” he said. “It will be extremely helpful to you in terms of attracting people that you apparently want to be a part of your organization.”