Family Offices and Philanthropy: Reports and Surveys

How are some of the world’s most sophisticated family offices thinking and acting?
Citi's annual survey of family office clients from around the world seeks to capture their investment sentiment, portfolio positioning, family governance and best practices.

The National Center for Family Philanthropy (NCFP) understands the importance of data in making informed decisions. Beginning in 2015 and every five years since, NCFP has conducted a comprehensive study of the practices of philanthropic families.

"The 2020s have been the decade of speed, with unprecedented change over the last four years. For professional investors, the arrival of several “firsts” and rapid shift in the investment and economic landscape have made it more difficult to know which opportunities to prioritize, or against which risks to prepare a robust defense.
Sophisticated family offices find themselves at the forefront of many key trends shaping this new era of investing. Understanding their priorities is especially valuable as a barometer of the evolution of investment practices. As this report shows, much is changing in the family office space. Direct investing is becoming a prominent trend. Investment professionals are exploring the emerging category of digital assets. And with AI dominating so many investment conversations, family offices are keen both to embrace a generational investment opportunity and to harness the technology within their own investment processes.
Tax-efficient investing also continues to be an important consideration. Tax-managed equity (TME) strategies are popular among family offices, although some are hesitant due to a perception that they are too complex. With many professionals planning to increase exposure to public equity and also to public fixed income, there is scope for some investors to further improve tax efficiency through TME and tax-managed fixed income (TMFI) integration.
This research study was conducted in collaboration with The Harris Poll and informed by our decades of collaboration with first, second and subsequent generation family offices around the globe. As America's oldest oldest bank, we’ve lived through and withstood many market events over the last 240 years. Our experience and ability to be nimble and resilient have allowed us to deliver success for our clients — yesterday, today and prepares us to do so tomorrow."

As the field of family philanthropy evolves, the options available to families for managing and making the most of their giving continue to keep pace. One option that a growing number of philanthropic families are considering is the creation of a single family office, a private entity that manages the investments and trusts for a single wealthy family—or multiple branches of a family—while also providing a variety of other personal services, among them philanthropic advising or the housing of a family foundation.

Throughout Ocorian’s Family Office regional report we’re going to deep dive into the nuances, trends and themes of the evolving landscape of family offices across different regions, the natural succession of wealth and leadership within families and how the professionalisation of the family office has changed in the past five years.

Scorpio Partnership was engaged by New Philanthropy Capital (United Kingdom), wise (Switzerland) and the Bertelsmann Stiftung (Germany) to undertake research focused on the role of wealth advisors in offering philanthropy services to high-net-worth (HNW) clients. T