What Families Receive · Instruments of the Practice
Nine instruments. Each supports a specific family decision.
These instruments do not determine deeply human answers. They create the conditions in which families can engage those questions with greater structure, seriousness, and intention.
Select an instrument to examine its purpose.
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Generative Wealth Assessment
Generative Wealth Assessment
Identify where the family may benefit from greater clarity, readiness, alignment, or renewal — before any intervention is designed.
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Families often do not have a clear picture of where they stand across purpose, governance, stewardship, and institutional memory simultaneously.
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Where may we benefit from greater clarity, readiness, alignment, or renewal?
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At the outset of any engagement, or during any significant transition.
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A diagnostic map that helps the family identify where to focus its attention.
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Which areas require immediate engagement, and where to begin.
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Purpose Discovery Experience
Purpose Discovery Experience
Surface and articulate a shared understanding of what the family's wealth is ultimately meant to serve — before that understanding is translated into enduring principles or documents.
Many families have not created a setting in which they can articulate, together, what their resources are meant to serve.
What is this wealth ultimately for — in language we have all agreed on?
Following a liquidity event, before a major transfer, or when family members hold divergent views.
A disciplined process that surfaces the family's shared understanding of purpose.
A purpose statement the family can use to evaluate consequential decisions.
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Purpose Architecture
Purpose Architecture
Articulate what the wealth is meant to serve, in language the family has agreed on and can apply to consequential decisions.
A purpose conversation without a durable document produces an agreement that fades.
How do we make purpose governing rather than merely aspirational?
Following Purpose Discovery, as the family's foundational governance document.
A written architecture the family uses to evaluate decisions against its stated purpose.
Whether any proposed decision is consistent with what the family has said its wealth is for.
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Stewardship Readiness Profile
Stewardship Readiness Profile
Examine readiness through demonstrated judgment, contribution, and developmental need — not simply age or inheritance.
Readiness is often assumed from inheritance, age, or proximity — rather than examined through demonstrated capability.
Who is prepared for expanded responsibility, and what does preparation require?
At inheritance milestones, trustee appointments, and significant transitions.
An honest examination of each person's readiness — and a formation pathway.
Who is ready for what, and when. What development is needed before responsibility expands.
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Governance Architecture
Governance Architecture
Translate the family's decisions into clear roles, forums, authorities, and accountability — before conflict makes the design urgent.
Families accumulate authority and decision-making patterns without ever explicitly designing them.
Who decides what, at which level, with what documentation and accountability?
Before inter-generational transfers, as the family office matures, or when governance produces friction.
A complete, explicit design of decision-making authority across all relevant parties.
The governance structure that all subsequent instruments and decisions operate within.
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Decision Compass
Decision Compass
Test consequential choices against purpose, obligations, consequences, and the interests of future generations.
Consequential decisions are often made without a structured process for returning to stated purpose and obligations.
Is this decision consistent with what we said matters — and with what we owe?
Before any major capital deployment, charitable allocation, or enterprise decision.
A structured evaluation of a specific decision against purpose, obligations, and generational impact.
Whether to proceed, modify, or defer any decision that affects the family's wealth or institution.
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Institutional Memory Record
Institutional Memory Record
Preserve the context, reasoning, and lessons behind consequential decisions — so future generations inherit not only what was decided, but why.
The reasoning behind critical decisions rarely survives the generation that made them.
How do we preserve not just what was decided, but why — for people who were not in the room?
Every five years, and whenever a generational transition approaches.
A documented record of decisions, contexts, reasoning, and intended long-term implications.
What future leaders of the family need to understand before they inherit decisions already made.
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Fidelity and Renewal Review
Fidelity and Renewal Review
Examine what has remained faithful, what has drifted, and what must be renewed — so the family can adapt without losing what it has agreed should endure.
Families that never revisit their stated purposes discover the drift from those purposes too late.
What has remained faithful? What has drifted? What requires renewal?
Every three to five years, or following any significant disruption.
A facilitated assessment of whether purpose, governance, and stewardship remain adequate.
Whether to affirm existing structures, adapt them, or undertake fundamental reconsideration.
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Annual Practice Review
Annual Practice Review
Review the commitments made through the Practice, assess progress over the preceding year, and establish the decisions, responsibilities, and priorities that require attention in the year ahead.
Without a regular accountability rhythm, decisions and commitments can lose momentum after the conversations that produced them.
What did we commit to, what happened, what did we learn, and what requires our attention now?
Annually, as the anchor of the ongoing Practice relationship.
A documented annual record of progress, unresolved commitments, lessons learned, and priorities for the coming year.
What the family will continue, complete, reconsider, or prioritize during the next year.
Every instrument is administered by the practitioner. Its value is in the structured conversation it creates — not only in the document it produces.
Begin
Begin with a confidential conversation.
A first conversation explores the decision or transition your family is facing, the expertise already in place, and the questions that remain yours to answer.
All conversations are confidential. EDP does not share information about families who reach out, whether or not an engagement follows.
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