Family Governance
What is family governance?
Think of family governance as an operating system for your family's legacy. It's a framework for how a family makes decisions; works, invests, and gives together; and plans for the future long after all living members are gone. It can begin with establishing shared values and setting up regular family meetings and evolve into defined roles -- councils, committees, executive boards, and more. Family governance sets up the practices, organizational structure, and documentation your family will rely upon to build and maintain your collective legacy.
Who this is for
- Families beginning conversations about legacy
- Parents preparing the next generation
- Anyone seeking more structure around shared familial decisions and collaborative operation.
Whether you're defining your familial values for the first time or refining an existing governance system, you can learn something here. There's no such thing as too much perspective.
Dynasty Loading...
A lasting legacy starts with the conversations we have today.
The Dynasty Loading... newsletter explores the human side of family governance: shared values, communication, decision-making, conflict resolution, and preparing the next generation to carry a legacy forward.
Expect thoughtful perspectives and practical conversation starters to help your family define what matters, navigate change, and build with intention — together.
Build your legacy with intention.
Free Resource Library
Practical tools for more intentional family conversations, shared decisions, and a lasting legacy. Download the Beginner's Guide to Family Governance and the Primer on Family Councils below. More free resources are coming soon.
Beginner's Guide to Family Governance
An introduction to shared values, family decision-making, and the foundations of intentional governance.
Primer on Family Councils
Explore the purpose of a family council, who participates, and how it can support communication and shared decisions.
Family Meeting Agenda Template
A practical starting point for organizing family discussions, setting priorities, and capturing next steps.
Coming soon
The Family Governance Library
What will your family carry forward?
Books for thinking beyond the balance sheet—about the knowledge, relationships, enterprise, and stories that help a family build across generations.
As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases. Links marked “paid link” may earn WHAT’S NOT TAUGHT™ a commission at no additional cost to you.
Family Wealth
James E. Hughes Jr.
A starting point for treating your family’s knowledge, capabilities, and relationships as wealth worth developing alongside its financial assets.
Ascension
Lois Benjamin
Follow one Black family’s generational journey and consider how shared values, relationships, and expectations become resources the next generation can draw on.
Endless Fortune
Ify Adenuga
A memoir of migration, motherhood, and identity that invites a family question: which stories and lessons do we need to pass on while we can?
The History of Black Business in America
Juliet E.K. Walker
Place today’s family-enterprise ambitions in a longer history of Black ownership, ingenuity, and the barriers that have shaped the building of wealth.
Black Business in the New South
Walter B. Weare
The history of North Carolina Mutual opens a conversation about how Black businesses can build institutions, leadership, and community resources that endure.
Black Fortunes
Shomari Wills
The stories of six pioneering Black millionaires invite a closer look at how wealth is built—and what it takes to protect it amid exclusion and racial violence.
The Politics of Kinship
Mark Rifkin
A critical lens on how ideas about family and race shape state power, Indigenous sovereignty, and whose ways of organizing collective life are recognized.
Harvard Business Review Family Business Handbook
Josh Baron & Rob Lachenauer
A practical starting point for the choices families face as owners: how to make decisions, manage conflict, and sustain an enterprise across generations.
Family Business Governance
Keanon J. Alderson
Connect the family meeting to the bigger picture: councils, constitutions, boards, and ownership structures that clarify roles and support better decisions.
The Family Council Handbook
Christopher J. Eckrich & Stephen L. McClure
Turn the idea of a family council into a working practice for communication, resolving disagreements, and preparing family members for the responsibilities of ownership.
Estate Planning, Succession & Family Legacy
Someone will have to carry out the plan. These practical guides help us prepare for the responsibilities, conversations, and organization that caring for a family’s legacy can require.
As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases. Links marked “paid link” may earn WHAT’S NOT TAUGHT™ a commission at no additional cost to you.
The Executor’s Guide
Mary Randolph & Jennie Lin
Being trusted to settle a loved one’s estate is an honor—and an assignment. Start here to understand the work ahead, get organized, and prepare for conversations with family members and professional advisers.
The Executor’s Handbook
Theodore E. Hughes & David Klein
A practical companion for seeing how the pieces of estate settlement fit together, from early arrangements to assets, debts, and probate. Published in 2014; verify current legal and tax requirements before acting.
Get It Together
Melanie Cullen
One of the kindest things we can leave our families is a clear place to begin. Use this guide to organize essential records, contacts, and instructions—and make sure the people who will need them know where to look.
The Trustee’s Legal Companion
Liza Hanks, Carol Elias Zolla & Shaila Buckley
Serving as a trustee brings its own responsibilities. A useful starting point for understanding the role, keeping records, communicating with beneficiaries, and knowing when to bring in professional help.
These U.S.-focused guides provide general education. Check the requirements that apply to your estate or trust with qualified legal and tax advisers.
Preparing the Rising Generation
Reading on helping younger family members develop judgment, purpose, and a voice in the family’s future. Selection forthcoming.
Practical learning. Thoughtful decisions.
I've spent most of my career as a corporate attorney providing legal counsel to public companies built by UHNW individuals and families. But at my core, I'm a researcher and a historian.
I've always been fascinated by the quiet architecture of endurance: how certain families organize themselves to survive history - balancing a deep reverence for tradition with the flexibility to evolve.
I view myself as a vital link between past and future - honoring the foundations of where a family has been while engineering the structures needed for where they're going.
Having modernized my own extended family's framework, I now help other families build the intentional structures needed to protect their unity, prepare their successors, and sustain a legacy that will last after all of us are gone.
More about my backgroundCourse Catalogue
Explore paid courses designed to help you put family governance into practice and build a shared vision for the future.
Money Between Us is now open for enrollment. More courses are on the way—join the waitlist for future launches.
Before “I Do”
An individual experience to examine whether you want marriage, why this person, what you know about the relationship, and the next decision you want to make.
Money Between Us
An individual, self-paced experience to examine how money history, financial facts, obligations, expectations, and tradeoffs may shape a shared life. Includes captioned videos and five guided worksheets.
A few questions, answered
Do we need a family business to benefit?
No. Shared values, clearer communication, and thoughtful decisions matter in many kinds of families. A family business is only one reason to build these habits.
Where should we start?
Start with one conversation: what matters most to your family, and what would you like to do better together? The Beginner’s Guide to Family Governance and Primer on Family Councils are available now in the Free Resource Library above. Download them for practical starting points on shared values, individual contributions, and organizing your family’s governance. The Family Meeting Agenda Template is coming soon.
How are the free resources different from the courses?
The Beginner’s Guide to Family Governance and Primer on Family Councils are available now as free PDF downloads to help you begin family conversations and explore governance practices. Paid courses provide more structured learning to help you put family governance into practice. Money Between Us is available now for $35, with captioned videos and five guided worksheets. Join the waitlist for future course launches.
Is the newsletter the same as the course waitlist?
No. Dynasty Loading is the newsletter for ongoing perspectives and practical ideas. The course waitlist is for email updates about Family Governance course launches. Choose the signup that fits your interests—or both.
