Wise Counsel Research Associates (WCRA) is a think-tank and consultancy devoted to helping leaders of families and businesses find trusted, strategic advice.

Our associates are leaders within the fields of family wealth and family business. They include James (Jay) Hughes, Dennis Jaffe, Susan Massenzio, Keith Whitaker, Hartley Goldstone, Christian Stewart, Mary Duke, Peter Evans, Mariann Mihialidis, and Scott McLennan.

We help families with wealth communicate about their planning, make decisions together, and develop the rising generation. With philanthropies, we consult on designing foundations, developing clear missions, and balancing family and philanthropic goals. We also consult with corporations on organizational design, leadership development, and team engagement.

Research is the foundation of our work. We study giving within families, the best practices of successful family businesses, the impact of wealth on women, and the role of advisors to enterprising families. We also regularly write, speak, and offer workshops on these and related topics.

Some of our featured books include:

• 100-Year Family Enterprise Research, six working papers (various years, Amazon)
• Wealth of Wisdom: The Top 50 Questions that Wealthy Families Ask, edited by McCullough and Whitaker (Wiley, 2018)
• Complete Family Wealth, Hughes, Massenzio, and Whitaker (Wiley, 2017)
• Family Trusts: A Guide for Beneficiaries, Trustees, Trust Creators, and Trust Protectors, Hughes, Goldstone, and Whitaker (Wiley, 2015)
• Voice of the Rising Generation, Hughes, Massenzio, and Whitaker (Wiley, 2014)
• Cycle of the Gift, Hughes, Massenzio, and Whitaker (Wiley, 2013)

Our associates have also developed and administer the Family Balance Sheet™, an online tool to quantify a family's qualitative capital—that is, its human, financial-educational, relationship, social, and legacy capitals. Most families focus on preserving and growing only financial capital. The failure to measure and grow the five qualitative capitals is the principal cause for the failure of family flourishing. We use the Family Balance Sheet to provide families with a sense of their existing strengths, their areas of opportunity for growth, and as a benchmark to measure that growth over time.