Have you ever considered modelling your organisation after an alternative governance model? Becoming a B corp or steward owned?
Or how about reserving a seat for the planet in your investment committee?
Astrid Leyssens lights up with enthusiasm and determination when she talks about guiding family offices to become leading forces for sustainable investment. With a rich background in leveraging the expertise and knowledge that family offices possess, Astrid positions these entities as ideal pioneers in the shift towards sustainability. In this burgeoning field, it’s particularly the younger generation stepping forward as changemakers, advocating for a fairer and more equitable world. Within We Are Impact Collective, Astrid emphasizes the necessity of embracing risk to forge a new economic paradigm, one that prioritizes transparency and fosters knowledge exchange within the investment community. This philosophy underpins our approach to impact investing, skill-building, and innovation acceleration.
How do we achieve this? Together. Collaborating with you, your family, our team of experts, and our extensive, diverse ecosystem, we offer guidance, insights, tools, and implementation support. Our commitment is to the entire journey—from learning and evaluating to developing strategies for teams or individual family members. Our approach is personalized, recognizing that each family office has unique needs, potential, and ambitions for creating positive change. Unlike one-size-fits-all consultancies, we prioritize a human-first strategy, favoring living rooms over boardrooms to foster genuine connections and trust. This foundation accelerates our collective impact journey.
We navigate the impact journey through three key phases: the “Today Quick Scan,” the “Tomorrow Roadmap,” and “The Future Guidance,” each designed to build on the last, ensuring a comprehensive and impactful strategy.
Today Quick Scan focuses on assessing the current state of your impact strategy, legal structure, organization, ecosystem engagement, portfolio management, and impact measurement practices. This phase lays the groundwork for identifying immediate opportunities and challenges.
Tomorrow Roadmap solidifies the insights from the quick scan into a clear, actionable plan spanning the next one to five years, setting the stage for sustained impact.
The Future Guidance ensures your family office’s continued growth and self-reliance in impact investing, emphasizing skill development, responsibility mapping, and where beneficial, integrating external expertise to complement your efforts.
Deepening Our Approach: Complexity, Equity, and Inclusivity
In striving for sustainable investment, we must also recognize and navigate the complexities inherent in measuring social and environmental impact, alongside maintaining a balance between impact goals and financial returns. Addressing these challenges head-on not only enhances our strategies’ credibility but also prepares us for the nuanced realities of impact investing.
Moreover, our commitment extends to promoting equality and supporting marginalized communities explicitly. By ensuring our investments directly benefit those most in need, we can make strides towards a more equitable world. This focus on social justice amplifies the importance of our work, inviting family offices to not only see themselves as investors but as vital partners in global change.
Invitation to Action
Curious about strengthening the sustainable potential of your family office? Reach out to our impact investing team, consisting of Don Ritzen, Suzanne Wisse-Huiskes, and Astrid Leyssens. And of course it is not only investing that is an accelerating force towards more sustainability: the link with philanthropy is clear. Kurt Peleman and Jamy Goewie are our go to experts who share insights, expertise and knowledge when it comes to options and ambitions in today’s philanthropy. We’re eager to explore potential impact journeys with you, tailoring our approach to meet your family’s unique ambitions for creating a better world.
