Wealth planning guides
Plain-English guides for families and for foundation and endowment boards: estate planning, tax planning, family governance and institutional investing, each collecting our articles on the topic with answers to the questions we hear most.
Estate Planning Guide
Estate planning decides who receives your wealth, when, and who makes decisions if you cannot, while keeping taxes, probate and family conflict to a minimum. For 2026 the federal exemption is $15 million per person, but state taxes, trusts and good governance still matter for most families.
Read the estate planning guide (5 articles) →
Tax Planning Guide
For wealthy families, taxes are usually the largest cost in the portfolio, larger than investment fees, and much of that cost is controllable through asset location, the timing of income and gains, charitable structures and where you live. 2026 is the first year of several One Big Beautiful Bill Act changes, so the right moves have shifted.
Read the tax planning guide (11 articles) →
Family Governance Guide
Family governance is the set of rules, roles and habits a family uses to make decisions about shared wealth: who decides, how, with what information and how the next generation is prepared. Families that keep wealth across generations usually owe more to good governance than to any single investment.
Read the family governance guide (4 articles) →
Foundation & Endowment Investment Guide
A foundation or endowment's investment program rests on a written investment policy, a spending rule that balances today's grants with tomorrow's purchasing power, a portfolio built to earn spending plus inflation plus costs, and a committee that governs it prudently under UPMIFA. This guide collects our research on each of those decisions.
Read the foundation & endowment investment guide (15 articles) →
How to use these guides
Each guide starts with a short, plain-English answer to the main question, then collects our articles on the topic, grouped by question, so you can read the overview in a few minutes and go deeper only where it matters to you. The articles are written by Vistamark’s partners and research team, led by Matthew Rice, CFA, CAIA, our Chief Investment Officer.
They are educational, not advice for your situation: the right answer depends on your family, your organization and your state. If you would like to talk one through, contact a partner; the first meeting is free.
More tools for families and committees
- Family office self-assessment: fifty yes-or-no questions on how your family’s wealth is governed and run.
- Ten questions to ask an OCIO: what to ask, and what a good answer sounds like, before you hire one.
- OCIO RFP template: an editable Word RFP with a fee disclosure schedule and scoring matrix.
- Market Compass: our weekly market recap and outlook.