We often think of family involvement as the Holy Grail of a family foundation and believe that involvement alone is a measure of success. However, any individual family may have reasons to define its governance role in a more limited way, or to believe that its effectiveness is enhanced by the participation of a significant proportion of non family members.

One reflection of this is that many families of wealth have established more than one vehicle for their philanthropy. Some families of great wealth, like the Rockefellers, establish foundations with different purposes, some closely governed by family, some not. However, it isn’t unusual for families to have more than one foundation and funds in a community foundation as well as individual philanthropic assets and interests.

Read the full article about family involvement by Alice Buhl at the National Center for Family Philanthropy.