Frequently asked questions

Forge Community is the largest non-commercial, peer-to-peer network of single family office executives in the United States. Forge was built by and for family offices — everything we do is in service of this growing industry. We connect 1100+ members on our platform and have relationships with 47 single family office groups.

In 2011, Fidelity invited eight single family office executives who were leaders of self-organized regional groups to participate in a live forum to share ideas. Fidelity knew single family offices valued advice and insight from fellow family office leaders above most other sources of information, but they had trouble finding each other due to the high importance placed on privacy and confidentiality in their field. The feedback from the initial gathering was so strong that Fidelity committed to continue its efforts.

In 2018, the opportunity had grown so much we decided to formalize our efforts under the Forge Community LLC. We rolled our organization into Fidelity Labs, Fidelity Investments’ in-house fintech incubator to help us accelerate.

Today, the Forge Community exists to serve the single family office industry through enabling connections, curating relevant, high-caliber industry content, and establishing standards and best practices to move the industry forward.

The initiative to connect regional family groups began in Fidelity Family Forge Office Services in 2011. In 2019, the project called 'Forge' became Forge Community LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of FMR, LLC. Forge Community was incubated in Fidelity Labs, Fidelity's software incubator. Fidelity Investments is still Forge's corporate sponsor today. 

We have identified and built the largest single family office community in the industry, with 1,300+ members on our platform. No other community or service can foster the depth of network that Forge has helped to cultivate for this industry. We exist to serve single family offices first and foremost, and we demonstrate this through our benchmarking research, events, and content. Visit "What Forge Offers" to learn more.

Forge is a private, invitation-only community of single family office executives. We recognize that multi-family offices and private wealth management firms sometimes face similar challenges, and our long-term vision is to unify the family office industry at large. However, single family offices are our short-term focus.

The Forge Community offers group and individual membership. Members or leaders of already established or newly forming family office groups may be invited to join Forge if the goals of the group align with the community. Individual family office executives can join the Forge Community as standalone members. Forge can also facilitate introductions to a group that is open for new members. Read more about types of membership.

Based on feedback from our members, Forge is taking steps to become a fully self-funded organization. In 2022, we’ll offer a Basic membership that will always be free and includes all the membership benefits we offer today. We’ll also offer a Premium membership for $750 per year that includes new and value-added benefits. We’ll continue to expand both our Basic and Premium memberships over time.

There are two potential paths to membership. Please visit our Membership page and How to Join page to see how you can get started.

Yes. Current members can fill out the sponsoring member referral form if they wish to recommend a new member.

To be considered a member of the Forge Community, you must digitally sign the Forge Community pledge and we must have a valid email address. Beyond signing the member pledge, how you choose to engage in your membership is your choice!

However, access to the platform is a major component of the value that Forge Community membership offers. It is one of the primary ways we communicate with our members, and one of our values as a community is to be an exchange, not one-sided. Joining the online platform is critical to becoming a part of this exchange.

If you decide to cancel your membership, please email the Forge Community Managers and we can support deactivating your account.

Forge Ambassadors are committed to ensuring that single family office voices and perspectives drive the community. They serve as the primary liaisons between their groups and the larger Forge Community. They also serve on at least one committee of their choice.

To be considered a member of the Forge Community, you must digitally sign the Forge Community pledge and we must have a valid email address. Beyond signing the member pledge, how you choose to engage in your membership is your choice!

However, access to the platform is a major component of the value that Forge Community membership offers. It is one of the primary ways we communicate with our members, and one of our values as a community is to be an exchange, not one-sided. Joining the online platform is critical to becoming a part of this exchange.

The Forge Community platform simplifies your search. Whether you are looking for industry events, thoughtful content on family issues, recommendations and advice from your peers, or just an opportunity to catch up with your family office groups, the platform has everything you need in one place.

• Curated content: Our Content Committee helps us curate the most valuable industry content. There is no pay-to-play model with Forge — if the content doesn't meet the needs of the community, it won't show up in our feed.
• Your network and groups: All members of Forge can choose to participate and network nationally, or just within their family office group. Whatever you choose, you'll have it all in one place, from the group member directory to file sharing to conversations just in your group to make it easy for you to stay connected.
• Peer conversations: We've heard it from you — the best way to learn is from each other. The Forge Community wall allows you to engage in topics of your choice. All conversations are tagged for topics, searchable by keyword, and moderated to ensure that they meet the standards set out by our community membership pledge.
• Industry calendar: We're working to build out the most comprehensive family office industry event calendar you can find. Our calendar includes events your peers are attending, open family office group meetings, industry-leading events, and more.

We built our platform knowing that security and privacy are of utmost importance in this industry. You can download a platform spec sheet to get more details. A few quick things to note:

• You cannot register for the platform unless you have received a unique invitation.
• All platform registration and login are monitored by both artificial and natural intelligence.
• Our security policies are guided by our Technology Committee and are reviewed quarterly.
• The platform is actively moderated to ensure members are upholding the community membership pledge.
• We follow best-in-class cybersecurity protocols to protect your data. See our platform spec sheet to learn more
• Members choose how they want to be found on the platform, from what is included in their profile to who can search for them.

For transparency and accountability's sake, you must join the platform using your real name. To create an account, you will need to provide basic data: your name and email address.

Read more about our privacy policies.

You create your Forge profile, and you have choices about what information to include, such as your education, work experience, skills, photo, city or area, and endorsements. You don’t have to provide additional information on your profile, although it may help you get more out of your membership.

To receive email notifications from Forge, you need to be invited to the Forge Community and agree to the community membership pledge. From there, you can decide to receive notifications about events and research, as well as the monthly newsletter. However, participation in most things we share are through the platform.

The Essential Education section of the platform houses insight and education focused on family office leaders' most important needs. Our Content Committee vets every Essential Education piece to ensure that it holds industry value. Essential Education topics include, but are not limited to, compensation, design thinking, human capital, investments, philanthropy, and gender intelligence. Check out our platform demo to see it in action

The Forge events calendar is housed within the platform, in the “resources” section of the menu.

In the past, we’ve held two summits for our community, each with approximately 150 attendees. Each summit contained three days of educational sessions and networking, all in a 100% non-commercial environment. Our 2018 summit included a masterclass on gender intelligence, and our 2019 summit included a design thinking masterclass. Stay tuned for our 2021 summit, which will be open for registration soon.

We also have a quarterly speaker series. Our live speaker series focuses on unique, thought-provoking speakers that you won’t find on the circuit that can help single family office find new perspectives.

In addition to the Forge Community planned events, we highlight a variety of industry events in our events calendar. Events range from hour-long workshops on how to make online gatherings more meaningful to week-long forums where family office leaders can collaborate, network, and create value for one another.

In most cases, Forge Community events are available to Forge Community members only. For some events, members can invite others from their family office or from their family to attend.

Some, but not all, events that Forge creates and runs will be CE/CPE-eligible. You can check Forge's description of an event to find out whether it offers CE/CPE.

In the interest of living out our values, we seek to create a fully non-commercial environment where single family office leaders can share ideas and advice. Therefore, we don't allow family office vendors to have booths at our events.

To receive email notifications from Forge, you need to be invited to the Forge Community and agree to the community membership pledge. From there, you can decide to receive notifications about events and research, as well as the monthly newsletter. However, participation in most things we share are through the platform.

Visit this page to explore our benchmarking studies on executive compensation, the cost of running a family office, and technology for single family offices.

We're always looking for single family offices that can provide relevant information for our studies. This extends beyond Forge Community membership. Please send an email to info@forgecommunity.com to learn more.

Thank you for your interest in our initiatives. Please email info@forgecommunity.com and we’ll get back to you soon!