Family Business Association

Family Business Association is the peak body for family businesses across Australia and New Zealand. It grew out of a set of independent state initiatives in the early 1990s, merged into Family Business Australia in 1998, extended across the Tasman with the creation of Family Business New Zealand in 2019, and took the Family Business Association name in 2023. Membership is priced per person rather than per company: the first family member pays A$695 plus GST a year and every additional member of the same family business pays A$350 plus GST, so a whole family can be enrolled cheaply. That buys member events, short courses including the Family Business Essentials Workshop, member rates at the Family Business Conference: Asia-Pacific, the Family-Owned Business Emblem and directory listing. The distinctive product is the Forum Group programme, running since 1998 on a rule that what is said in the room stays in the room: small groups of non-competing peers meeting ten times a year with an independent facilitator, priced separately from membership. Advisors join on a separate track leading to FBA accreditation.

How it works

An individual joins at A$695 plus GST and adds relatives from the same business at A$350 plus GST each. Membership provides member-only events, short courses, resources and directory listing. Forum Groups are bought on top: participants express interest, are matched by the FBA team with a group of non-competing peers, meet the proposed facilitator and then join. Groups meet ten times a year (four hours in person or three hours virtually) from February to November, and every participant must hold a family business membership. Advisors take a separate membership and accreditation course.

Typical member

Members are people connected to a family business, family enterprise or family office in Australia or New Zealand, at any size and any stage: the association names start-up founders, family members in the business, the emerging generation, family business leaders, non-family executives, transitioning leaders and retired mentors as its audiences. A separate advisor membership serves accountants, lawyers, financial planners and consultants seeking FBA accreditation.

The pricing model is the thing to notice. At A$695 for the first member and A$350 for each additional relative, FBA is one of the cheapest ways into a family business network anywhere, and the per-head structure deliberately encourages whole families to enrol rather than one representative. The Forum Groups are where the real money and the real value sit (A$3,650 to A$4,600 a year on top of dues) and they are much closer to a peer-advisory product than anything the association's base membership offers. There is no revenue, generation or wealth test, so this is inclusive rather than selective. Two gaps: FBA publishes no member count, and the fees for Alumni and Academic membership are handled by enquiry rather than published. Anyone tracking the organisation should also keep the name history straight, since Family Business Australia is still widely used.

Editorial analysis by Peer Group Guide editors. It is separated from the record above and follows the editorial policy.