Professional association · Family business · Family offices
Family Firm Institute (FFI)
Advisers, consultants, educators and researchers who serve family enterprises, plus family enterprise members themselves, who join at the same individual rate
A profile page holds what the organization publishes and what named sources report: who it admits, what it costs, how it is structured, where it operates, and how it has changed. Every figure carries the date it was checked. A dash means the organization does not publish that fact.
Founding: FFI's history page states the organisation was incorporated in Pennsylvania in 1986 with 22 founding members. It is now headquartered in Boston.
The Family Firm Institute is a Boston-based 501(c)(3) professional association for the family enterprise field. It was incorporated in 1986 by 22 founding members drawn from the then-new multidisciplinary study of family business, and its distinctive contribution has been infrastructure for the discipline rather than networking for owners: it owns Family Business Review, the field's first peer-reviewed journal, now published by SAGE, and publishes the practitioner-facing FFI Practitioner. Since 2000 it has run the FFI Global Education Network, which awards online certificates in Family Business Advising and Family Wealth Advising. Membership is open rather than selective and is priced by category: individual professional and family enterprise members pay the same rate, with reduced rates for educators, researchers and students, and organisational memberships banded by the number of people covered. Members get the journal archive, member directories, virtual study groups and discounted conference registration. The annual Global Conference is the main in-person gathering; the 2026 edition is set for New York in late October.
How it works
Members join by category and pay a flat annual fee: individual, educator/researcher, student, or an organisational membership banded by how many people it covers. Membership provides the Family Business Review archive, member directories, virtual study groups and discounted access to the annual Global Conference. Certificate education runs separately through the FFI Global Education Network, which awards certificates in family business advising and family wealth advising and is priced apart from dues.
Typical member
The core membership is professional: lawyers, accountants, wealth managers, family business consultants, psychologists and academics working with family firms and family wealth. FFI also admits family enterprise members, educators and researchers, and students, and sells organisational memberships to advisory firms, universities and associations priced by headcount.
Membership requirements
Requirements in detail, with history →Requirements are the tests the organization itself publishes: an age ceiling, a company-revenue floor, a net-worth minimum, a role. Where a figure straddles a range, the organization's own assessment decides. Local chapters can apply stricter tests than the published standard.
| Criterion | Published requirement | Provenance |
|---|---|---|
| Other criterion | Membership is open by category: Professional and Family Enterprise members, Educator/Researcher, Student, or organisational membership for professional firms, educational institutions and associations | Verified September 2026High confidenceSource ↗ |
| Accredited-investor status | Not required for membership; FFI's Global Education Network certificates in Family Business Advising and Family Wealth Advising are optional and priced separately | Verified September 2026High confidenceSource ↗ |
Published criteria as verified on the dates shown. Final eligibility and admission decisions belong entirely to Family Firm Institute (FFI). See how you compare against these criteria →
Initiation fees are paid once on joining; dues recur. Chapter dues, retreats, travel and events are usually additional and are listed separately when the organization discloses them. Figures are as published or reported on the date shown, not quotations.
| Cost | First year | Three years | Provenance | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Annual duesa year | $975 | $2,925 | Verified September 2026High confidenceSource ↗ | |
| Annual duesa year | $550 | alternative tier, not added | Verified September 2026High confidenceSource ↗ | |
| Annual duesa year | $200 | alternative tier, not added | Verified September 2026High confidenceSource ↗ | |
| Annual duesa year | $13,575 | alternative tier, not added | Verified September 2026High confidenceSource ↗ | |
| Annual duesa year | $8,150 | alternative tier, not added | Verified September 2026High confidenceSource ↗ | |
| Annual duesa year | $9,875 | alternative tier, not added | Verified September 2026High confidenceSource ↗ | |
| Programme fee | Not publicly disclosed: the FFI Global Education Network certificate fees are not published on the membership page. | |||
| Estimated total, disclosed figures only | $975 | $2,925 | Not counted: Annual dues (5 alternative tiers, not added), Programme fee. | |
Structure and programming
Independent context
FFI is best understood as the professional body of the family enterprise advisory field, not as a network for wealthy families. Advisers are the centre of gravity; families can join, and pay the same individual rate, but the programming is oriented toward practice standards, research and credentialing. That makes it complementary to FBN or the Institute for Family Business rather than a competitor. Pricing is fully published and modest by the standards of this sector, and there is no vetting beyond choosing the right category, so it carries none of the exclusivity of an invitation-only network. The main gap in the public record is scale: FFI does not publish a member or country count anywhere on its own site, and the widely repeated "nearly 2,000 members in more than 80 countries" traces to secondary sources rather than FFI itself. Anyone weighing the certificates should note they are priced separately from membership.
Editorial analysis by Peer Group Guide editors. It is separated from the record above and follows the editorial policy.
Similar organizations
Alternatives, grouped by need →History and changes
Site-wide change log →- milestoneBarbara Hollander publishes one of the first empirical studies on the relationship between family and business, work FFI cites as a precursor to its founding ↗
- milestoneFFI incorporated in Pennsylvania with 22 founding members, among them Barbara Hollander and Dick Beckhard ↗
- milestoneFounding board creates two research awards, for Best Doctoral Dissertation and Best Unpublished Research Paper ↗
- milestoneFFI Global Education Network (GEN) launched, offering certificates in family business and family wealth advising ↗
- milestoneBoard establishes two further Family Business Review awards ↗
- milestone2026 FFI Global Conference scheduled for New York, 28–30 October ↗
Milestones as published by the organization or reported by a named source. “Record” entries are changes to this site’s own record of the organization, kept in the public change log rather than overwritten.
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Sources
- Family Firm Institute — FFI, Family Firm Institute. Accessed 6 September 2026.tier 1
- About — FFI, Family Firm Institute. Accessed 6 September 2026.tier 1
- History — FFI, Family Firm Institute. Accessed 6 September 2026.tier 1
- Contact — FFI, Family Firm Institute. Accessed 6 September 2026.tier 1
- Conference — FFI, Family Firm Institute. Accessed 6 September 2026.tier 1
- Membership — FFI, Family Firm Institute. Accessed 6 September 2026.tier 2
- Family Firm Institute, Wikipedia. Accessed 6 September 2026.tier 8
Source tiers follow the published hierarchy: 1 official site · 2 official membership materials · 3 application documents · 4 annual reports · 5 government filings · 6 reliable business publications · 7 credible interviews · 8 other reputable secondary sources. Sources and data policy.
Is something wrong or out of date?
Represent Family Firm Institute (FFI)? Verified representatives can submit corrections to fees, criteria, chapters and contact details, and add approved material. Submissions are reviewed by an editor and shown as organization-supplied; they never overwrite independent research.