Our Business: 2024 in Review
As the year comes to a close we have been reflecting on our second year operating as a Registered Investment Advisor. Throughout 2024, we sought to grow our firm and expand the quality and depth of our offerings. We forged 16 new client relationships, hosted three major cross-community gatherings, created 10 original blogs and 11 (going on 12) unique monthly newsletters - all informed by our learnings at 25+ community events and engagement with local partners.
We also took on leadership roles at key regional organizations. Leslie (our Head of Financial Planning) joined the WA Women’s Foundation Finance Committee, and Kyle (our Head of Investments) joined the Renton Regional Community Foundation’s Finance & Investment Committee.
In addition to community engagement, we are proud of the private impact investment platform we developed this year. We have reallocated millions of dollars away from values-neutral investments into 10+ private impact funds and offerings. These unique investments seek to provide financial returns alongside measurable social and environmental outcomes via: microfinance, impactful real estate, renewable energy, economic development and more.
Private investments serve a variety of purposes in our clients’ portfolios including: capital appreciation, income generation, diversification and values alignment. Humanize Wealth scans the global markets for top performing opportunities, conducts extensive due diligence, and thoughtfully assesses suitability for each client. Platforms with this level of sophistication are rare in our industry and we are truly proud of what we are creating. It has been rewarding to guide clients into their first non-publicly traded investments, and tangibly demonstrate that investors don’t necessarily have to “give up” returns to participate in impact investing.
As one example, many of our clients opted into a diversified portfolio of private debt, private equity and real estate as their first private investment. The fund holds real estate and private companies focused on: renewable energy/energy efficiency, organic & fair trade certified companies, majority women and BIPOC owned companies, democratic workplaces and sustainable agriculture.
Another win from this year was helping our clients set up Donor Advised Funds (DAFs) and educating our network on how to optimize DAF dollars for good. DAFs have grown exponentially and become sophisticated philanthropic multi-tools used for making catalytic grants, accelerating social entrepreneurship and driving shared prosperity across under-resourced communities. We are on a journey to demystify the DAF model for our clients and broader network and optimize these vehicles for greater impact.
Our final achievement in 2024 has been effectively guiding folks through tricky tax situations. Given the strength of the capital markets over the last several years, we have been working hard to help our clients navigate and optimize complex year-end tax strategies in coordination with their CPA’s and other service providers. This includes holistic guidance around tax payments, capital gains, charitable giving, required distributions, health insurance decisions and more. This high-touch, customized financial planning work truly sets us apart from other firms.
In 2025, we plan to continue to enhance the suite of services we provide to our clients. We also intend to expand our new video series Humanizing Everything which showcases people and organizations doing innovative work in social impact and environmental justice. Lastly, while we absolutely love working with individual clients, we foresee continuing to grow other types of client relationships - including family offices/foundations and nonprofits.
In summary, our team provides purposeful financial planning and investing with an emphasis on community and relationships. We’d love for you to let folks in your network know about our work.
We look forward to growing alongside you in 2025.