Social Thread

• Client Education
• Financial Planning
• Investment Advice
• Portfolio Management
• Philanthropy Planning
• Family Governance
• Investment Clubs

The connective theme among all of our services is weaving a better world through conscious consumption, investment, and giving. We aim to aid our clients in optimizing their finances to serve their own Triple Bottom Line^[a]. This aim penetrates myriad aspects of our client’s life. This approach requires systems thinking and qualitative analysis as few metrics of total economic return are presently in use. We will rely on research and reading from public and private sources as well as our network of experts to bring together the knowledge and resources to achieve higher total economic returns. If we are unable to service our clients’ requests in-house, we objectively seek an external solution we believe can fulfill the specific need. We feel this philosophy will be a critical factor in SOCIAL THREAD’s success.

SOCIAL THREAD’s clients typically have four primary goals in working with us:

1. to understand their personal finances and their financial ecosystem;
2. to protect their wealth and generate income and growth from it;
3. to give surpluses to causes, people; and places they care about;
4. to minimize taxes.

Each investor places different emphasis on these objectives, and one of our initial challenges is to identify the unique set of goals for each investor and develop a wealth plan accordingly.

We segment our service offerings into four broad categories:

• Client Education;
• Financial Planning
• Investment Advice; and
• Portfolio Management.

These categories describe our investment and planning services. With the exception of Portfolio Management, we generally charge by the hour or on a fixed project basis. We have no minimum investment requirements. Fees can be scaled to try and make them affordable for all people. Not all clients desire the same levels of service. We can assist you in-house or through partners to help with any of these things:

Client Education

We fundamentally believe that clients are the final authority over their own money. Our work is to serve their interest exclusively. We believe clients should have enough knowledge and a system of checks and balances to detect bad advice. To empower clients to this end we believe they must understand what is going on with their money. Money and property rights are basic building blocks of our society. In a free market system decision makers must be well informed, and exercise their rights as owners, consumers, and citizens. Group and private sessions are available.

 Series on Personal Finance

• Managing Personal Finances

Banking, Budgeting, Saving, Purchase Decisions

• Managing Your Debt

Shopping for a Loan, Controlling Debt, Predatory Lenders, Payday Loans & Other Scams

• Managing Your Credit

Understanding Your Credit Score, Managing Your Score, Identity Theft, Correcting Errors on Credit Reports

• Insuring Your Resources

Property and Casualty Insurance; Life, Health & Disability Insurance; Annuities

• Investing Your Money

Modern and Post-Modern Portfolio Theory; and Global Asset Allocation.

• The Ethics of Capital Stewardship

Are Fiduciaries Required to Consider the Future?

• Gifts & Legacy

Give healing, not band-aids; instead of attaching strings, try planting seeds.

Financial Planning

We believe that clients have different financial planning needs based on their situation. We also believe that many families, clubs and organizations can benefit from sharing the experience of talking about money together and developing a plan for cooperative wealth stewardship. Clients may invite as many people (family, partners, trustees, and other advisers) to participate as they wish. The only condition being a willingness to discuss money openly with the group. Clear boundaries and expectations can be set beforehand. Private sessions are available.

Series on Financial Planning

• Visioning & Goal Setting

Exploring your values, priorities, aspirations, and dreams

• Fact Finding

Collecting information about your past, present, and future finances; staying organized

• Financial Planning Software & the Base Case

Building a current snapshot and modeling the future

• Strategic & Scenario Planning

Designing your future

• Implementing the Plan

Selecting products, services, and tools to help you reach your goals; building the savings habit

• Monitoring & Review

Your plan is alive just as you are; developing a mindset of wealth stewardship

• Invest in Yourself First

You are your most valuable asset; fund what you love; the IRR of efficient living

Investment Advice

The creation of:  investment policy statements (IPS); risk/return analysis; risk-based computer asset allocations (models); and security selection recommendations. Under the advice-but-not-portfolio-management model, we aid self-directed clients and validators[1] by sharing our research and recommendations. The client is solely responsible for implementation and monitoring any and all investment decisions. Regardless of the class of service chosen, we want our clients to take a strong interest in the ultimate portfolio implementation. For those who prefer to delegate continuous management, we offer the Portfolio Management service separately.

Series on Investment Advice

• Fact Finding & Risk Tolerance Assessment

Before you invest, or we give advice, we need to know a lot about you and your situation.

• The Fiduciary Standard

If you have a legal obligation to act in the best interest of another; what must you do? What should you do?

• Understanding Risk

Investors face a wide variety of risks; establishing a framework for risk management; avoiding fraud and predators

• Portfolio Modeling & Asset Allocation

Blending risk and return into expectations

• The Investment Policy Statement

The IPS clearly defines in writing the roles, responsibilities, standards, and expectations for the portfolio.

• Monitoring & Review

Setting up a plan to continuously monitor and review your portfolios

• The Do-It-Yourself Investor

You can manage your own portfolio; do really want to? If so, we can get you started, or help you refine your approach.

Portfolio Management

Portfolio construction and transition, and ongoing management and/or security research, selection, and monitoring. SOCIAL THREAD offers a discretionary investment model. Under the discretionary model, SOCIAL THREAD is granted authority by the client to make portfolio and investment decisions on his/her behalf. We believe it is in both the client’s and SOCIAL THREAD’s best interest that the client be fully informed, engaged, and educated on all investment decisions. That said we know that not all clients have the inclination, time or energy to give it the needed attention. In such cases they may hire us to do more of it for them.

Investment Philosophy

SOCIAL THREAD is not bound to a specific investment approach but one that considers how time and situation affect the odds of achieving the risk adjusted returns. In adherence to our best of strategies philosophy, we evaluate each investment opportunity on its own merits. The result is an open architecture investment model, the use of both passive and active investment managers, the incorporation of alternative investment strategies when and where appropriate, and a continuous search for ways to improve the performance and effectiveness of our investments.

SOCIAL THREAD generally starts with a global asset allocation approach[2].  We provide continuous coverage of cash, debt, equity and alternative asset classes which we believe constitute a globally diversified portfolio. Using both quantitative and qualitative analysis we adapt allocations at least annually (more frequently if the advisor believes it is needed) to our in-house economic and capital market outlook. We pride ourselves on our whole systems investment thinking. Specifically, SOCIAL THREAD practices Total Economic Return (TER) approach to investing.

This means the integration of four separate but related aspects of portfolio creation and implementation:

1. Emotional and behavioral aspects; we recognize that any investment strategy created must fit within the investor’s unique set of values, risk tolerance, goals and personal wealth motivators.
2. Asset allocation, or the segmentation of your investments into multiple asset classes in an attempt to create a diversified portfolio that maximizes your expected return for a specific level of assumed risk (or, conversely, minimizes your assumed risk for a desired level of expected return);
3. Asset integrity, or the evaluation of the ethical and systemic economic implications owning a particular security in addition to the normal due diligence that comes with our responsibility; and
4. Asset location, or the placement of your investments into the appropriate estate planning and wealth transfer entities, in order to increase tax efficiency and meet dynastic wealth goals.

By integrating these four aspects of wealth management, we develop investment plans that work quantitatively and create an appropriate fit and level of comfort from the perspective of the investor.

Consolidated performance reporting: We provide our clients consolidated reporting on their investment assets. Using the Albridge Wealth Reporting platform, SOCIAL THREAD tracks and reports on all of a client’s investment we manage. We use a third party custodian, and gather and consolidate all investment information into one comprehensive and easy-to-read performance report. This is a highly effective tool for evaluating performance against overall wealth objectives, and has proven invaluable to our clients. As a result, we believe it is an important component of our historically high client retention rate.

The information provided above summarizes not only the services offering of SOCIAL THREAD, but also captures our philosophy of comprehensive wealth management and client service.

Portfolio Management Pricing*

Philanthropy Planning

Many of our clients have ambitious charitable goals, but are unsure of the best way to implement and achieve their objectives. We work with several outside experts in this area to assist our clients in developing and activating “wise giving” plans. We also assist in advising on the overall investment strategies of the foundations and endowments with which our families are associated.

Family Governance

SOCIAL THREAD uses both internal and external resources to design and implement solutions to grow and preserve the human, intellectual and relationship capital of our clients. Our role is to assist families in implementing integrated strategies to keep a balanced focus on all aspects of our families’ true wealth management.

Scenario Planning

SOCIAL THREAD offers advice and consultation on concentrated wealth strategies. In addition, members of the SOCIAL THREAD team have provided complementary lifestyle services such as the development of a safety plan in the event of domestic and international turmoil, the purchase of gold bullion, and financial planning consultation on the purchase or sale of homesteads, retreats, and other property.

Investment Clubs

SOCIAL THREAD believes that clients can benefit on many levels from talking about money and investing with others. To this end we encourage clients to start or join a small investment club with people you trust. We suggest you find 12 neighbors, friends, and family members to join you. We’ll speak at your club, help you find resources, open a brokerage account for the club, and help you keep your records.

In addition to long-term investment and overall wealth plans, our clients are faced almost daily with individual financial decisions. Our goal is to be the one phone call our clients need to make to address these decisions and develop appropriate solutions. Some of these services, such as security selection and asset allocation, are delivered in-house, others are outsourced to service providers we believe deliver superior solutions.