The Money and Family Life Project explores the link between values and money - where it comes from; who controls it; how to spend it; and how to earn it.

We live using values as our map but we are not always aware of what our values are. When we can articulate our values, we can use them as guidelines for behavior and discuss them with family members. Nowhere is the need to align actions with values more important than in our spending and earning decisions. But talk about money is discouraged—if not taboo. Ackerman’s Money and Family Life Project encourages participants to think and talk about their values and how they are reflected in their financial decisions and in the way in which they make these decisions.

Our belief is that the greater the discrepancy between the values voiced by family members and the behavior within family life, the greater the potential for conflict. Wide discrepancies between beliefs and actions can lead to poor decision- making, at the very least, and undermine relationships with serious consequences for the family.

When there is clarity around values, discrepancies between values and behavior decrease and the family becomes stronger and healthier.

The Ackerman Institute for the Family’s Money and Family Life Project gives people tools to align the way they make, spend and think about money with their voiced values.

The project is currently focusing on two major initiatives:

• the Family Forum
• the Parenting Forum

The Family Forum’s seminars and discussion groups cover the following topics:

• Money & Marriage: Managing wealth imbalances between partners; understanding different contributions to business and wealth accumulation; maintaining value systems while building a relationship.
• Values in Business: Managing the challenges of a family business; achieving harmony among family shareholders with different needs while sustaining good business practices.
• Money & Children: Teaching children personal responsibility and guiding principles; understanding money as a resource for children rather than an undermining force.

The Parenting Forum covers the entire financial spectrum of family life. The curriculum is taught in New York City schools and other meeting points of family life. The project leads participants to examine their own understanding of:

• Money & Children: How to talk about money from the earliest ages on through young adulthood; how to determine the level of allowance and whether or not it should be a reward for chores done; how family activities reflect values; what level of money management is appropriate to different age groups from pre-school to teenager.
• The Value of Work: Both in the lives of parents and summer and after-school jobs for the children.
• Community Service & Philanthropy: How to use community as a way of transmitting values from one generation to the next.

Staff