Campden Wealth

Campden Wealth is a family-owned membership organisation that has provided education, research and networking to families of significant wealth since 1999. Its own summary of its approach is worth repeating because it explains the structure: by families, for families, on families. The membership arm is the Campden Club, which spans more than 1,400 family members and family offices across 39 countries.

Who joins

Campden applies one qualification test across everything it runs. To join you must be a family member or principal, an executive of a family or patrimonial business, an executive of a family foundation, or an executive of a family-controlled investment office, whether a single family office or a private multi-family office.

That last category carries the condition that does the work: the office must not be affiliated with a bank, a financial services firm or a corporation. Advisory arms attached to institutions do not qualify through this route, which is how Campden keeps families in the majority at its meetings.

Campden also operates alongside the Institute for Private Investors, which it describes as the pre-eminent membership community for North America's wealthy individuals and families. IPI members are treated as already qualified and skip Campden's application form, and the two organisations run joint forums under an IPI-Campden banner.

How membership works

Applicants complete a qualification form or request a call with the membership team, and are assessed before being admitted. Campden does not publish dues, so the cost comes on application.

Membership is what unlocks the calendar. Campden runs a substantial programme of closed-door forums each year, and its events also admit qualifying non-members who pass the same test, so it is possible to attend one before committing to the club.

What members get

Three things that reinforce each other. A worldwide calendar of forums, including the European Family Office Forum in London, the Asia-Pacific forum in Singapore, regional family office forums in North America and Australia, alternative investment forums across several continents, and the Global Owners and Family Office Congress that moves country each year.

Research is the second. Campden produces some of the most cited survey work on how family offices invest, staff and govern themselves, and members see it first.

Education is the third, delivered both on campus and virtually.

The case for Campden over a single conference is coverage. If your family has interests across continents and generations, one organisation with a consistent qualification rule and a calendar on four continents is simpler than assembling the equivalent from separate commercial events, each with its own definition of who belongs in the room.