Institute for Family-Owned Business

Family-owned businesses represent approximately 90 percent of all businesses in Maine, yet less than 30 percent survive to the second generation and only 13 percent make it to the third generation.

The Institute for Family-Owned Business is a nonprofit organization dedicated to supporting family-owned businesses in Maine. We assist family-owned firms in meeting the unique managerial challenges associated with operating and sustaining a successful family enterprise.

Who We Serve

• Individuals within a family-owned business facing issues of power, control, compensation, communication, hierarchy inequalities, leadership development, or sibling rivalry
• Established companies confronted by succession issues
• Non-family business partners who work within a family-owned business
• Shareholders, spouses, and in-laws not working in a family business

By working with the Institute, firms identify which family dynamics most often affect business decisions and learn how to overcome these hurdles to continued growth and profitability. Institute-sponsored seminars and workshops will help companies in addressing topics of interest to them.

Our programs are presented in a verity of formats, ranging from small, interactive peer groups to large, speaker-led presentations. This structure allows you to determine your level of participation.

Building Your Business

We are dedicated to the profitability, viability, and continuity of Maine's family-owned businesses. As a member, you will have the opportunity to:

• Participate in several programs and seminars designed for family-owned business, families, and employees
• Utilize the resources to build a network among other family-owned business people with similar challenges
• Have access to professional experts
• Create a stronger family unit for a more productive business
• Become better educated for more successful family business stewardship
• Gain assistance in helping your business transition smoothly to the succeeding generation
• Learn effective family communication skills
• Share with others the experience you've gained from your family-owned business
• Enable family members to love their work and do a better job.

Our Mission is

To provide the unique knowledge, resources and networking opportunities that enable Maine’s business-owning families to prosper and achieve their fullest potential.

To be the:

• premier resource for family-run businesses in Maine
• predominant source of educational programs for business-owning families
• recognized authority in and networking resource for inimitable family-business issues, including a specialization in family and family-business governance

Our Values are:

1. We value the myriad complexities of family business management.
2. We value the difference between family and non-family businesses.
3. We value the emotions that prevail in family enterprise.
4. We value the strengths inherent in family business management: the camaraderie, the drive, the shared dreams, the nimbleness, the vision, the dynamism, the stellar customer service, the community orientation, and the longer time horizons.
5. We value the disadvantages of family enterprise: the disparate passions, the questionable competence of some, difficulty in transition, the demands for fairness, the discord that can arise among groups of stakeholders within the family, the needs for parent/child mutual respect, the requirements for broad family communication and trust, the necessity of balance.
6. We value the (usually founders’) value systems that drive much family business strategy and tactics.
7. We value our Institute’s neutrality and credibility that help forge solutions to the often knotty issues that tend to prematurely dissolve family business.
8. We value the recognition we can justly provide Maine’s effective family companies (through The Maine Family Business Awards, newsletters, news releases, etc).
9. We value the integrity of our programs and consulting (without conflicts of interest nor proselytizing—by sponsors), with evenhandedness among participants and respect for confidentiality.

^back to top