North Berkeley Wealth Management has a vision of “a community alive with connection and stewardship.” As an organization, we consciously work towards this vision in our work with clients, our internal collaboration, and our engagement in the community. We believe that we are all already connected, and building on those connections is the best way to offer opportunity and a sense of safety to all our stakeholders.
Our Community Engagement Report is about investing in positive change – investing our dollars, our time, and our expertise in collaborative efforts to solve problems, steward resources effectively, and create joyful connection and accomplishment.
We believe in the power of bringing together money choices with life choices for our clients, and for our community. While we have long had an internal commitment to environmental sustainability, racial equity in hiring and team development, and community involvement, in 2021 we made additional efforts to live our values and involve our team more directly in our community work. We have more to do, but we are moving towards making our vision real: a world alive with connection and stewardship.
Our motto “invest in living” makes the connection between one area of technical services we provide – investing – but also links the connection to the purpose behind investing decisions, which is in support of the choices that are meaningful to our clients.
Beyond money, beyond investments, beyond providing capital as a resource, we are all also making decisions about our lives, and our time. The language of money permeates many aspects of our lives. People spend money, and they also “spend” time. While they do spend some time in order to earn money, people also value using their time to be with their family and friends, without necessarily accomplishing anything in particular other than deepening relationships and enjoying one another. Taking time to be in nature, attend large and small gatherings to enjoy music, and simply be able to take a deep breath; to slow down, to see the big picture, to imagine future satisfactions and stay in touch with current sorrows. All these choices create connection, and keep us in community.
We engage with community organizations because we want to make our community a better place. We want deeper and more meaningful relationships, and to be part of a dense network of support and celebration. We want to engage the world for the better with investment portfolios, donations, pro bono services, and strategic conversations about how to best use limited resources to accomplish social and community good.