Draft:Total Family

• Comment: Please read WP:CORPDEPTH and list three sources that meet those criteria. I can't see any, but there's such a lot of primary non-independent sources (and the draft is so very promotional) that there is no point in going through them – if the company turns out to be notable, the draft would have to be entirely rewritten anyway. bonadea contributions talk 19:24, 7 November 2025 (UTC)

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Total Family

Company type	Private
Industry	Family operating systems; advisor technology; legacy preservation software
Founded	2021
Founder	Alex Kirby
Headquarters	Baltimore, Maryland , United States
Website	totalfamily.io

Total Family is a U.S.-based software company founded in 2021 by Alex Kirby and headquartered in Baltimore, Maryland.

The company develops tools for family and advisor education that help families and the financial advisors who serve them strengthen and preserve legacy by aligning around shared vision, values, and purpose. Its platform, described as a “FamilyOS,” is described by the company as offering a structured framework for improving communication, decision-making, and continuity across generations, and, according to the company, also includes digital preservation features such as the Legacy Vault and Milestones, together with education and coaching modules, to document stories, milestones, and traditions as part of a family’s ongoing legacy and “doing legacy better.”

Total Family was founded on the premise that legacy is broken, a phrase the company uses to describe what it views as a widespread disconnect between financial wealth and family continuity. In response, it developed a system known as a “FamilyOS,” software designed for wealth advisors and the families they serve. The FamilyOS creates shared language, aligns values, and strengthens communication around purpose and legacy. It enables advisors to guide families through the complexities of wealth planning, generational transfer, and the intentional cultivation of legacy that extends beyond financial assets.

Total Family produces a range of learning resources for advisors and families, including the Visionary Advisor Podcast, which features conversations on legacy, purpose, and the human side of wealth advising, aiming to help advisors better support their clients and the families they serve. Alex Kirby also hosts the Family Book Club, a separate podcast that promotes communication and growth through shared reading and reflection. Total Family’s stated mission is to “do legacy better” by offering modern tools for family leadership and legacy planning, which the company describes as part of its mission to “do legacy better.”

Through its combination of software as well as advisor and family education, Total Family positions itself within the emerging field of family-systems technology and human-capital planning.

Key online presences

• Official website: https://www.totalfamily.io
• Visionary Advisor Podcast: https://www.totalfamily.io/visionaryadvisor
• Family Book Club Podcast: https://www.totalfamily.io/family-book-club
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/total-family

History and founding

Total Family was founded in 2021 by Alex Kirby in Baltimore, Maryland. The company originated from the belief that existing legacy-planning models—focused primarily on documents and wealth transfer—were outdated, fragmented, and designed for the ultra-wealthy, leaving most families without modern tools to sustain connection and purpose across generations.

Kirby has stated that the company emerged in response to what he calls a “broken legacy model,” in which families preserve wealth but not shared meaning. This philosophy informed the creation of FamilyOS as a system designed not only to clarify vision and purpose but also to sustain family stories, culture, and long-term continuity through features such as the Legacy Vault and Milestones. In 2025, Total Family introduced the Total Legacy framework within FamilyOS, expanding the platform’s focus beyond vision and communication to include digital legacy preservation and storytelling tools.

Total Family’s origins are rooted in family coaching, where its early work focused on helping families clarify values, identify purpose, define roles, and hold structured conversations. While coaching remains a core part of the company’s work, it is now used in conjunction with its interactive software—forming a family operating-system (“FamilyOS”) framework that allows advisors and families to apply coaching principles in digital form while clarifying vision and improving communication.

Founder

Alex Kirby is an American entrepreneur and business executive known for his work in financial services and family wealth advisory. He is the founder and chief executive officer of Total Family, a software company whose proprietary FamilyOS platform supports families and their trusted advisors with family legacy work.

Kirby attended Canisius College and the Robert H. Smith School of Business at the University of Maryland, where he studied business and management.

Before founding Total Family, Kirby spent more than fifteen years in the financial services sector. He worked at M&T Bank in commercial banking, later serving as Vice President of Sales at Sandler Training, where he focused on leadership development and organizational strategy for executives.

His perspectives on legacy and advisor engagement have been featured in publications such as Kiplinger, including the articles “Wealth Transfer Is About More Than Just Money” and “Think of Retirement as the Goal, Not the Vision.”

Kirby founded Total Family in 2021 to integrate family-coaching principles with technology, creating tools that the company states help families and financial advisors clarify shared vision, strengthen family connections, and sustain legacy across generations. In a 2025 Forbes interview, he stated that “the role of family offices is evolving beyond traditional estate, trust, and financial planning,” emphasizing vision and purpose as “foundational practices” in modern family governance.

In addition to his leadership at Total Family, Kirby hosts the Visionary Advisor Podcast and Family Book Club—programs that explore legacy, human connection, and advisor education through conversations with leaders in wealth management and family systems. His work and commentary have appeared in publications and podcasts including Forbes, Kiplinger, Clockwork, and Wealth Management Forward, where he discusses the intersection of family leadership, communication, and advisor practice.

Key milestones include

• 2023 – Introduction of the FamilyOS platform and participation in Family Wealth Alliance industry events.
• 2024 – Launch of the Visionary Advisor and Family Book Club podcasts.
• 2025 – Approval by the CFP Board of Total Family’s continuing-education course Aligning Personal and Family Vision with Financial Planning.

Since its launch, Total Family has expanded its presence through partnerships and industry collaborations, including an official partnership with the James E. Hughes Foundation and featured appearances at Family Wealth Alliance events and Schwab Advisor Services programs, reflecting its role within the wealth-management ecosystem and its focus on connecting advisory practice with family leadership.

Kirby summarized the company’s philosophy in Forbes: “The role of family offices is evolving beyond traditional estate, trust, and financial planning. Vision—encompassing purpose, values, and shared goals—is becoming a foundational practice.”

Products and services

FamilyOS

Total Family’s core software product, known as a family operating system (FamilyOS), is designed to help families and advisors align around shared vision, values, and purpose.

The company positions FamilyOS as an emerging software category—a “family operating system”—that bridges wealth management, family education, and legacy preservation. In company publications, Total Family notes that a complete FamilyOS extends beyond goal-setting or communication exercises to include tools for legacy preservation and wealth alignment.

It functions as a structured system that combines reflection tools, communication resources, and advisor collaboration features to help families clarify values, strengthen relationships, and sustain legacy across generations.

The FamilyOS guides users through interactive exercises to define personal and shared values, purpose, roles, and priorities. It provides templates for family meetings, conversation prompts, and optional coaching support from certified Total Family coaches. It also includes digital spaces such as the Legacy Vault and Milestones for families to capture letters, reflections, and key moments, integrating these insights into long-term planning and wealth alignment strategies. According to Total Family, this process helps families align financial decisions with their shared values and purpose.

When implemented through wealth-advisory firms and family offices, families can choose to share insights from their FamilyOS experience to support trust, continuity, and cross-generational engagement.

Company materials describe FamilyOS as software designed for wealth advisors and the families they serve, intended to create shared language and alignment around wealth, purpose, and legacy with the goal of “doing legacy better.” In 2025, the company incorporated the Total Legacy component into FamilyOS, introducing the Legacy Vault and Milestones to help families digitally preserve stories, letters, and milestones across generations.

Advisor resources and Visionary Advisor training

To scale adoption among advisory firms, Total Family developed the Visionary Advisor suite of tools and resources for financial professionals seeking to integrate family relationships and communication into their client work. The company emphasizes that FamilyOS is intended to serve both families and their advisors, providing shared language, values-based planning tools, and strategies for aligning wealth with purpose across generations. The company’s advisor framework integrates both family-education and values-based planning tools, enabling advisors to apply FamilyOS principles in client meetings and continuing-education programs.

This includes an Advisor Resource Library with conversation templates and best practices, training and certification programs focused on communication and values-based advising, and access to on-demand family-coach support.

The company’s continuing-education course, Aligning Personal and Family Vision with Financial Planning, was approved by the Certified Financial Planner (CFP) Board in 2025, allowing advisors to receive CE credit for learning Total Family’s framework.

Family Resource Library

The Family Resource Library is described by the company as an online resource collection designed for families using the platform directly. It includes reflection prompts, shared exercises, and articles covering family values, communication, and decision-making. According to the company, the Family Resource Library and related modules guide users through a two-step reflection process: beginning with a Personal Vision—focused on an individual’s purpose, values, and roles—and expanding to a Family Vision that unites these perspectives into a shared direction while connecting them to the family’s broader legacy-preservation work within FamilyOS.

While the Family Resource Library primarily serves families, it is also a resource for advisors to recommend articles and exercises to strengthen family governance and connection.

Podcasts and media

Total Family produces two podcasts that extend its educational and cultural purpose:

• The Visionary Advisor Podcast, hosted by Alex Kirby, explores human connection, family systems, and advisory practice through interviews with industry leaders.
• The Family Book Club, co-hosted by Alex Kirby and Emily Blue, co-founder of Hue Partners, features discussions of modern nonfiction books and encourages families to reflect together on shared values and growth.

Both series reflect the company’s advisor-first and family-centered approach, aiming to promote communication, intentional leadership, and practical frameworks for legacy building.

The Visionary Advisor Podcast also maintains a YouTube channel under the same name, where full episodes and curated clips are published to expand its educational reach and audience among financial advisors.

Position in the ecosystem

Total Family’s FamilyOS framework sits at the center of an ecosystem connecting families, advisors, and institutions. Wealth firms and family offices use the system to strengthen client relationships, encourage cross-generational planning, and incorporate family culture and shared purpose into the definition of wealth.

Alex Kirby and Total Family have been referenced and featured by institutions such as Schwab Advisor Services, the Family Wealth Alliance, and AllianceBernstein. These organizations have featured Total Family and its founder in educational and pilot initiatives focused on advisor education and family engagement.

Purpose and philosophy

Total Family’s guiding perspective is rooted in the belief that legacy is broken. The company uses this phrase to describe what it views as a longstanding gap in traditional wealth and family-governance practices—systems focused primarily on financial and legal continuity rather than on shared purpose, communication, and family culture.

Total Family’s published writings frame “legacy” as a living process that includes values, stories, relationships, and wealth alignment. The company describes its approach as “human-centered,” aiming to help families preserve meaning and connection—not only assets—by capturing the story and culture that define a family’s legacy.

According to the company, many families face challenges of disconnection and lack of structure in how they communicate about values and long-term goals. Total Family’s mission is to “do legacy better” by introducing modern, proactive tools that strengthen relationships, clarify vision, and build legacies that extend beyond money.

In describing FamilyOS as a modern parallel to the 1980s minivan—a product that redefined family connection—the company positions its platform as a response to changing patterns of family life and intergenerational communication.

The company’s internal model defines three core brand pillars:

• Vision – Helping families articulate shared direction through purpose, values, and roles.
• Culture – Providing tools and rituals that define how family members “do things together” and stay connected.
• Legacy – Redefining legacy as a family’s shared story and ongoing impact, rather than inheritance alone.

The company summarizes this approach as “doing legacy better,” a phrase it uses to describe its broader mission of integrating legacy preservation, family culture, and wealth alignment within one unified platform.

Partnerships, collaborations, and media coverage

Total Family collaborates with professional and nonprofit organizations in the wealth-management and family-governance sectors, and its work has been featured across industry publications and podcasts.

Partnerships and affiliations

The company is an official partner of the James E. Hughes Foundation, a nonprofit dedicated to advancing family governance and human development in wealth transfer.

Total Family has also participated in events hosted by the Family Wealth Alliance and Schwab Advisor Services, where founder Alex Kirby has been featured as a speaker on topics including family engagement, rising-generation education, and multi-generational continuity.

Its continuing-education course, Aligning Personal and Family Vision with Financial Planning, was approved by the CFP Board in 2025, allowing advisors to earn CE credit for learning the company’s methodology.

Industry and media features

Total Family has been profiled in publications such as Kiplinger, Forbes, and Clockwork, which describe its work as part of a broader shift toward human-centered and values-based legacy planning.

Kirby and team members have appeared on podcasts including Wealthy Wednesday LIVE, The MACK Podcast, Wealth Management Forward, It’s Never About Money, Coded in Gold, The Truth About Wealth, and Built on Purpose, discussing topics such as family communication, social capital, and advisor education.

The company’s participation in national conferences and partnerships with organizations such as the James E. Hughes Foundation, Schwab Advisor Services, and the Family Wealth Alliance has been noted by industry observers for its role within the family-wealth ecosystem.

In October 2025, Total Family founder Alex Kirby appeared on an AllianceBernstein webcast titled “The Family Legacy: Expanding a Vision of the Advisor’s Job to Be Done.” The conversation explored how advisors can help clients integrate purpose and values into long-term planning. AllianceBernstein described Total Family’s FamilyOS platform as helping wealth firms and multi-family offices “support families in building generational connections.”