Crain Communications launched Crain Currency, a new brand focused on building and maintaining generational family wealth. The digital news and community networking product is designed for families managing wealth and legacies, including family-owned staffing firms. A weekly newsletter launched on June 29; a website and invitation-only networking platform will follow later this year. Potential audience members can visit www.craincurrency.com to be considered for inclusion.

Crain Currency’s primary audience is people who head family-owned businesses and family offices, the structures created to manage family wealth. The audience will also include professionals who advise families and individual private investors. Because many families invest directly in companies, the audience will also include serial entrepreneurs and private equity and venture capital principals. Crain Communications is a 106-year-old family-owned media company. Its holdings include Staffing Industry Analysts.

“We’re curating the audience as carefully as the content,” said KC Crain, president and CEO of Crain Communications. “The newsletter is complimentary as we build, and we’ll ask audience members for their input as we create the larger website and community platform.”

It’s estimated that as many as 10,000 single- and multi-family offices exist in the US, with even more in Europe and Asia. In addition to managing assets, they may provide support for family members on such matters as tax planning, philanthropy counsel and household management. Some family offices are well into multiple generations. Newer offices have formed when a family-owned enterprise was sold, creating a large financial event. As more family-owned enterprises are sold, the number of offices is expected to grow.

Marcus Baram, formerly a senior editor at Fast Company, is contributing editor. Mary Kramer, a longtime Crain publisher, will serve as founding director of the project. Grand Valley State University in West Michigan will join the initiative to perform confidential benchmark research through its Family-Owned Business Institute and provide insights on family philanthropy through its Dorothy A. Johnson Center for Philanthropy.

“Our award-winning city brands — Crain’s Chicago, Cleveland, Detroit and New York — and Automotive News already reach many family-owned businesses,” Crain said. “And Pensions & Investments reaches large institutional investors and asset managers. We think Crain Currency complements that coverage and provides a new trusted resource for families managing wealth.”