VFN is excited to welcome Partner Member, Clearstead Advisors, LLC, a financial advisory firm. With nearly a forty-year history of helping institutions achieve their financial objectives, Clearstead is excited to offer VFN Members:
- Support and partnering with organizations who need sound investment and financial guidance as fiduciaries.
- Serve as a resource to funders and grantmakers on topics like best fiduciary practices and education.
- Help meet the investment objective of spending plus inflation in a dynamic market environment.
Here’s a little more from Rob Norfleet, Managing Director on the organization and his leadership:
As a new funder member, what are you looking forward to the most? What should other funder members know about you and/or your organization?
Clearstead is excited to meet funders doing meaningful work in their communities and serving as a partner to their mission. We are inspired by the transformational work these funders do and would like to join in those efforts. Clearstead is proud to work with community foundations, private foundations and other institutional investors on fiduciary oversight. We look forward to serving more clients in Virginia.
The Clearstead name is new to the Virginia market as in 2024, Clearstead acquired the assets of Wilbanks Smith and Thomas Asset Management, LLC (“WST”), a Norfolk, Virginia based wealth and investment management firm with over $5 billion of assets under management.
Tell us about a project or an area of work you’re most excited about.
As we grow in the Virginia market, we look forward to bringing thought leadership through events to non-profits on topics that are most important to them including investment and fiduciary guidance, financial, legal and fundraising. Working with donors of non-profit clients is important to us as we serve to be an extension of the staff in helping with fundraising efforts for our clients.
What are you currently reading?
- Blood Meridian by Cormac McCarthy
- The Coming Wave: Technology, Power, and the Twenty-first Century’s Greatest Dilemma by Mustafa Suleyman and Michael Bhaskar
What social media “influencers” are you following?
Capital Allocators podcast by Ted Seides
Share a recent story of “success” or positive progress within your organization.
Working with foundations and endowments is an important part of what we do at Clearstead. We have been intentional about building our team with top talent in Virginia and the Mid-Atlantic region to serve foundations and endowments.
Furthermore, we have been successful in working with organizations on creating a sound investment program far beyond investment management on topics likes investment and spending policy, asset allocation, private markets and best practices for investment committees.