Equipping family businesses to lead, grow, and last — for generations.
The Family Business Center is a trusted peer community and center of expertise for family-owned enterprises across the Inland Empire. Members join for the community. They stay because it equips them — from governance and succession to AI readiness — with tools no other local family business network provides.
Widely cited succession estimates: roughly 30% of family businesses reach the second generation, 12% the third, and 3% the fourth. The Center exists to move those numbers.
Built for operators, not for an audience.
Most support available to family businesses is either academic and untested, or commercial and expensive. The Family Business Center sits between the two. It is housed in a university, led by people who have run companies, and organized around work you leave with — not sessions you sit through.
Every workshop produces a deliverable: a Family Constitution draft, a succession roadmap, an AI business case, a crisis-communication protocol. Members bring their real numbers and their real family dynamics. Nothing leaves the room.
Start with a morning meetup. It costs nothing.
Every other month — usually on a Tuesday or Thursday morning, with dates announced each season — family business owners and successors gather at 7:30 AM in the Innovators Auditorium at CBU for sixty minutes of candid conversation — a founder’s fireside, a generational panel, a live AI build session, or advisors in the hot seat. Open to every family business in the region, member or not.
Twelve service categories. One peer community.
Each category addresses one dimension of family enterprise life. Silver members select two, Gold six, and Platinum members and sponsors have all twelve.
Governance & Structural Services
Family constitutions, ownership policies, boards and family councils, family employment policies, and dispute-resolution frameworks.
Silver · Gold · PlatinumCategory 02Leadership & Development Services
Leadership pipeline mapping, successor readiness assessments, executive coaching, and non-family executive integration.
Silver · Gold · PlatinumCategory 03Conflict & Communication Services
Facilitated family meetings, mediation between siblings or generations, communication protocols, and family council coaching.
Gold · PlatinumCategory 04Strategic Business Services
Competitive positioning, growth strategy, capital allocation review, market expansion, and benchmarking against peer family firms.
Gold · PlatinumCategory 05Talent & Non-Family Leadership Services
Recruiting and retaining senior non-family executives, compensation and equity design, onboarding into a family culture, and the CBU student talent pipeline.
Gold · PlatinumCategory 06Risk, Cyber & Reputation Defense Services
AI Acceptable Use Policy, cyber insurance gap assessment, vendor risk, reputation crisis protocols, deepfake monitoring, and quarterly threat briefings.
Gold · PlatinumCategory 07Philanthropy & Shared Values Services
Family foundation design, donor-advised fund coordination, mission and values articulation, and faith-and-business integration.
Platinum onlyCategory 08Next-Generation Development Programs
Next-gen leadership cohorts, Legacy Link mentorship, governance education for emerging owners, ownership-readiness assessments, and retreats.
Platinum onlyCategory 09AI Analysis & Strategic Recommendations
AI Readiness Review (Discover), AI Strategy & Selection (Design), AI Acceptable Use Policy, and the annual AI Benchmark Report — with eleven expanded sub-services rolling out 2026–2027.
Platinum onlyCategory 10Wealth, Tax & Estate Continuity Services
Estate planning input, ownership transfer modeling, trust structure review, liquidity event planning, and tax-aware ownership policy design.
Platinum onlyCategory 11Family Wellness & Owner Resilience Services
Owner peer circles on mental load and burnout, next-gen wellness coaching, resources for spouses in the business, and faith-and-work integration.
Platinum onlyCategory 12Exit, M&A & Liquidity Readiness Services
Pre-diligence readiness, valuation-driver review, buyer landscape mapping, recapitalization options, and post-sale family identity planning.
Platinum onlyThree levels of access.
Membership covers the whole family leadership team, not one seat. Members may upgrade at any time.
- Full peer network, online hub, peer matching
- One annual workshop
- 2 of 12 service categories
- Self-guided Family Business Health Assessment
- Everything in Silver, with two workshops
- 6 of 12 service categories
- One AI Readiness Review each year
- Health Assessment with practitioner debrief
- All four workshops, all twelve categories
- Three AI Readiness Reviews + AI Strategy engagement
- Facilitated family meeting, full Health Assessment
- CBU Corporate Partner benefits
Organizations that want to contribute to the community — and be seen doing it — start with sponsorship, which includes full Platinum membership.
Dr. Robert K. Jabs School of Business
California Baptist University
familybusinesscenter@calbaptist.edu
I have sat on both sides of the table: as the owner who had to make the call with the family watching, and as the researcher who came back later to ask why it worked. The Family Business Center exists so that no owner has to sit at that table alone
The Center is led by a practitioner-scholar: someone who ran companies before studying them. Sessions start with your balance sheet and your family, not with a framework, and the advice has to survive contact with a Monday morning.
Start with a conversation.
Tell us what you’re facing — a transition coming, a disagreement that keeps resurfacing, a number nobody can agree on. We’ll tell you honestly whether the Center is the right fit.