Nonprofit and faith-based work

Brian’s career began in nonprofit and faith-based work, where raising donor support was part of the job from the beginning. He was responsible for developing the relationships and support needed to fund both his own work and the organization’s broader mission, and later consulted internationally with nonprofit and faith-based organizations.

There he was taught a common approach to referrals: give donors another non-financial way to help, then ask them to think through the people they knew across different parts of their lives. The approach could work, but it began to show its limitations at the top of the market. Ultra-wealthy people are approached constantly, and even someone who genuinely wants to help may not spend the time and mental energy an open-ended memory exercise requires. The limitation was rarely willingness. It was how much work the request asked them to do.

Endurance Advisory Group

Brian later co-founded Endurance Advisory Group, a wealth management firm serving professional athletes and ultra-wealthy individuals, where he was responsible for generating new business through relationships he had already built. There he began to recognize the same underlying dynamic he had encountered in fundraising. Relationships created opportunity, but valuable relationships alone did not create a repeatable referral practice.

Wealth-X, now part of Altrata

He then helped start Wealth-X, now part of Altrata, and spent seven years there as Managing Director and Head of Sales. That experience showed him both the extraordinary value and the limitation of intelligence about the ultra-wealthy. Knowing who someone is, what matters to them, and how people are connected can reveal opportunity. It does not, on its own, create access.