JANUARY NEWSLETTER | PLENTY + ENOUGH for the next 250 years
Hi friends,
As we enter 2026, we’re celebrating Modernist’s 10th year and acknowledging America’s 250th anniversary of rejecting the tyranny of kings. Each year we choose a beautiful question to frame our work with clients and in community. This year, we want to reflect on how we could each invest in a more just and equal society, so we’re asking:
How could PLENTY and ENOUGH
inspire individual and collective investment
over the next 250 years?
Join us in asking and exploring this question so we can redefine and reimagine what engaged democracy could look like for our common future.
For the common good,
Team Modernist
INVESTING INSIGHTS
Phew! What a year we had in 2025, with markets faring far better than feared. On the blog, we share our wonky Q4 Market Commentary and a look at Key Investment Themes to Watch in 2026.
New Year’s is a good time for new habits, hence our updated Modernist Cybersecurity Toolkit! We’ve included every day precautions, a list of “Never Evers”, how to freeze your kids credit, and seven common scams (romance, sweepstake, IRS…) and how to protect yourself against them.
⚡ We hope you’ll use the toolkit to ensure you and your loved ones stay secure in our increasingly digital world.
structure your wealth around your values:
Oregon Humanities’ 2026 Consider This season will center some of the brightest minds on Beyond 250: OH’s programming to build understanding and connection around America’s upcoming 250th anniversary. Join the conversation to think in community about what America could mean over the next 250 years:
⚡ Buy tickets to the other Consider This conversation or use their robust watch party toolkit to host a gathering wherever you are!
⚡ Host your own conversation. Hire one of their experts in reflective conversations to host folks for a conversation on a big question. Invite your team, your clients, your family, your neighbors.
⚡ Modernist will sponsor Palestinian-American poet Naomi Shahib Nye’s Consider This conversation on June 18th here in Portland.
modernist takes it outside
Last year, in client and community conversations we delved deep into our 2025 beautiful question:
IS THERE A RESPONSIBILITY ASSOCIATED WITH WEALTH?
IF YES, WHAT COULD IT BE?
⚡ Check out our recap of the moments of insight and recurring themes from the Modernist Money Stories events we hosted last year.
⚡ Try it at home! We included the conversational framework we used to explore this essential question. We’d love for you to use our structure to continue delving into this essential question with friends, family, neighbors.
Modernist Takes It Outside
When Georgia chatted with Farnoosh back in November, she shared about our big firm growth in 2025. Wondering who Modernist works with? Watch the short video. And learn how our work with high-net-worth clients can apply to anyone and is part of our commitment to share our tools so anyone can structure their wealth around their values.
On the Kinship podcast, Georgia joined fellow Oregon Humanities board member Christina deVillier for a conversation on ENOUGH and love gifts and and punk old Portland and performance art and…and...
They dig into our learned cultural and familial money stories and the importance of exploring and naming them to change our future money behaviors.
art break
In 2010 sisters Katie, Anna and Mary Harris (from Pendleton, Oregon and of the Nimiipuu, Cayuse, Umatilla & Karuk Tribes) began recreating plateau-style, ceremonial buckskin dresses to preserve their tribal heritage.
Check out their new book, This Native American Life: Soul of the Dress featuring gorgeous portraits of them wearing their work by art and fashion photographer Kyle La Mere and sharing the historical and ceremonial significance of these traditional and contemporary dresses.
a song That’s Really About possibility
Georgia celebrates MLK day by listening to Dr. King’s speeches. Before the I have a Dream speech, Dr King gave the commencement speech at Lincoln University on June 6th, 1961. Called the “American Dream” speech, it is a deep inquiry into what is possible in this country. Listen for the gorgeous speech construction and syntax: “We must all live together as brothers or we will all perish as fools.” Listen at the link above.