‘A passion, a cause, a purpose’: Providing more than financial advice

In July 2024, co-founders Benjamin Marshan and Adrian Patty launched Impaktful, a business that aims to help advisers help their clients beyond their finances to find meaning in retirement.

Appearing on the latest episode of The ifa Show, Marshan explained that during his time as a financial adviser, he had clients for whom retirement was the goal. Upon reaching retirement, some would fill their time with passion projects and such while others were left somewhat unmoored and lacking purpose.

“They often had a date that they were aiming at, be it 55 or 58 or 60. They had a date that they were retiring and they’d worked their whole career to get to that date,” Marshan said.

“Some of them then filled their time with doing consulting or they had projects that they were working on, or they had businesses to go into, or they had communities that they were part of that they could now spend more of their time and put more of their passion into.”

He explained that these clients usually enjoyed long, fulfilled retirements “because they had something that they woke up for every morning, that gave them a passion, a cause, a purpose to live their lives”.

“But there was a massive difference between the ones who had a cause and had a purpose in their life, in their retirements, and woke up every day knowing that they were doing something that they really enjoyed versus those that woke up to read the newspaper and go to the shops and maybe watch some TV, and that was kind of the way they lived their retirements,” Marshan said.

He said that retirees who lack purpose can often go from “fit, healthy, engaged workers to old people in a very short period of time that you wouldn’t otherwise expect”.

Marshan explained that Impaktful will give advisers the tools to help retired clients explore ways to fill their time in a meaningful way after exiting the workforce.

“I was speaking to my co-founder, Adrian Patty, and he was sort of starting to think about how he could build a tool that helped people to figure out what charities were of interest to them so that they could donate to them and could do some volunteering around. We’ve kind of taken those two ideas and thoughts and brought them together,” he said.

Marshan explained that once advisers have organised a client’s financial affairs, Impaktful will serve as a “retirement purpose profile tool” to help their clients figure out what they want to do next once they reach retirement, to help them find personal fulfilment.

According to Marshan, Impaktful will pair clients with charities aligning with their interests and values, providing them the opportunity to donate or volunteer their time, getting them involved in the community and “give them a sense of purpose in their retirement”.

To hear more from Ben Marshan, tune in here.