How Much is Enough?
Table of contents
Robert Boogaard & Brent Kessel
This story is part of the Architects of Impact series, highlighting stories of innovation that demonstrate how our Community is mobilizing to ensure a world that works for all people and the planet.
In a culture that relentlessly rewards more—more growth, more accumulation, more success—the question “How much is enough?” can feel quietly radical. Yet for a growing number of wealth holders, it’s one of the most consequential questions they can ask.
The Enough Project was created to hold space for that inquiry as a practical and deeply human exploration of wealth, meaning, and opportunity. At its core, the project invites wealth holders in small ‘circles’ or individually to bravely explore what they truly need to live a full, secure life, and to consider what becomes possible in terms of highly impactful giving and investing once that clarity is in place.
Behind the Enough Project are Forward Global Members Robert Boogaard and Brent Kessel, two collaborators with a shared conviction for doing good. Both have spent decades working with wealth, philanthropy, and impact. The Enough Project grew out of their own lived experience grappling with what wealth can and cannot provide.
Robert Boogaard: Increasing the Impact of Philanthropy
Based in Amsterdam, Robert Boogaard is the founder of the Jazi Foundation, which is dedicated to increasing the impact of philanthropy. He began his philanthropic journey in global health and well-being, funding direct interventions aimed at improving lives. Over time, his focus evolved.
“I realized that actually I’ve got access—running a family office and foundation—to people with even more wealth,” Robert says. “Creating and sharing learnings to help turn that wealth into more impact was just a more leveraged way of doing good in the world.”
Rather than concentrating solely on individual causes or grants, Robert shifted toward funding philanthropic field-building, supporting organizations and ideas that help wealth holders significantly increase their impact. That shift was driven by a clear-eyed assessment of the world’s challenges. “None of us is big enough to solve the world’s pressing problems on our own,” he says. “Making new connections and collaborations is how you really turbocharge the impact we can create.”
That systems-level view eventually led Robert to a more personal reckoning, one he believes many people with wealth carry, often quietly. “We are part of the unequal. The world works for us,” he says. “And I think we can either be part of the problem or the solution.”
The Enough Project emerged from that realization. It invites participants to step back from default assumptions about accumulation and preservation and ask, plainly: Do we need to keep on growing wealth? Given our significant resources, are we doing enough? According to Robert, what surprises many Enough Project participants is how quickly the numbers shift their perspective. “The resources participants need for all their lifetime needs—without making any sacrifices—are often much lower than they realize,” Robert says.
He believes that once participants get comfortable with the concept of “enough,” something clicks for them. Their surplus wealth can then be used more boldly and often more creatively, he says.
Brent Kessel: Where Inner Life Meets Financial Capital
Brent Kessel approaches the Enough Project from a complementary angle—one shaped equally by finance and inner life. He has co-founded two impact investment advisory firms with a combined $5 billion in assets under advisement, working closely with high-net-wealth individuals and families on aligning capital with values. In parallel, Brent has spent decades engaged in meditation and yoga, practices that began in earnest after a formative meeting with the Dalai Lama more than 30 years ago. He’s likely one of the only people to have been on the covers of both The Wall Street Journal and Yoga Journal.
Over time, Brent began noticing a recurring pattern. Many people had achieved extraordinary financial success, yet felt increasingly disconnected from meaning or fulfillment. Modern culture, he observed, applauds consumption, accumulation, and career maximization—often driven by insecurity, obligation, or unexamined habit rather than genuine need or deeper yearning.
The Enough Project draws from Brent’s belief that wealth holders deserve a different kind of conversation that integrates well-being with impact. It works for people who traditional financial imperatives have “lost some of their allure,” and who are hungry for more purpose, equity, and impact in how they deploy both financial and human capital.
He has seen the same paradox play out many times. When people stop treating wealth as an end in itself and begin applying surplus resources toward solving critical global issues, like climate change, inequality, health, and democracy (among others), their own sense of well-being and joy often increases.
Why “Enough” Can Feel Radical
What makes the Enough Project distinctive, and sometimes uncomfortable, is that it challenges the deeply embedded assumption in wealth culture and philanthropy that there is no upper limit to accumulation. The project invites people to define what “enough” actually means for them, provides psychological support and rigorous financial analysis to do so, and reframes surplus wealth as something available for use in the world. In addition, the Enough Project offers its services at no cost. “For us, it’s only about the impact,” says Brent.
For some, this journey feels countercultural, even risky. But participants often describe the experience as clarifying and liberating, rather than constraining. As Robert says, once people gain that clarity, it allows for greater urgency and courage: “We need more risk-taking. We need more ambitious impact.”
From Personal Insight to Collective Practice
Robert and Brent initially shared the “enough” conversation simply as peers—two people changed by asking a different question about wealth. The response from our Community was immediate. Demand grew quickly, and the Enough Project evolved into structured cohorts, and later also 1:1 advisory, guiding dozens of wealth holders in redefining their relationship to wealth. Together, now supported by three team members, they explore how to unlock significant resources for high-impact work while also increasing personal security and well-being. For Robert and Brent, that dual outcome is the point.
In a world shaped by extremes of wealth and need, they believe asking “How much is enough?” may be one of the most practical and human places to begin.
Robert and Brent know that their project can feel scary at first, but they have a message for others who are interested: “Dare to be courageous. We have the extraordinary power to do critically needed good in the world, and engaging with that fully can be deeply rewarding.”
