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According to an April 2026 Morning Consult survey, the majority of Americans across every age group describe themselves as patriotic, with that sentiment growing strongest among older generations: 67% of adults ages 45 to 64 and 86% of Americans 65 and older.¹ For a wealth management firm serving families who think in generations, that is not a coincidence. It is a starting point.
In wealth management, we spend a great deal of time talking about the long view.
We encourage families to think beyond the next quarter, the next election cycle, and even the next generation. We talk about stewardship, succession, legacy, and the decisions that compound over decades rather than days. That perspective is what first drew me to America's 250th anniversary.
Not because it represented a marketing opportunity, but because it represented something increasingly rare: a chance to step back and think on a 250-year timeline.
As America's 250th anniversary approached, a simple question surfaced inside our firm: should we do something to recognize it?
At first glance, the answer felt obvious. Very few people alive today will experience the 250th anniversary of a nation.
Then again, most marketing projects look obvious right up until someone asks what the campaign should actually be.
For a wealth management firm, America's 250 sits in an unusual category. It is significant enough to warrant attention, yet broad enough to create risk. Lean too heavily into patriotism and the campaign can begin to feel political. Lean too heavily into marketing and it can feel opportunistic. Ignore it altogether and you miss a once-in-a-generation moment.
What interested me most was not the anniversary itself. It was the question underneath it. What, if anything, does a 250-year-old nation have to teach us about wealth, entrepreneurship, stewardship, and legacy?
As it turns out, quite a lot.
Starting With What We Didn't Want
One of the first decisions we made was what not to do.
We were not interested in producing a political campaign. America's 250 belongs to everyone. Whatever opinions people may hold today, this anniversary represents something larger than any particular moment in time.
We also made a conscious decision not to approach the project as a traditional marketing campaign. There would be no product promotion, no lead-generation gimmick, and no attempt to force a business message into a national celebration.
That decision created a different challenge. Without a product, promotion, or direct call to action driving the effort, the content itself had to justify its existence.
Frankly, that raised the bar.
The Budget Constraint That Made the Campaign Better
Like every marketing leader, I appreciate great creative. Like every marketing leader responsible for a budget, I also appreciate restraint.
Could we have invested in custom production? Absolutely. In fact, I am a big believer in great creative and the value talented production partners bring to a project. Some of the best work I have seen has come from video professionals who understand how to balance quality, storytelling, and budget without forcing clients to choose between them.
The question was never whether great production was worth the investment. The question was whether this particular campaign required it.
One of my responsibilities is ensuring we spend client dollars thoughtfully. I never wanted this campaign to become an exercise in production for production's sake. At the same time, I knew exactly what I did not want. I did not want generic corporate marketing. I did not want stock footage that looked like it had been borrowed from three unrelated insurance commercials. And I definitely did not want dramatic drone footage of wheat fields at sunrise accompanied by a narrator explaining the American spirit.
There is a place for that style of marketing. This campaign was not it.
The challenge became finding a middle ground between Hollywood and PowerPoint. Every marketer knows this territory. On one side sits the production budget capable of winning awards. On the other sits the stock footage library where every entrepreneur somehow appears to own a coffee shop, a vineyard, and a manufacturing company simultaneously.
The objective was finding something authentic without becoming extravagant and cinematic without becoming self-important.
One lesson I have learned over the years is that budget rarely determines creativity. The best creative partners know how to make every dollar work harder. The worst ones simply spend more dollars.
Building a Campaign, Not a Post
One thing became clear almost immediately: America's 250 deserved more than a social graphic.
At least in my opinion, a milestone 250 years in the making deserves a little more effort than opening Canva and hoping for the best.
Marketing departments have a remarkable ability to turn meaningful anniversaries into commemorative posts that survive on LinkedIn for approximately six hours before disappearing forever. We wanted something with a longer shelf life.
Instead of creating a single asset, we built a dedicated campaign experience that included a landing page, social content, advisor-facing resources, and a multi-part video series. The landing page became the campaign's home base, allowing every piece of content to live together and tell a larger story.
Social media is valuable, but it is also temporary. Building an entire campaign on social media is a bit like building a beach house at low tide. It feels permanent until the water comes back.
We wanted something with permanence.
More importantly, we wanted advisors to have something meaningful to share with clients. The campaign was never intended to generate immediate business results. Its purpose was to reinforce values that matter deeply to many of the families we serve: resilience, entrepreneurship, stewardship, long-term thinking, and legacy.
Why the Story Became About Generations
As we explored creative concepts, we found ourselves moving away from symbols and toward stories.
Rather than focusing on politics, we focused on continuity. Families. Communities. Entrepreneurs. Small businesses. Institutions. The people and organizations that endure because generation after generation chooses to build, preserve, and pass something forward.
The more we developed the campaign, the more obvious the connection to wealth management became.
The common thread is not money. It is time.
Wealth management is often misunderstood as a discipline focused on assets, but in many ways it is a discipline focused on time. Money is simply the material. Time is the canvas upon which families build businesses, legacies, charitable endeavors, and opportunities for future generations.
Every day, our advisors sit across from families making decisions that extend beyond their own lifetimes. Business owners preparing for succession. Parents creating estate plans. Grandparents establishing educational opportunities. Families navigating inheritances and wealth transfers.
A nation reaches 250 years through stewardship. A family preserves values through stewardship. A business survives leadership transitions through stewardship. The underlying principle is remarkably similar.
The Entrepreneurial Thread
One theme kept resurfacing throughout the project: entrepreneurship.
America's history is filled with people willing to leave something familiar in pursuit of something possible. Founders. Builders. Inventors. Risk takers. Small business owners. People who saw potential where others saw uncertainty.
As someone who works closely with entrepreneurs and business owners, I found myself thinking about how much of America's story is ultimately a story of building.
The longer I work with entrepreneurs, the more convinced I become that they share something with the people who planted oak trees centuries ago. Neither expected immediate results. Both were building for someone they would never meet.
Many of the clients we serve are doing exactly that today. Their businesses may never appear in history books, but they create jobs, support families, strengthen communities, and leave lasting impacts of their own.
That felt like a far more interesting story than simply celebrating a birthday.
Why This Felt So Relevant to OnePoint BFG Wealth Partners
The more we developed the campaign, the more I realized we were not creating content about American history.
We were creating content about stewardship.
At OnePoint, many of the conversations our advisors have every day revolve around transitions. A business owner preparing for a future sale. Parents thinking about the financial future of their children. Families navigating inheritances. Entrepreneurs deciding what comes after a liquidity event.
While every situation is different, the underlying question is often remarkably similar:
What are you building that will outlast you?
That question sits at the center of wealth management.
The most meaningful financial plans are rarely focused solely on returns, taxes, or investment performance. They are focused on purpose. They help families align resources with values, opportunities with responsibilities, and success with significance.
The longer we worked on America's 250, the more obvious the connection became. A nation reaches 250 years because generations of people contribute to something larger than themselves. Strong families endure for the same reason. Successful businesses endure for the same reason. Enduring legacies are built the same way.
The Bigger Lesson
The most valuable lesson from the America 250 campaign had very little to do with America.
It was a reminder that constraints often create better creativity. The desire to avoid politics forced us to think deeper. The need to respect budgets forced us to think smarter. The goal of creating something meaningful forced us to think longer term.
In the end, the campaign was never really about history.
It was about stewardship.
About what people choose to build when they know they may never see the finished result.
A business. A family legacy. A community. A country.
The best things are rarely completed by a single generation. They are advanced by one generation and entrusted to the next.
In many ways, that is the work we do every day at OnePoint. Helping families, entrepreneurs, and business owners think beyond the immediate horizon and build something that endures.
Which is why America's 250th anniversary ultimately felt less like a marketing opportunity and more like a reminder of the value of the long view.
Related: One Leadership Decision That Transformed Two Struggling Franchises
¹ Morning Consult survey conducted for Deseret News and the Hinckley Institute of Politics, April 15-19, 2026, among 2,057 registered U.S. voters (margin of error ±2 percentage points).