Family Meridian becomes
Flourishing Family

Flourishing Family The Next Phase of Family Meridian

We’re excited to announce that Family Meridian, who has been faithfully serving families for almost a decade, is being renamed and rebranded as Flourishing Family. The new name, Flourishing Family, simply gives us greater focus and new alignment with who we are called to serve and what we are hoping to produce in families for generations to come. The title simply gives us a clarion call, not only on why we exist, but what we hope to accomplish over time.

First off, know that this is not a new organization. We are still the same 501(c)(3) nonprofit we’ve always been, but with some essential updates to not only our name, but also our vision.

In addition, there has been a change in leadership, with a new president, Kyle Circle, a new chairman, Lonnie Gienger, and Jerry Nuerge, our founder, remaining on the board. Below, you will get a chance to get to know our new leadership and hear them share their vision for how Flourishing Family can help families flourish for generations to come.

A Faith-Driven Ministry

Family Meridian has always been a faith based organization, and will always be a faith-driven ministry to ultra high net-worth families. But now, our vision has expanded to include ultra high net-worth families who do not share our Christian faith. This serves two important purposes. One is that it allows us to reach out with the Gospel to those families who do not know Christ, having been commanded by our Lord to go to ALL people and make disciples of all nations. Two, is that it allows us to be God’s agents of grace and generosity in the world by helping those with resources make a massive difference for generations to come. With that said, you will be able to see that we have broadened our outreach to seekers as well as the faith community. We continue to be a ministry to and through ultra high net-worth families.

Meet our Board

The Covid-19 pandemic presented a unique opportunity to creatively reconnect with our community and better assess their needs, enabling us to work on a new strategy and structure. Under the leadership of our new Chairman of the Board, Lonnie Gienger, Kyle Circle, our new president, and founder, Jerry Nuerge, we have brought together a proven, innovative, and nationally recognized team to help turn this vision into a reality.

In this video, our new president, Kyle Circle, our new chairman, Lonnie Gienger, and our founder Jerry Nuerge discuss the transition and the vision for Flourishing Family. These men all represent successful businessmen and multi-generational wealth and they are deeply committed to serving families of wealth, helping them to build a 100-200 year legacy.

See full bios of our new board on our website.

Lonnie Gienger’s Story

CoFounder and Chairman of the Board

Lonnie Gienger shares his heart and his vision for Flourishing Family and his role as chairman. Lonnie knows first hand what can happen when one isn’t as intentional about his family legacy as he is with his business.

Kyle Circle’s Story

CoFounder and President

Kyle Circle, our president, shares his story as a fourth generation farmer and entrepreneur. He learned what was great about being in a multigenerational business, and where he could have used some help at crucial points along the way.

Meet Our Board +

Kyle Circle

COFOUNDER, PRESIDENT, BOARD MEMBER

Kyle Circle is a fourth-generation farmer starting at 11 years old with a produce stand, today owning land/vineyard, commercial, industrial & residential properties. Purchased from Robert Mondavi in 2003, Sierra Madre Vineyard, with 500 acres in Northern Santa Barbara County, CA, was a major grower for clients Joel Gott, Fess Parker, Hitching Post among others. it was sold to E & J Gallo Winery in 2018. Today Rancho Cañada de los Pinos is the latest 197 acre vineyard in Santa Ynez.

Arriving in Franklin, TN in the late 90’s led to 15 yrs in the music industry. As a touring musician (drums for Katy Perry), Kyle spent most his music career in Christian music in A&R, artist management, branding, merchandise & concert promotion. In 2005 Kyle launched The Credit Card Machine Man, a credit/debit card processing company for 1000+ touring bands & non-profits with $1B+ in global transactions annually. In 2010 he co-founded & co-invented MobilePayUSA, a mobile payment and marketing app which was sold to PayMe Inc. 2013. He & his wife Alissa together founded Pollinate Media Group in 2012, which connects industry leading brands with over 5,500 top digital influencers publishers, having paid out multi 8 figures reaching 230MM+ impressions a month.

Ran his families foundation for 14 yrs providing grants and mentorship to 50 non-profit organizations. Chaired the national board for Standing Stone Ministry 2017-2021 where they served 5,000+ ministry leaders of all denominations committed to preventive care & discipleship to church, para church and missionary leaders.

Kyle & Alissa have been married for 18 yrs with two children Katelyn (14 yo) & Brayden (12.5 yo), attend Oceans Church Irvine, CA and The Belonging Co church in Nashville, serve on multiple for/non-profit boards and split time between Newport Beach, CA and Franklin, TN. Active with YPO Young Adults, EO, YEC, TED, Summit Series, Q Axiom as a member along with various masterminds.

Lonnie Gienger

COFOUNDER, CHAIRMAN OF THE BOARD

Lonnie’s passion is developing families and companies that have a lasting positive impact on society. For the last 18 years he’s been learning to lead his family as strategically as he leads businesses and he regularly receives requests to coach families of influence around the world on pathways to create multigenerational family legacy and impact.

He is CEO of Wilkinson Corporation, a national real estate investment and asset management platform that has transacted on over $2.4 billion of real estate creating strong impact results and investment returns. He has also been Chairman and CEO of a senior housing ownership and operations company from start up to over 2000 employees in 18 states.

For nearly 25 years Lonnie has been co-founder/chairman of two leadership development firms. Ministry Advantage is a non-profit that provides leadership coaching to the senior leaders of hundreds of the most effective churches and non-profit organizations around the world. And Business Advantage is a for-profit company that has had long term coaching engagements with thousands of Presidents and CEO’s around the country. His journey of learning to maximize impact through both the for-profit and nonprofit sectors lead him to author the transformational book,  Beyond Business, How Your Company Can Build a Better World and to host the popular podcast, Systems for Success.

Lonnie has been married for 37 years to his childhood sweetheart, best friend and fellow entrepreneur, Shelley. Their four adult children and their spouses all lead thriving businesses that benefit society. And the whole family enjoys working together in various ventures as well as hiking, backpacking, snow skiing, water sports and music together.

Jerry Nuerge

COFOUNDER & BOARD MEMBER

Jerry is a co-founder of Family Meridian and has a rich background in family coaching and financial planning. He also has experience leading local chapters of several organizations, such as the Society of Financial Service Professionals and the National Estate Planning Council.

For more than 40 years Jerry was part of the financial services world with Northwestern Mutual and has been a member of the Strategic Coach program for over 25 years.

Active as a consultant, writer and speaker he authored The Priceless Gift  and has contributed to three books: Family Wealth Counseling: Getting to the Heart of the Matter,  unHeritage: 11 Pitfalls to Family Legacy and How to Avoid Them, and unPrepared: Heirs At Risk.

Married to Sharon, since 1967; Jerry has 3 children and 8 grandchildren, all of whom live near his home in Indiana. A true blessing beyond measure!

Wendy Rodgers

BOARD MEMBER

Wendy joined Gleneagles in 2021 as Chief Family Officer and Relationship Manager. Prior to Gleneagles, she served as Vice President, National Relationship Management of the Signatry, a Christian foundation that has helped families, advisors and ministries send more than $2 billion to charities across the globe. Wendy is a third-generation family business owner and former corporate leader. She spent much of her career in diverse roles for Fortune 100 and Fortune 500 companies, including Dow Chemical, DuPont and Chick-fil-A, Inc. Within her own family, Wendy currently serves as Director, Griffin Family Investments, LLC and Director, Griffin Family Foundation, where she works in partnership with strategic advisors and family members. Wendy received her undergraduate degree in International Business from The University of Georgia. She has also completed an executive program at the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University and a certification in Private Wealth Management at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business. Wendy lives in Richmond, Virginia with her husband and three daughters, but her family roots are in Georgia.



Brett Eastman

DIRECTOR OF VISON & STRATEGY

Brett Eastman began his career in business working in Silicon Valley then felt called into the ministry and served in various leadership roles at Saddleback Church before launching a career in faith based publishing, production and consulting churches, ministries and non-profit organizations.

While at Saddleback his team was responsible for small groups, assimilation, and leadership development. He also served on the team at Saddleback that developed the 40 Days of Purpose Campaigns with Rick Warren that fueled thousands of churches around the world using the best selling Purpose Driven Life book as the backbone of the campaign. Brett went onto write the Purpose Driven Small Group Series called Doing Lifetogether published by Zondervan.

In 2006, he founded LifeTogether, a ministry committed to championing the small group movement around the world. Lifetogether continues to produced award-winning resources for many of the leading Christian Publishers, Faith Based Non Profits and Denominations.

Brett and Kyle were brought together through Kingdom Impact Network (KIN), a non profit whose mission is to “Bring People Together to accelerate, collaborate, and activate the fulfillment of the Great Commission in this generation.” Their focus has been to help serve multigenerational families whose impact they believe could change the world.

Brett earned a B.A. in Marketing from San Diego State University and a Masters of Divinity from the Graduate School of Biola University, Talbot School of Theology. And completed a one year Business Management Program from Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University in Chicago, Illinois.

Brett married his high school sweetheart right out of college, and they have been married for 40 years. Brett and Dee have spent most of their lives in California, except for a seven-year stint in Chicago while serving at Willow Creek Community Church. They have five children. Their oldest, Joshua is 33, Breanna is 32, and they have a set of 30-year-old triplets, Melody, Meagan, and Michelle.

The Flourishing Family Plan

We are excited to share all this with a few friends of the organization who have shared our vision and heart for serving the needs of UHNW families for some time. Our new vision and strategies are built around the idea of creating a network of HNW volunteers where “families are serving families.” Who better to care and guide other families than those who share their own journey within a HNW family themselves? This is not instead of the help of trusted advisors, but in addition to, making the combination even more effective to the families.

Flourishing Family remains neutral, like “Switzerland,” to all parties in the legacy space with our primary focus on helping families in the non-financial wealth capitals.

We are a 501c3 Non-Profit Organization, but we are committed to building a healthy, growing, and sustainable business model with multiple streams of income over the next few years. However, our primary vision is to provide our services to as many families as possible funded by a “FEW families” (Gospel patrons).

Here you will find the new Flourishing Family Plan so that you can grasp the big picture of why we are seeking funding to launch this movement.

A Message from Our Chairman

Our Chairman of the Board, Lonnie Gienger, explains the intangible capitals and how they lead to the preservation or loss of the tangible financial capitals within two or three generations of when a family fortune is made. While it’s a concerning statistic that family wealth is lost, it’s much worse that these intangible capitals are not cultivated. Lonnie explains this along with a plan for families to help other families solve this problem and transform our families and our world.

A Message from Our President

Kyle Circle, our new President shares the exciting news that he’s felt the call to step in as Flourishing Family’s President. Coming from a multi-generational agricultural family business, Kyle has firsthand experience with the challenges families can face if they don’t think strategically and intentionally about building their family legacy. Kyle shares his heart, his why, and his vision for Flourishing Family in this video.

Our Gift To You

At the beginning of 2023, we wanted to give you two books as a gift from the Flourishing Family team to you and your organization. In gratitude for your partnership as we seek to not only have families flourish in the new year but our organizations, ministries, and businesses. The books are Gospel Patrons: People Whose Generosity Changed the World by John Rinehart, Lonnie Gienger’s Book (Our new chairman of the Board), Beyond Business, and Jerry Nuerge’s Book UnPrepared Heirs at Risk: 14 Elements of Successful Wealth Transfer co-authored with Tom Conway, Lori Coonen, Todd Dekruyter, Daryle Doden, Steve Gardner, Bill High,Frank Mullins, Alan Pratt, Jeff Rogers, Johnnee Syverson, and Louis Upkins.

If you are interested in receiving these, please contact Kyle Circle by email at [email protected] or by cell phone (949) 769-0777

New Year Gift Opportunity

Like Family Meridian, Flourishing Family is a nonprofit organization built on the value that we are here to serve families with the intent to be trust to transformation not trust to transaction. In doing so there hasn’t been an expectation for giving, charging service fees or supporting the ministry from those it’s previously served.

For the last decade, there have been less than a dozen generous families that have funded the ministry, and if you’re landed on this page, your family has been served and impacted to the extent you might consider coming alongside our team during this next phase in the ministry. We are looking for a FEW Gospel Patrons who see the strategic vision and calling to serve families like their own that will ultimately multiply their KROI (Kingdom Return on Investment) 100x within the next couple yrs. As we look ahead at the New Year with a $1MM+ budget, would you prayerfully consider becoming one of our new Gospel Patrons ?

Family Meridian LTD dba Flourishing Family
EIN: 81-3346442

Flourishing Family
27132 Paseo Espada Ste 423A
San Juan Capistrano, CA 92675

We would love to connect with you in the coming weeks in person, either on a Zoom call with Lonnie, Kyle, Jerry, or Brett, if your schedule allows, an in person visit. Please email or call Kyle Circle our president or call (949) 769-0777 to let him know a time that is convenient for you.

Visit Our New Website

We share a lot of these new updates, stories, and videos casting vision for the ministry serving all families of wealth around the world.

Click Here

Family Meridian becomesFlourishing Family