A new alternative is being offered for families who run businesses. The Iowa Family Business Forum (IFBF) helps families deal with business issues that might become obstacles by featuring a panel of local experts and speakers, according to a press release.

Most of the businesses in Iowa are family businesses. When families run a business together, not only do business matters interfere, but personal ones may interfere as well.

IFBF is sponsored by Mass Mutual Insurance, McGladery & Pullen and Norwest Banks, and the Iowa Small Business Development Center, which is a unit of Iowa State’s College of Business.

A special program will be held on Dec. 13 at the Embassy Suites in Des Moines from 8:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m.

This program will feature discussion about certain factors that may affect how a family business is run. Cost of the program is $249, with lunch included.

Nancy Upton, an expert on family business issues from Baylor University, will lead a workshop called, “What’s Special About Family Business.”

“Dr. Upton’s workshop is a wonderful explanation of how family businesses are different from other businesses.

IFBF aims to give Iowa businesspeople a place where they can learn from each other and a growing number of experts in family business issues,” said Robert Parker, from the Iowa Small Business Development Center.

Issues that are problems in family businesses are the generation gap, in which two or more generations don’t agree on the future strategy of a business; the stress of finances and priorities that is put on a family in a business; and how some marriages suffer with a business involved.

Parker said the IFBF began as a new idea in Iowa in September of 1995. This is not a new concept, however, to other areas of the country.

“We aim to help people in family businesses to deal with special issues of family businesses,” Parker said.

These issues are father/child relationships, husband/wife relationships, and working with non-family employees, he said.

The idea for this program originated from Upton’s workshop.

IFBF wants the family businesspeople to go home from this meeting with answers to their questions. The IFBF is a place to go to look for those answers, he said.

The program is an ongoing one that will have several meetings per year.