It’s hard to believe, but this year marks OurFamilyWizard’s twentieth anniversary. This is an exciting milestone for our team! While we are firmly focused on the future, we’d like to take a minute to reflect on some highlights from our first two decades.
OurFamilyWizard’s origins trace back to 2000 when Jai Kissoon, co-founder and former CEO of OurFamilyWizard, was an undergraduate at the University of Minnesota. His mother, a family law attorney, asked him about building a web-based program to help divorced or separated parents communicate.
The idea came through her cousin, Paul Volker, who was struggling to navigate his own co-parenting and blended family experience. Passing a notebook between homes or going over plans on the phone with his co-parent just wasn’t working. After a scheduling mishap led to a canceled family vacation, Volker was inspired to seek a better, more effective solution for handling co-parenting communication.
“OurFamilyWizard was founded based on the needs of real families,” said Kissoon. “Back then, there was really nothing on the market that was dedicated to families at all, let alone families trying to navigate divorce or separation.”
When Kissoon presented the idea for a web-based co-parenting communication platform as an undergraduate project, his professor was unconvinced that this kind of tool would be helpful to families living separately. Despite the professor’s doubts, Kissoon, his family, and their co-founders moved forward and launched OurFamilyWizard in 2001.
Soon after launch, the Hennepin County Family Courts conducted a pilot of OurFamilyWizard. Hennepin County Chief Judge James Swenson (Ret.) led the project and selected 40 out of 400 of his most high-conflict cases to use the platform, specifically those who regularly returned to court post-decree. Of those 40 cases, none came back to court once they started using OurFamilyWizard.
“OurFamilyWizard.com provides families with an excellent communication vehicle that, when used regularly, should substantially reduce the need to come back to court,” said Hon. Swenson at the conclusion of the pilot project. “More important, regular use should help reduce the level of animosity between parents that can be so harmful to children.”
A few years later, Kissoon received word from his former professor that their family had been court-ordered to use OurFamilyWizard in their own divorce case—and that it was a valuable asset in managing their family’s situation.
Since its launch, more than one million parents and family law professionals have leveraged the OurFamilyWizard platform to achieve more successful co-parenting outcomes. Use of the platform is regularly included in court orders and agreements across the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand.
Since the start, our team has worked closely with members of the family law community to seek expert insights that help drive the direction of our technology for co-parents. Because of the valuable feedback from the family law community, many of the tools in the platform for co-parents also support practitioners in their work with clients and families.
"OurFamilyWizard helps me do my job better because it saves time for me, and it saves money for the clients because it keeps them in charge,” said Judy Sherwood, Minnesota Supreme Court Rule 114 Qualified Neutral. “They can communicate and problem-solve on their own rather than bringing every little detail into the parenting consulting process, so it helps to foster a sense of their own responsibility and independence for making child-focused decisions."
Over the years, OurFamilyWizard has grown and adapted to become a truly one-stop application for all co-parenting needs—for both parents and practitioners. The platform offers exclusive tools like ToneMeter™ and Trade/Swap™, which help co-parents communicate successfully and reach decisions on matters like schedule changes. If professional intervention becomes necessary, Practitioner Accounts give professionals streamlined access to review client information, compile records, and efficiently support the families they serve.
Ensuring that OurFamilyWizard is accessible to any family who could benefit from using its tools was a top priority from day one. Not every parent will have the means to afford a subscription to our platform, which is why we offer special pricing programs for families that need it.
Financial assistance to parents is provided largely through our fee waiver program, offering
These programs help make OurFamilyWizard a resource for all families, regardless of financial standing. As we’ve grown, we’re proud to say that so has the number of families receiving financial assistance with their subscriptions. In 2020 alone, over $710,000 in fees were waived through our special pricing programs, enabling nearly 8,000 parents to access our platform for free or at a reduced cost.
OurFamilyWizard’s involvement with the family law community goes beyond offering its co-parenting platform. Our team has supported continuing legal education for professionals at the local, national, and international levels for years.
In June 2021, the OurFamilyWizard team was honored by the Association of Family and Conciliation Courts (AFCC) as this year’s recipient of the Tim Salius President’s Award for outstanding contributions to the association.
“OurFamilyWizard is celebrating its 20th anniversary, and AFCC has been there every step of the way,” said Larry Fong, Ph.D., past AFCC President, who presented the award during the AFCC 58th Annual Conference. “OurFamilyWizard has been a true partner and member of the AFCC family. They epitomize the AFCC mission, vision, and values.”
As we move into our third decade as a company, our mission remains constant: to help families living separately thrive. A critical part of achieving that mission is collaborating with the family law community to support the vital work of practitioners in this space.
We appreciate the partnership we’ve forged with the family law community over the years and value the family law professionals who’ve helped make OurFamilyWizard what it is today. We’re excited about what the future holds and look forward to continuing that partnership over the next twenty years!