Many estate plans can be too boilerplate and do little more than establish what happens with physical assets upon death. They overlook personal sentiments and expressions that could prove to be a source of comfort to a family in moments of grief.
When you make more money than your friends, it can set up awkward and uncomfortable money dilemmas. However, there are ways to get around them by having a few good verbal comebacks and a dose of niceness to help you sidestep a lot of cringe-worthy money situations.
Taking cues from entrepreneurs, families with great financial wealth would be well-served to create environments where their children can fail and in doing so, learn invaluable lessons about finance and resilience. While the older generations may set the tone by sharing their own stories about overcoming adversity, the rising generations will learn best by making their own mistakes.
Today, a quarter of 65-year-olds will live past age 90, and one in 10 will live past age 95. Living longer has considerable benefits for individuals and their families, but living longer is also creating new challenges. Traditionally, managing wealth in preparation for the later stages of life is centered on estate planning and tax efficiency. As people live longer, this narrow focus is inadequate.
While it is true that having money can create great opportunities, it can make some people feel awkward and harbor deep feelings of regret and shame. Those feelings can dramatically influence wealth management decisions, affecting both the inheritors and wealth creators. When issues surrounding wealth as a burden go unrecognized, they can be magnified over several generations and result in dysfunction and conflict. To resolve these feelings, it is helpful to become explicitly aware that they exist and then to look more deeply at their source.
Family connectedness, not money, has the greatest influence on multi-generational family continuity. But when many think about legacy, it’s often in the context of multi-generational financial wealth. Money, though, masks what people are really interested in passing to future generations of their family.
Communication is found to be the most important factor for cohesion in families and sustainability of family wealth. As one of the key tenets to happy, healthy, and thriving families, it is essential for family members to dedicate the effort necessary to become better communicators. Practicing effective communications—including being open and listening empathetically—will go a long way in building strong relationships, especially for families who work together around shared ownership of family assets.
While we are accustomed to quarterly family meetings, monthly portfolio reviews, and annual family philanthropy gatherings, the environment in which families are learning is changing rapidly. At the same time, families are increasingly in search of more engaging learning opportunities for families. Families are seeking to inspire future wealth owners so the rising generation gets a chance to learn from the family and from the peer communities they join.
Leading family learning educators will each share 2-3 techniques that have been successful in supporting the unique learning objectives of some of their families. Explore which ones might resonate for you whether you are new at developing an educational curriculum or an experienced family that wants to go deeper. Time will be available for interactive dialogue.Family Educators:Mindy Kalinowsky Earley CMP, CFBA, Lifelong Learning Specialist, RDV CorporationAlexandria Elliott, Learning Officer, Chifam LLC
Since the age of 14, Angus McRae had been the sole caretaker of the Markham family lodge and its surrounding 800 acres, where the Markham family connected and bonded. The original Markham brothers had bought the property in rural Quebec Province from Angus’ forebears who were the first people to settle the area. Five generations of the Markham family had known Angus, and the current generation wanted to honor him by documenting his stories and the history only he knew.