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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.

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.

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.

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.

Creating an authentic life is a challenge in and of itself. Add family to the mix and this challenge becomes more complex and difficult. Whether you are the parent or the adult child in your family, you play a role in creating an environment of authenticity. Creating such an environment early is critical to achieving open and honest communication later in life. It is also crucial for families to raise uncomfortable matters and have tough conversations in order to prevent issues from becoming larger and causing more permanent damage.

Helping your children learn to become financially self-sufficient can be one of the most satisfying jobs of parenthood. By “forcing” your children to make choices about how to spend limited resources, you’re creating opportunities to help them find their interests and passions and discover what is truly important to their happiness. The more you can do to help your children become financially self-sufficient, the more confidence they and you will have in their ability to eventually take a leadership role in managing your family’s wealth and legacy.

If you are a newer family foundation with one or two generations on the board, five generations may seem like a long time away. Yet in family philanthropy, quite a few foundations have been operating and thriving for 50, 75, even 100 years. What’s the secret of these family philanthropies that make it five generations, and across family branches? How do they successfully attract and engage younger family members? Learn from what other thriving family foundations have done—and continue to do—to sustain a successful long-term family philanthropy.