We signed a new contract with a legacy planning company. (Hopefully third time’s a charm.) Our first legacy planner was an individual who works pretty much all by himself, with the aid of an analytics firm behind him. The second legacy planner was also an individual, but with a three-person office staff and . Our second We spent about an hour with two representatives from the company (M____, the planner himself, and J____, his understudy) plus B_____, our structures-and-estate-planning attorney.

A somewhat strange experience. M____ and J____ kept wanting to talk about their company and why we should view them as competent and “the right choice.” Which was fine. But I wasn’t worried about whether they are competent, and I wasn’t looking at alternatives or competitors. My main question had to do with whether and why we should hire anyone at all. So I asked them straight up: “Why should we hire you to guide us after our previous two semi-failed attempts at legacy planning? What unique value will you bring that B____, our attorney, and L____, our CPA, are not able to give us?” Read the rest of this entry »

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I got a call this evening from someone I haven’t heard from in years. Totally out of the blue. We used to work in the same non-profit agency 17 years ago. He had been doing research on starting a family foundation and ran across our family’s foundation in a list of local entities.

“I know the Holzmanns!” he exclaimed. And called me up.

“I’m wondering if you might be able to provide some help . . . some advice . . . about starting and operating one of these foundations . . . ,” he said. He had no idea I’ve been working on StrategicInheritance.com.

I said I thought I just might be able to help. And so we spoke.

As I noted last month, I’ve been thinking of starting or sponsoring a mastermind group myself–or encouraging Generous Giving to sponsor such groups. In fact, the local Generous Giving rep has contacted me to talk about the subject. Hopefully we’ll get together soon.

But my friend’s call this evening just reinforced to me how valuable such groups could be.

This idea has been bubbling in my brain. I finally did something about it and wrote to a contact at Generous Giving.

Dear ______:

My wife and I attended the spring Generous Giving conference in Colorado Springs. When we heard the testimony of Al & Kathy Caperna the very first night, I couldn’t believe what a breath of fresh air that seemed: at last we had found people with a similar heart for the world, a similar sense of purpose and mission, and the kind of life experiences (owning a company, for example) that more-or-less matched our own. Of course we’re very different. But there are these key commonalities that mean so much to us and, we find, are so rare. Read the rest of this entry »

B____ [our estate planning attorney], L____ [our CPA], and I met this morning for our annual corporate meetings and strategy session. We discussed our legacy plans at this time. Both B____ and L____ were far more comfortable with the idea of us gifting our company to a DAF [a Donor Advised Fund] than changing it into a 501(c)(3) corporation.

They had a few key questions, one of which we were able to answer through resources they had at hand. Two key questions remain, however. (I’m sure a few more will come up. But these were the big ones that existed at the end of our meeting this morning.) Read the rest of this entry »

I’m supposed to meet with our attorney and CPA tomorrow morning for our annual corporate meetings. While we’re talking about all of our structures anyway, I figured we should talk about our next steps in terms of legacy planning. What should we do, for example, with the 501(c)(3) proposal or alternatives (like the Christian Foundation of the Triangle LLC Wrapper concept)?

Last week I contacted the attorney at National Christian Foundation who has been assigned as our primary contact and asked her if she might help me prepare for tomorrow’s meeting by giving me insights into the kind of idea she has (or NCF has) that might replace J____’s 501(c)(3) proposal.

I just received her reply. Sounds interesting! Read the rest of this entry »

Five questions, in order, will give you a broad-stroke-overview understanding of the legacy planning process. A few additional questions help clarify. Read the rest of this entry »

What is the right size inheritance to give to your children?

I was first confronted with this question many years ago by an article in which the author asked if it made any sense to fund a child who has decided to rebel against everything you have ever stood for. –Should you give them an equal inheritance to that which you give your other children who are more deeply committed to the causes and values that you espouse?

It wasn’t that I had such a child, nor that I even had any wealth to pass to our children. But it got me thinking.

More recently, especially as our estate’s value has grown, I’ve been confronted by other questions. For example: Should the kids inherit everything you can give them? Read the rest of this entry »

I was doing some research on the web and ran across “just one more” “complete estate plan” site:

This “complete” estate plan is definitely better than no plan at all. And if your are unwilling to take the time to sort through your deepest desires, purpose, vision, values, mission in life: having something like these documents ought to be better than having nothing. Read the rest of this entry »