How do you change the way you think and feel and behave?

I’m not talking about the “oops!” kind of mind alteration–y’know, the revelatory, slap-your-forehead, “Oh! Of course! How could I have been so stupid!?!” mental shift.

I’m talking about knowing what you need to do–or, even, having a sneaking suspicion that you need to change your way of thinking, but not being able to turn on the light bulb in your brain–i.e., a mind-shift that requires real work. How do you make purposeful, premeditated alterations in your habits of mind, how you view the world, how you think, how you behave?

Legacy planning and estate planning, at its very root, I think, requires this kind of mental change. I mean, if you’re going to do a really good job at writing a plan, it takes more than a couple of hours of casual thinking to work out what you desire to achieve with your wealth; if you have young children: where you want them to go, who you want to take care of them, how you want them to be cared for, etc.; how you want to be cared for if, God forbid, you find yourself incapacitated and requiring long-term care or–forget you finding yourself incapacitated– . . . Suppose your relatives find you incapacitated and incapable of speech or communication: How shall they care for you?

These kinds of questions require some deep and serious thought. And even the most patient attorneys or other professionals–even if you could afford their fees–cannot draw your finessed thoughts out of you in a 2- or even 8-hour interview. And, I dare say, even a week-long retreat dedicated to these matters won’t quite do whatever-it-is you require to come to peace about your true thoughts and beliefs in these matters.

Hey. I’ve been working on my legacy plan–not full-time, but dedicating a few hours a week, on average–for close to three years, now. And, I am embarrassed to admit, my wife and I still haven’t gotten down to business on one of the most important pieces of the plan: the documentation (that would be so helpful to our executors) of where all our key papers are, the list of all our professional advisors, where our safe deposit boxes are and how to gain access, where all of our accounts are–and user names and passwords to gain access, etc., etc. Read the rest of this entry »

This isn’t something I had thought about before, but I just saw an article titled Tools for Managing Your Online Life After Death.

What happens to your Hotmail or Gmail account when you die? What about your online photo collections on Picasa or Flickr?

Answer: It depends. And some of it depends on you!

To give you an idea:

• Hotmail let’s relatives order a CD of all messages in the deceased users account on submission of a death certificate and proof of power of attorney.
   
• Gmail Read the rest of this entry »

I’ve posted the story of a major bequest that came to the brink of becoming worthless–or worse than worthless–to the recipients.

I imagine it’s a cautionary tale that many of us should pay attention to.

Check it out on the Strategic Inheritance forums . . . and join the conversation!

I described the technical differences between donor-advised funds (DAFs) and private foundations back in June of 2007. Frankly, at the time, I saw no compelling reason seriously to consider creating a DAF.

Following the FoundationWise^SM conference, however, I’m seeing more reasons than I did back then to consider this alternative. Read the rest of this entry »

I had the privilege of attending the first FoundationWise^SM conference at Focus on the Family the week before last.

FoundationWise^SM is meant to help people who “own” and operate private foundations to do a better job.

As I looked at the various workshops available for participants, it seemed to me that there were to primary tracks: one having to do with succession planning–passing on the vision and purpose to the next generation, and one having to do, more, with success on the “business” end of things–keeping good corporate records, ensuring your within the bounds of the law, investing successfully, and so forth. I followed the “succession planning” track.

One of the key questions I hoped to answer had to do with passing responsibility to the next generation: How can I know that they will carry on pursuing a vision that I would want them to pursue? Put another way: if I’m leaving them significant funds for charitable purposes, how can I ensure that they won’t take those funds and potentially turn them to uses possibly diametrically opposed to those for which I would have given them?

I mean, it is so common for nonprofits to wind up doing things very differently than their founders intended!

Intermixed in this larger question: How do we encourage our children in the ways of generosity?I thought some of the answers were very insightful. Here are some of the things that people suggested (not necessarily in order): Read the rest of this entry »

I will confess: I’ve been dragging my feet. Not sure why. But I had to overcome the hurdle.

I have finally “turned on” the Strategic Inheritance Legacy Lounge forum and invite you to join what I hope will soon be a freewheeling and inspirational discussion of all things related to passing on a heritage from one generation to another.

Join us, won’t you?

Thanks!

I read an article this morning that reminded me: Most estate- and legacy-planning professionals ignore philanthropic considerations in their basic planning strategies.

Alexis Martin Neely, for example, notes, in an article printed in the latest Bottom Line Personal, that single adult parents (widowed or divorced, in particular) need to make allowances in their estate plans not only for their personal health care, but also “for the guardianship of any minor children and transfers [of] assets to heirs of your choice while minimizing taxes.”

It struck me: This is the standard mantra of traditional estate planning professionals. For them, estate planning is all about minimizing taxes and maximizing flow-through to the next generation. And it has absolutely nothing to do with larger life purposes, the legacies–the accomplishments–for which donors might want to be remembered. They don’t ask about favorite causes or charities or philanthropic goals they may have. The question simply never comes up.

And so a person who actually might be inclined to make a significant contribution to some effort in which he or she is truly interested . . . simply won’t make the contribution. S/he will “forget” . . . because s/he was never reminded, never caused, even, to think of it.

And this line of thought reminded me of what I heard two or three years ago from Henry Doorn, executive director of the Barnabas Foundation: “What if you were to add another ‘child’ to your estate plan? What if that ‘child’ were a charity?”

I thought, this morning, “What if we turned that statement on its head? Instead of your favorite charities becoming additional ‘children,’ what if you thought of your children as additional ‘charities’?”

And why would we want to think of our children as “charities” rather than our favorite charities as additional “children”?

Personally: I think it makes sense to think of our children as “charities” because . . . once they are grown, and especially if and as they pass their 20s and become settled adults: what good, really, will our bequests do them . . . or their children?

Yes, for a while, perhaps–while Sarita and I are in our 50s and our children are still establishing themselves in the world and our grandkids are still at home–it might make sense for us to give bequests that could aid them with their lives. But by the time Sarita and I are in our 70s and our own kids are in their 40s and 50s and our grandkids are past college: isn’t it time for our kids to be passing along their resources to their children and grandchildren? . . . So our part becomes more of a charitable contribution to their lives, a “little something extra,” perhaps.

But whatever we give ought not to be some major portion or major addition to their own nest eggs!

Beyond that, shouldn’t we be thinking of the significance of our donations: what our donations will achieve? Will our donations achieve something more important through the lives of our children . . . or through a favorite agency, foundation, or other philanthropic or charitable entity? . . . Especially if and/or as one or more of our children or grandchildren “moves on” to espouse or to pursue causes to which we ourselves are opposed! –Should we donate to them–so they can invest more in their antithetical causes? Or should we donate to the charitable causes that we believe in and let them do whatever they want apart from our support?

[I have one more idea along these lines based on a conversation I had a few weeks ago with a wealthy man I know.]

What are profits?

I don’t think most of us really understand the concept very well. In fact, I’ll include myself in the number who struggle to understand what profits are.

To illustrate: When you hear that a company made, say, $8 billion last year, what image comes to your mind? –For me, I tend to think: “Oh, wow! They have $8 billion in cash in a bank somewhere–$8 billion that they did not have the year before. “Profits” mean “cash.” That’s what we think.

I’m sure there are more technically correct definitions of the word profits, but here’s a the best working definition I’ve been able to come up with: Profits are any increase in assets for which a business does not have increased liabilities (or debts) other than to the owners. Put another way, profits are an increase in wealth–and (most important to understand–and something I still tend to forget!) wealth comes in many forms other than money!

I say this because, for the longest time, I thought of profits in the same way I thought of a paycheck: profits are the same thing as a paycheck. You take them, bring them to the bank, and buy stuff with them.

But that’s not the case. Read the rest of this entry »