A couple of weeks ago I received a phone call from a Generous Giving consultant. I was invited to join a group of 11 men who were going to visit the founder of a $2 billion company to talk about his and our philosophies and practices of giving . . . and of transferring our material wealth, our values, and our philanthropic perspectives to future generations.

As it turned out, we were to meet not only with the founder (a man in his late 60s), but with his sons, and one of his grandsons. The meeting occurred about a week and a half ago over the course of an afternoon and evening and the next morning.

As I’ve tried to work through the implications of what transpired, and as I’ve attempted to explain to others what occurred, I have realized I carried at least two lessons from the experience. This post is about the first–a lesson I’ve learned before, but never applied in quite this way to my charitable giving interests.

The lesson: That we benefit from participating in peer-level mastermind groups–groups of like-minded individuals who are willing to share their insights, experiences, knowledge, etc., in order to help each other attain a definite goal or purpose. In this case, then, to help each other improve our ability to make effective and generous charitable donations.

I was talking with my sister the other day and I mentioned how valuable this particular meeting had been for me “because I was meeting with fairly wealthy people who are already giving at a high level.”

“Why would that make a difference?” she asked.

“Because they are dealing with the kinds of issues Sarita and I are dealing with as we consider our giving,” I said.

“Like what?” she asked.

What follows is more or less what I discussed with her. Read the rest of this entry »

Some questions for evaluating “how you’re doing” in your life and “where you’re headed.” Read the rest of this entry »

In my last post, I noted that, going in to your estate planning process, you need to answer three fundamental questions:

1. How many of the resources God has placed in your hands do you need in order to live your life as you believe you ought?
    
2. How many of the resources God has placed in your hands will benefit your heirs to help them live their lives as you would like them to be able to live?

   And, finally,

3. To what causes do you want to give what’s left over?

I said that, if you walk in without answers to those three questions, I can almost guarantee that your estate planning attorney will answer those questions for you . . . based on assumptions he or she will make in your behalf.

And what might those assumptions look like?

Here’s my experience. Most estate planning attorneys will assume you want to minimize taxes and, upon your death, pass everything you’ve saved over the course of your life–as much as possible–to your heirs: your children and grandchildren.

And beyond that?

“No assumptions.” –What else could you possibly want?

Well, let me raise some questions to see if even these assumptions are really what you want.

And in this post I hope simply to address the assumption of estate-transfer timing: the idea that your estate should pass to your heirs at your death. Read the rest of this entry »

From a financial or physical wealth perspective, there are three questions every estate plan donor must answer:

1. How many of the resources God has placed in our hands do we need in order to live our lives as we believe we ought?
    
2. How many of the resources God has placed in our hands do our heirs need in order to help them live their lives as we would want them to be able to live?

   And, Read the rest of this entry »

I wrote a couple of days ago about how advisors can skew your perspective.

In the content of my post, I tried to make clear that I don’t believe any of our advisors have deliberately attempted to distort our views. But I do believe they have failed, in different ways, to call our attention to salient facts, issues we really should have addressed, actions we should have taken but didn’t. And those failures have only been revealed as a result of subsequent counselor/advisors calling our attention to the oversights in previous counselors’ advice.

Now that our nation is going through a massive economic dislocation, I am seeing that additional problems with various estate and legacy plans are being brought to light. Read the rest of this entry »

One of James Hughes’ great themes–something he stressed in his first book, Family Wealth, and that he emphasizes again in his latest volume, Family: The Compact Among Generations–is the idea that a family needs to grow its human and intellectual capital. The growth of human and intellectual capital must come before the growth of monetary capital. Human and intellectual capital are more important than monetary capital.

In Family: The Compact Among Generations, Hughes insists that family members must participate in the family from desire and interest rather than out of any sense of obligation or external compulsion.

“[N]o human being will voluntarily join any organization unless he first perceives that he will be enhanced by it before having to contribute to it.” And so, Read the rest of this entry »

A lot of attorneys, it seems, assume what your goals are when you walk into their office to have them draft your final documents: You want them to save as many taxes as possible, and pass on as much of your estate to your children–your heirs–as possible. But, of course, your goals may go far beyond these things. And, in fact–as is the case with my wife and me–you may not wants to pass everything along to your heirs.

It’s always helpful, when you walk into your attorney’s office, if you already have your goals clearly in mind. To help clarify some of these issues for you, consider the following list. What’s on your mind, and how important are they to you? (If two of these goals compete, which one do you want to “win”?) Read the rest of this entry »

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.