Preliminary draft "Family Wealth Letter of Intent"

Preliminary draft “Family Wealth Letter of Intent”

Want to get a basic idea of what information might prove helpful in setting up a good legacy plan? Check out the following draft Family Wealth Letter of Intent.

Our legacy planner, having spent 17 hours interviewing us in detail on the first and second of this month, sent us the following draft “Family Wealth Letter of Intent” [FWLOI] today based on notes taken during our discussion. As you will see in the first section of the document below, from our planner’s perspective, an FWLOI is meant

To summarize in written form what the writers currently understand God’s plans to be for the remaining time they have on earth, using the time, talents and accumulated treasures that He has given; and
To serve as a guide to the writers’ family and advisors to help them understand the writers’ life priorities, the principles and virtues upon which they are trying to conduct their affairs, and the things they desire to do for their children while also seeking to invest in God’s Kingdom work . . . during life and beyond.

Before you read what follows, I would like to make clear that, though written as if it came from us, the words, the modes of expression, and, even some of the “facts,” are not ours, but our advisor’s. In other words, while most of them are “within the ballpark,” many are in the outfield (while we are standing at home plate), and others, truly, are outside the ballpark altogether. We would never say the things he “place in our mouths.” So please: take these with some very large–very large!–grains of salt!

I say this because, if you take these words as accurate reflections of the things we said during our interviews, I am afraid they may cause offense . . . unnecessary offense. Indeed, I myself take offense at some of the things he has offered for me to say.

So, considering my own objections to it, why do I share this document with you?

Primarily because I want you to see the full process we are going through. Sometimes the process is easy; often, I’m afraid, it is–or is going to be–very difficult. Most importantly, I think you need to understand that legacy planning is an iterative process.

[I will share the "final" version of our FWLOI later, when we get it done.]

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John and Sarita Holzmann
Family Wealth Letter of Intent
(First Draft)

Introduction

  This letter is the first step in a planning process that we have undertaken to be the best possible stewards of all that God has entrusted to us. What follows is the result of several hours of guided conversation, prayer and soul-searching prior to, during and after our recent day and a half Discovery Retreat with our Family Wealth Counselors. During this time we were asked many, very important questions–questions of major importance to us and our family. It was clear to us that several of the issues raised during the retreat were ones that we had not discussed or fully thought through prior to this time. This experience is helping us see more clearly many critical life-planning issues and opportunities needing to be addressed and helping us develop a better sense of direction on what we can and should be doing with all the Lord has blessed us with. So, the purpose of this letter is two-fold:

  (a) To put into writing what we currently understand God’s plans for us to be for the remaining time we have on earth, using the time, talents and accumulated treasures that He has so generously given us to steward according to His will; and

  (b) To be a guide for our family and advisors to help them understand our life priorities, the principles and virtues upon which we are trying to live our lives, and what we desire to do for our children while also seeking to invest in God’s Kingdom work during the rest of our lives and beyond.

  It is our strong desire to plan our personal and financial affairs in ways that (1) will please the Lord and (2) enable us to create the maximum capacity to do the most good for the most people with who we are and what we are blessed to possess.

Honoring Those Who Shaped our Lives

   Sarita:

  There were a few people in my life during my formative years that had a significant impact on me while I was growing up. My parents both came from the Netherlands and were very reserved. They were both quite calm and never expressed much affection. I never heard them fight. My mother, S_____, provided a very stable, family-oriented environment for me to grow up in. My father, T_____, was a very reserved man. My parents were both very frugal and that way of life certainly has carried over to me in my adult years. We did many things as a family like taking Sunday hikes and going camping. Church attendance was a regular part of my life growing up as well. My parents gave me a safe and stable Christian environment in which to grow up and I am grateful for such a blessed heritage.

  During my younger years, Sue S_____ was one of my very best friends until we moved away. We would spend almost every day together playing dolls. Another important person in my life was Micky D_____ who was my day camp boss. She played a very important role in my young life both as my boss as well as a role model.

   John:

  I had many influential people in my life growing up. The two most influential were my parents. My mother, M_____, was a significantly positive role model and my father, E_____, was a significantly negative role model. I have come to realize that you can learn just as much from a negative role model in your life as you can from a positive one, even though learning lessons from a negative role model is usually more painful and costly. My mother was the one person in my life who really pushed me to follow Jesus. She was always communicating to me that I was “okay.” My father, on the other hand, was hyper-critical of me which forced me to seek to excel in all that I did, particularly in how I wrote. My experiences with my extremely dysfunctional family life growing up drove me to towards the Lord and it was only by His teaching, love and grace and my stable, loving wife that I have been able to break the chains of family conflict and bitterness that I was forced to endure growing up.

  I had several elementary school teachers who were also significant influences on my life. Mrs. Driscoll, my 2nd grade teacher taught me that hard work can be very rewarding. Mr. Strange, my 5th grade teacher, taught me that learning can be fun. And Mr. Brown, my sixth grade teacher, impressed upon me that I need to care about what I am doing.

Our Marriage

  The two of us are about as different as two people can be. It is clearly a perfect example of “opposites attract”. The differences are quite noticeable to those who know us. Sarita is extremely organized while John is quite unorganized. John is more spontaneous and Sarita is much more planned and methodical. Sarita is more practical and John is more intellectual. John feeds on interaction with people; Sarita is drained by it. Sarita is more skeptical while John is fascinated with new ideas. John likes to “live out loud” while Sarita prefers to be more private. Sarita is prompt while John finds keeping a schedule to be a continual challenge.

  We do have several likenesses that are foundational in our relationship as well. We both love the Lord with all our hearts and we are committed to using all that we are and all that we have to expand and enhance the Kingdom of God. Next to this, we are committed to loving each other and maintaining unity in our relationship. We are both equally committed to our family. We like to work hard and play hard.

  So, it can be said that between the two of us we make one really complete and effective person. And that is really what marriage is designed to do, to take the strengths and weaknesses of each spouse and mold them together so that one spouse’s weaknesses are covered by the other spouse’s strengths.

How We Obtained Our Wealth

  Neither of us grew up in an environment where wealth was part of our lives. Even though our families were not necessarily poor, John’s family always talked and acting like they were poor. Even though Sarita’s father earned substantially less than John’s father, Sarita’s family always seemed to be in better financial condition than John’s. So, neither of us brought any financial substance to our marriage and for quite a few years following our marriage while we were working with mission organizations, we were living with extremely modest means.

  To date, neither of us has received any inherited wealth from our families. The wealth that we now possess has, for the most part, all come as a result of the Lord’s blessings since we began [our first company]. And we can only say that the tremendous financial success we have realized has far exceeded anything we ever imagined back when we first began our little enterprise.

  With this rather significant measure of success we have enjoyed in the business, we will quickly admit that the wealth we have accumulated is more the result of God’s grace and blessing on our efforts than a result of our own labor, diligence and genius – although we have no doubt poured every part of our lives into building the business. We strongly affirm that without the favorable hand of God blessing our efforts, our business would be nothing of what it is today and the material prosperity we now steward would not be ours. We are mindful of Deuteronomy 8:17-18 that reminds us not to think that, “My power and the strength of my hand made me this wealth.” Instead we want to, “…remember the Lord your God, for it is He who is giving you power to make wealth…”

Our Beliefs Concerning What Is Important In Life

  We are convinced that the single most important possession in life is believing that Jesus Christ is the Son of God and having a personal relationship with Him. Everything else in life pales before this most prized possession. Life cannot be enjoyed to its fullest nor with abundance without Him.

  Both of us are committed to living our lives as best we are able to demonstrate to our family, friends, employees and others that living in a relationship with Jesus Christ is the best way to live. And even though both of us would openly admit that we still have “feet of clay” and continue to “fall short of the glory of God”, it is our desire to utilize all our spiritual, emotional, financial and physical resources to complete our mission of spreading the Gospel of Jesus Christ our Savior to our lost and dying world.

  By saying this, we do not mean to minimize the value, usefulness and enjoyment of material things, which we are still continuing to learn ourselves. But we do want to put them in proper perspective. We know that money cannot buy lasting happiness, inner joy, true peace, or unconditional love. We are also warned about the dangers of greed as Jesus cautioned in Luke 12:15: “Watch out! Be on guard against all kinds of greed; a man’s life does not consist in the abundance of his possessions.” So, this is where money and possessions fall in their importance to us–that of being a powerful tool with which to serve and do good for others.

  I Timothy 6:17-19 says it so well, “Instruct those who are rich in this present world (that would certainly be us) not to be conceited or to fix their hope on the uncertainty of riches, but on God, who richly supplies us with all things to enjoy. Instruct them to do good, to be rich in good works, to be generous and ready to share, storing up for themselves the treasure of a good foundation for the future, so that they may take hold of that which is life indeed.” This is how we are attempting to live our lives and how we want to continue to live in the future.

  Next to our relationship to Christ, we place the greatest importance on our children. Our relationship with all of them brings us the greatest degree of joy. There is nothing that we place more value on in this world than these relationships. We treasure every moment we can spend with them. We are so blessed that we as a family are all close spiritually and emotionally. One of our greatest desires is to continue to further deepen our relationship with our entire family in the future. Our hope and our goal is that everything we do in the way of planning will only enhance their lives and bring them even greater joy and blessing in the future and that there will be no burden in any of it for them.

Our Responsibility to Each Other

  In planning for the future, we recognize that our first responsibility is to ensure that all our own chosen financial needs are met and that we can maintain the modest lifestyle that we believe is appropriate for us and pleasing to the Lord. We are aware that we are currently living substantially below our financial means and we have no intention of increasing our lifestyle in any significant way in the future. We do want to develop our plans to make certain (as best we can in an uncertain world) that we have set aside enough financial resources to ensure we can maintain our current lifestyle for the rest of our lives and to maintain an adequate reserve to take care of any emergencies that we might face in the future. We continue to find much greater joy and excitement in giving away our surplus income and wealth to support God’s Kingdom work than we do in increasing our personal consumption on ourselves and our personal lifestyle.

Our Responsibility to Our Heirs

  The first inheritance we most want to leave our heirs is not material, but spiritual. As Jesus taught “What good is it for a man to gain the whole world, yet forfeit his own soul or what can a man give in exchange for his soul” (Matthew 16:26) and “But seek first the Kingdom of God and all these things will be given to you as well” (Matthew 6:33). To pass on our faith in Jesus Christ to our children and eventually to their children is in our judgment the most prized inheritance any parent can give their family.

  Concerning our children’s material inheritance from us, it is our desire to bestow on them enough wealth that they will feel they can do anything (pleasing to the Lord), but not so much that they might choose to do nothing. We believe that inherited wealth can bless or ruin. The same wealth that can open doors of opportunity for some people can also slam shut the door of motivation to work for others. There are many horror stories of wrecked lives of heirs who were mentally, physically and spiritually ruined by well-intentioned parents and grandparents who mistakenly over-inherited their unprepared heirs.

  It is interesting that Jesus talks more in the New Testament about money and wealth and its dangers than any other topic. In the Old Testament, King Solomon, the wisest man who ever lived has written extensively on wealth in Proverbs and Ecclesiastes; he writes about what wealth does both for and to those who possess and inherit it. We agree that “wealth is like a blazing fire”. It can serve a good purpose “to cook and warm” or a destructive purpose “to burn and destroy”. Therefore we strongly desire that our material inheritance that we will pass on to our children will be for a good purpose “to bless and not to harm”.

  Accordingly, we want to be careful that our children’s material inheritance is appropriate and will provide them with life-opportunities without encouraging them to follow a non-productive lifestyle. We sincerely hope to be guided by godly wisdom and counsel regarding this complex and, frankly, dangerous area of planning. We intend to include our children in our discussions on these matters. We are strongly committed to helping prepare them for the long-term ramifications our current and future planning will have on them and ultimately on their children as well.

  To the extent that we can, we want to give our children the majority of their inheritance while we are still alive so we can be available to mentor, coach and encourage them in how to wisely steward the financial legacy they will receive from us. We have already begun that process and wish to fine tune our plans as we continue to develop our family’s Master Stewardship Plan.

Our Responsibility to Others

  We believe that God calls us to be givers and conduits to pass on the financial blessings we receive to help others and to bring God all the honor and glory that is due Him. This is not an option, it is a Biblical mandate–regardless of the amount of wealth one has. We are already seriously committed to giving a substantial portion of our annual income away each year to support Kingdom causes. We are also excited about starting to give our surplus wealth away beyond what we need to maintain our current lifestyle and to provide our children an appropriate inheritance. We believe God has blessed us with the ability and the opportunity to make tremendous amounts of money so that we can participate in the honor and the privilege of being conduits of His resources funneling His resources through us to impact the world for Christ and expand his Kingdom on this earth.

  We understand the concept of “social capital”, an obligation we have as American citizens to contribute a portion of our accumulated wealth for the benefits received from living in this country. We also understand that our laws require these payments to be made to the IRS through gift and estate taxes, but with proper legal and strategic planning, we can choose rather to self-direct all of our social capital to worthwhile ministries and causes that we genuinely care about and want to help. This self-direction allows us to send our social capital into areas of need where we believe it will do the most good rather than letting the government direct the funds to their preferred causes, which in many cases we may actually be ethically, socially and morally opposed to. To the extent that our Master Stewardship Planning can eliminate paying taxes, allowing us to increase our giving to support the Christian ministries we most care about, without diminishing our desired inheritance for our children, we wish to do so.

  Even though we have been giving a meaningful amount of our annual income away each year, we recognize that we still have even more to give away and through creative planning we want to do so in the most tax efficient way possible in order to maximize what will end up in Kingdom initiatives.

  Our giving interests primarily focus on the unreached people groups in the 10-40 window. Consequently, we are significant supporters of Wycliffe Bible Translators, Mission India, Far East Broadcasting Company, and Frontiers, as well as our local church.

  Lastly, of all the legacies that we would hope to leave our children and grandchildren, we would most desire to leave them a legacy of concern for others, and living with open hands and giving hearts. It is a biblical truth that in giving we receive one of the greatest joys in life, because we are blessed and we bless others as well when we give–a double blessing.

  It is our desire that going forward we want to begin actively including our children in our financial giving decisions. We hope to make this a significant legacy for our entire family as we work together to make a difference on this earth with what the Lord has entrusted to us.

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John Holzmann Sarita Holzmann

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