ADDENDUM as of 2/5/09: While I am still excited about the materials I discuss in this post, it is with great sadness that I feel compelled to note I have discovered there are reasons for caution with respect to the sources referenced herein. [Indeed, though I don't think our daughter, who is mentioned in this post, was aware of the depth of the issues, clearly, she was "on the alert." --I guess I'm suggesting you, too, should probably be on the alert.] With respect to Vision Forum Ministries and Doug Phillips, I call your attention to the series of articles at Ministry Watchman and Jen’s Gems. And with respect to Geoff Botkin, see Who is Geoffrey Botkin? at the Under Much Grace blog.

[Continued discussion of Vision Forum Ministries' program titled The 200 Year Plan: A Practicum on Multi-Generational Faithfulness.]

Start talking about a 200-year plan, and you may find yourself faced with some major opposition! Here’s the story of my first opposition. Read the rest of this entry »

ADDENDUM as of 2/5/09: While I am still excited about the materials I discuss in this post, it is with great sadness that I feel compelled to note I have discovered there are reasons for caution with respect to the sources referenced herein. With respect to Vision Forum Ministries, I call your attention to the series of articles at Ministry Watchman and Jen’s Gems. And with respect to Geoff Botkin, see Who is Geoffrey Botkin? at the Under Much Grace blog.

[Continued discussion of Vision Forum Ministries' program titled The 200 Year Plan: A Practicum on Multi-Generational Faithfulness.]

Sadly, the Vision Forum CD set I purchased provides a sanitized (indeed, in my opinion, overly-sanitized–to the point of being useless) PDF view of the spreadsheet Mr. Botkin showed his audience as he discussed how he built his family’s 200-year plan. (The spreadsheet displayed in the CD shows no headings, no titles, no data at all. It consists, solely, of a grid with a few of the rows and columns colored in. Period. That’s it!)

After persistent attempts to get the company to provide me an example of what Mr. Botkin’s original audience saw, a member of their customer service department wrote back, “The slides originally contained personal information which has since been removed at the request of the speaker. I apologize for any inconvenience that you have experienced and I am sorry that I am currently unable to help you further in this area.”

To their credit, they offered me a refund for the entire CD because this one set of PDFs wasn’t up to par with what I would have hoped for. But I wanted the information more than a refund! So I attempted to contact Mr. Botkin directly in order to acquire a readable example of the spreadsheet and at least an exemplary sample of the data he had developed for his family’s 200-year plan. I was thrilled when he graciously provided what I asked for. I am only now beginning to work through the implications of what he showed me.

Rather than burdening you here with a full rundown of what Botkin sent me; indeed, considering how little I think I really understand the plan, I am numbering this post as #1 in a series. I have no idea how many more posts will come nor how quickly. But let me at least begin working through with you where I am going with our family’s 200-year plan.

Botkin says he first acquired his own “long view” sense of time when he was a young man and Read the rest of this entry »

The further I go with legacy planning, the more detailed I find a plan can–and probably ought to–be.

Here’s a summary of a plan I found in Tracy Gary’s Inspired Philanthropy. Here are the kinds of things she believes a complete legacy plan should include. How inspired are you? Read the rest of this entry »

J____, our legacy planner, wrote to me just before 2 this afternoon.

I have a few minutes before we take off. Would you like to arrange an initial conference call with C____ [the high-powered attorney J____ knows in Denver who specializes in 501(c)(3) issues] to talk about the nonprofit issues and the application process?

Let me know if you would like to do so and I’ll get that arranged when I get back to the office tomorrow.

By the way, when it comes to nonprofit accounting experts [the firm you contacted] is the best. I have known [the founder] for years. They do our corporate and my personal taxes.

“I’d be delighted to speak with C____,” I replied, “if the strategy really can work. Sarita and I would like to move forward.”

This evening, then, after he got home, he wrote, “Your conversation with C____ will be exceedingly worthwhile on all this.”

Then, not quite an hour later:

In the flight magazine on the plane it tells about a AAA minor league baseball team that operates as a nonprofit organization (in Memphis). The baseball team fulfills part of the nonprofit’s mission.

I think your “business” has an even more legitimate mission and purpose that the baseball team. Getting you to be a nonprofit will take time and experience, but it can certainly be done.

While he has been traveling, however, I have done further research. And based on what I have found, I don’t think I can accept his comments without reply. So I just wrote him: Read the rest of this entry »

Our legacy planner says that our current giving patterns (dependent on our income!) would suggest we may be able to give away $x million over the next 32 years–what the average person our age may reasonably be expected to live. If we follow his advice, however, we may be able to give $2.67x million! A wonderful “gear ratio,” from our perspective.

But is his plan workable? Read the rest of this entry »

Today was the big day. I’ve been committed to acquiring a legacy plan, now, for almost a year and a half. Of course, I don’t merely want a plan; I want to implement a plan. But simply to get a proposal in hand so Sarita and I can look at it and (hopefully) say, “Yay, verily, this is what we want to do . . . ” –It’s been just shy of a year and a half.

So our legacy planner and his assistant came to our office and we spent about 3 1/2 hours going through their proposed plan. And it includes: Read the rest of this entry »

J_____, our legacy planner, has been stressing, from the very beginning of our relationship, the need for the professionals on our team — our attorney, our CPA, our investment advisor, and J___ himself — to be on the same page when they speak with Sarita and me.

“You want to include all planning team members in the process from the beginning,” he said. “We need to be able to communicate openly one with another without worrying about being embarrassed or having our egos bruised by having you [John, client] hear any of our questions or comments.”

In order to ensure that end, then, he told us that he would meet with all our advisors prior to telling us anything about the details of the plan he is putting together.

Well, the advisors’ final, pre-presentation meeting was scheduled for this morning. And J_____ just wrote me: Read the rest of this entry »

I don’t know what to think. Our legacy planner, J____, seems pretty excited about whatever-it-is he’s putting together for us. He’s supposed to be one of the nation’s — and, therefore, the world’s — leading legacy planners. So I sure hope he’s not hyping us!

Anyway. He just wrote me:

We have been working feverishly on your Master Stewardship Plan. We have another conference call with L____ and B____ tomorrow morning to review the plan design that we have been developing. I do not expect there will be much in the way of changes from either of them on the draft plan we have been building. We have been keeping them in the loop for the entire process. L____ [our CPA] has be extraordinarily helpful to us. We have not really had S_____ [our investment advisor] involved since most of what we are doing at this point is legal and accounting type planning. I will make sure he has an opportunity to review the proposed Master Stewardship Plan before we present it to you. We can likely send him the draft for his review next week. I cannot imagine he will have any problems with what we are designing. . . .

I will say that I fully expect that you and Sarita are going to be awestruck when you see the plan we are assembling for you. You can hold me to that. I have designed a lot of plans over my career and seen a lot more as well and your plan I think will be one of the most profoundly powerful plans we have ever designed.

Give us just a few more weeks to finish our design work and get the Master Stewardship Plan book and presentation finished and we will be ready to present it to you. I am personally about as excited with your plan as I have been with any plan I have ever designed.

Is that an adequate build up for what is coming?

Stay tuned. We are bearing down on the finish line.

Okay!