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 »

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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 »

A couple of weeks ago, Sarita and I were at a conference for major donors sponsored by one of the charities we support.

Henry Doorn, president of the Barnabas Foundation, noted there are only three places your money can go when you die: to your heirs (family, friends), to charity, or to the government. He didn’t quite put it this way, but my mind put his follow-through question in the form of Evangelism Explosion’s standard opening. As I remember it, he asked, “If you were to die tonight, do you know for sure where your money would go?”

Sarita and I spent a lot of money back in 1998-99 getting an estate plan put together. But when Doorn asked the question, I realized, in my heart of hearts, that I didn’t know the answer!

I knew we had done everything possible to minimize taxes and maximize transfer to our heirs, our children. But we had done nothing to ensure anything goes to any of the charities we care about. And, worse, Read the rest of this entry »