Preparing Future Generations For Financial Success
How do I help my children understand the value of a dollar? How do I set up trusts to give them access to money but not too much too fast? What is the best approach to helping them with their career without giving them too much? How much should I really leave to the kids in my estate plan? These are many of the questions facing wealthy families as they look ahead and worry about the future generations of their family.
HB specializes in working with multi-generational family situations. Instead of providing generic education classes or seminars we focus on a personalized approach unique to each family. We can advise on what we have seen work well (and not work well) in our 30 years of working with wealthy families. We can help you talk with your children or grandchildren about the family wealth situation when the time is right, including helping to facilitate family meetings when appropriate.
Working together, we can help you tackle the challenge of preparing future generations for financial success.
Wealth Transfer Strategies Are Part Of Generational Planning
An often overlooked part of estate planning conversations are the implications of how wealth transfer will occur, including the potential unintended consequences of how trusts are set up for future distributions. Your HB financial advisor can help you link your estate plan details with your goals for how future generations will hopefully honor your values and utilize their inherited wealth.
How Can We Protect Assets From Next Generation Risks?
A common question that families worry about is how to ensure that the next generation does not lose their inheritance via divorce or legal conflict. Your HB financial advisor can help you understand the pros and cons of trust structures and other strategies that can potentially address these concerns.
Family Foundations and Charitable Giving Can Promote Shared Decision Making
Families often do not want to bring the next generation to the table to decide how to spend their money, but they are often more comfortable having those conversations around charitable giving of their money to others. Family foundations and donor advised funds can provide a good starting point for multi-generational shared decision making and discussions about the important values that the family feels are a priority. These charitable giving discussions can eventually transition down the road into a more formal family meeting structure that can start to incorporate the bigger financial picture and conversations about the management of family wealth. Your HB financial advisor can help you with how to use these conversations to get started on the path towards greater involvement and awareness for future generations of your family.
How Do We Build Multi-Generational Wealth?
A common saying in the world of family governance is that values are caught, not taught. Your HB financial advisor can help you think about the implications of how you talk about money and your values with future generations. Avoiding “shirtsleeves to shirtsleeves in three generations” goes beyond the technical expertise related to business succession, estate planning, risk management, and other wealth transfer strategies. Financial education for the next generation is also an important part of the overall multi-generational planning approach.
Planning Your Family Legacy
What values are more important to your family? How do you want your family to be remembered in the community? How do you share these values and priorities with future generations? Your HB financial advisor can help you with tools to identify and share your values and priorities with the broader family.