Legacy planning is a powerful tool that helps you provide for future generations and ensure your family’s financial well-being long after you’re gone.
But legacy planning is about more than just transferring wealth — it’s about planting the seeds for a thriving family tree that will blossom for generations.
One of the most effective ways to cultivate this legacy is through regular Family Meetings. By bringing together parents, children, grandparents and other loved ones to openly discuss family history, values and financial goals, you’re laying the groundwork for a lasting and impactful legacy that can change your family tree forever.
Why Family Meetings?
The main objective of a Family Meeting is to foster open, honest communication about topics that are often avoided, like death and inheritance. These meetings can provide a forum to:
- Share your family’s story, history and journey — the roots of your family tree
- Discuss the values and principles that are most important to your family — think of this as the rich soil that helps future generations thrive
- Talk about the financial sacrifices and decisions that enabled wealth creation and growth
- Outline your hopes and goals for how wealth can benefit the family over generations — what’s your vision for a flourishing family tree?
- Engage everyone early on in discussions about money to prepare them to be responsible stewards of your family legacy.
By making these conversations a normal part of family life, you can create a strong foundation for your family tree to grow.
How is a Family Meeting structured?
To start, we encourage families to invite a broad group — parents, children, grandparents, and even your children’s partners. As advisors, we then help facilitate the meeting and guide the discussion.
The meeting agenda should include:
- Sharing your family’s history and story
- Discussing family values and life goals
- Presenting a snapshot of your family’s current wealth and assets — the resources that can help the family tree thrive now and in the future
- Outlining a framework for how your family can use its resources to live out its values and enrich future branches of the tree.
While you don’t need to get into specifics at a Family Meeting, it’s certainly appropriate to discuss things like properties or assets and how people feel they should be handled to benefit the family or even individuals long-term. (For instance, one child or grandchild could have a strong affinity to a cottage or particular family heirloom — it can be helpful to uncover these attachments with everyone present.) The goal is to get everyone rooted in the same vision for the family’s future.
From here, you can plan to meet annually to check in on progress, celebrate how the family tree is growing, and continue the conversation as new branches form. Over time, everyone will gain a deep appreciation for their role in caring for the family tree.
How the Family Meeting can inform legacy planning
The most important purpose for a Family Meeting is to lay the groundwork for legacy planning — putting in place structural supports that help your family tree weather any storms. These include:
- Creating a wealth transfer strategy to minimize taxes and ensure assets go to the right people in the right way to support the family tree’s growth
- Identifying clear goals for how much wealth grandparents and parents want to transfer to nurture next generations
- Communicating with children and grandchildren about what they can expect and preparing them to steward the family’s resources wisely
- Building flexibility into your plan to adapt to the changing needs of your family over time
- Aligning your wealth transfer plans with your core family values — the deep roots you discovered or rediscovered at your Family Meeting that keeps your family tree anchored and strong.
By engaging in proactive legacy planning and making Family Meetings an ongoing tradition, you’ll equip your loved ones with the perspective and skills they need to use wealth as a tool to help every branch of the family tree thrive for generations to come.
Changing your family tree through legacy planning and Family Meetings takes time and intentionality — but the result is a living legacy that can endure long after you’re gone. If you want to explore how to plant the seeds for the future, let’s talk. We’re always here to help.