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| Building Your Family's 100 Year Plan: The Series |
100 Year Plan Part III: The Practice of Charity
Brett Anderson and Thomas M. Kostigen
02/02/2004
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Toward this end, each of us must undergo a process in which we consider the following:
• Who will lead the initiative?
• What authority will be given?
• How will other family members
be engaged?
• Will the foundation or trust
have a board?
• How large should it be?
• How will power be shared
among the board members? |
Oftentimes, the financial leader of the family becomes the default leader of our foundations, since this person frequently possesses considerable administrative and investment acumen. In the second or third generation, however, where the wealth is predominantly inherited and not necessarily created by an individual, that natural sense of authority is not imbued in any one person in the same way that it is with the wealth creator. In these cases, unless the leader of the previous generation has anointed a successor, the job falls to the individual with the most interest.
Perhaps the most essential variable in the long-term success of this equation is not authority itself, but the sharing of it. Continuity being one of the prime directives of our 100-year plans, maintaining the meaningful engagement of all family members must be a prime directive. Here the challenge centers on maintaining an even playing field, even when the family leader is concerned. Those of us with a keener business sense or special know-ledge of a certain discipline may be inclined to push our foundations—and our family members—in the directions we believe they should go. "But if the agenda for coming together as a family is to decide on where to give money away," observes Karen Putnam, principal and director of Philanthropic Advisory Services for Bessemer Trust, "it is one of the few occasions when you can have a level playing field if you are willing to be flexible in allowing individuals to articulate their own points of view."
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