Preserve Your Values and Legacy

Making Your Estate Plan Meaningful

Many folks think of “estate planning” as what happens to their property and money when they die. While that is an important aspect of an estate plan, proper estate planning – one that values legacy planning – is vastly more than that. It is about infusing the documents that make up your plan with purpose and intentionality.

A well-thought-out estate plan empowers you to pass down virtues, values, and a legacy of excellence in a variety of ways.

Leaving a legacy means purposefully planting seeds of purpose and meaning within your estate planning documents.

For example, you may choose to provide a worthwhile charity or ministry with long-term support through your estate plan. In this way, you may pass down values that are important to you.

Generational Wealth & Appropriate Distribution

Additionally, legacy planning may include building generation wealth and ensuring that any inheritance is given to a beneficiary in alignment with your values and tailored to the beneficiary’s needs. No one wants to enable a bad habit or create a lazy “trust fund baby”. That is why we encourage a strategic plan for leaving gifts that often include incentives or disincentives, clear standards, age requirements, or giving discretion to the trustee with respect to what sort of distribution is appropriate.

Vision & Purpose

While you are living, you can prepare your loved ones by sharing your vision for your overall plan and educating your heirs and trustees on your plan’s purposes. This will enable everyone to be on the same page when you pass away and your plan moves into the post-mortem stage.

Documenting Memories, Lessons, & Values

One thing we encourage clients to do is to record on a flash drive, journal, or document some of the notable stories and moments from your life, the most important lessons you’ve learned, what your faith means to you, what your children, siblings, and others mean to you, and what you wish for the lives of those around you. Put this information with your estate planning documents. Sadly, many pass away without fully and clearly articulating such things.