Holding a Family Conference
Excerpted from Generous Living: Finding Contentment Through Giving by Ron Blue
What would happen if you got all of your children and their spouses together in one room and started talking about money? I don't mean money in the abstract; I mean money as in your money—and more specifically, what will happen to your money when you die.
Could you do it? Could you, as a parent, handle the practical and emotional challenges of communicating your estate plan to your children?
What about them? Would they sit there in an embarrassed or awkward silence, unwilling to discuss issues related to your mortality? Or would they start clamoring for center stage, grabbing for the bank accounts and the family silver like a pack of wild hyenas?
Chances are you have spent considerable time and mental effort thinking about your estate plan as well as your current charitable giving strategies. You have made countless choices and decisions, many of them difficult. You have reached the point where, like most people, you have made your estate documents, put them in a safety deposit box, and forgotten about them.
Let me challenge you to take another path. Instead of looking at your estate plan as a document (or set of documents) that can be taken out and dusted off after your funeral service, take the time to explain and review your wills in the presence of your heirs. Schedule a family conference.
A family conference is a meeting where you review and discuss your estate plan with your heirs. In addition to going over your wills, you can explain your current and future charitable giving plans, outline your vision for transferring or selling your business, and cover any other areas that your vision might generate future questions or concerns.
As a parent, you approach a family conference in one of two ways: You and your spouse can come to the meeting having already made all the decisions and use the gathering as a platform for communicating your distribution plan, or you can voice your thoughts and then entertain discussion from other family members. Both types of meetings can be a positive experience, but if your plan is to leave a large amount to charity and a relatively small amount to your children, you may want to choose the latter option, explaining your rationale and then opening the floor to input from other family members. Using this approach, and by scheduling several successive family conferences, you may be able to educate your children as to the potential pitfalls of a large inheritance and thus equip them to accept what you are doing without bitterness or resentment.
Every family has a conference at some point. Usually, this meeting takes place in the emotion-charged days following a funeral, when an attorney, advisor, or some family member summons everyone for the reading of the will. If this is the first exposure your heirs have to the provisions in your estate plan, the revelations could generate tension, bitterness, uncertainty, and misunderstanding. I think Ben Franklin may have said it best when he observed,
“If you want to really know someone, try sharing an inheritance with them.”
A FAMILY CONFERENCE OFFERS AT LEAST two distinct benefits. First, it facilitates intergenerational communication that allows parents to share their philosophy, beliefs, and values regarding finances, as well as to explain how their financial decisions—both current and deferred—will affect their children. In addition, a family conference can afford an excellent opportunity for financial teaching and guidance.
Communication
The family conference is not just an opportunity for parents to explain their current giving strategies (that is, how much they currently give to their children and to charity, and why). The meeting also affords an excellent vehicle whereby parents can clarify the provisions in their wills. While no one requires parents to communicate their intentions to their children, it’s not hard to imagine the difficulty your heirs might have trying to understand your decisions, were you not around to explain them. By neglecting to schedule an “all present” discussion, you can open the door to misunderstandings, questions of motive, bitterness, and disunity among family members when it comes time for the “reading of the will.”
The communication that marks an effective family conference is a two-way street. As you detail your estate planning decisions, your children will probably have questions and comments. Remember that money is a tool. It should never serve as a stumbling block or barrier to your children's faith, nor should it be allowed to drive a wedge between family members. If problems like these surface during your family conference, you may need to rethink some of your decisions and, if necessary, make changes in your wills.
Guidance
The other major advantage of having a family conference is the vehicle that the gathering represents for financial guidance. As parents, our job is to teach and train our children to handle money wisely. Our firm has worked with countless clients to schedule and conduct family conferences, and we have been asked to speak on everything from husband-wife relationships to the biblical principles of budgeting.
If your children are in their teens when you schedule your first family conference, you may want to focus on issues like budgeting and understanding the cash flow process. If your kids are older, say in their thirties or forties, you may want to review with them what the Bible says about investing, giving, accumulating money, and training their own children to handle their finances—and all the more so as the distribution of your assets becomes more imminent.
If your family has a history of poor communication or strained relationships, you may have to do some prep work before the conference begins or plan to hold several successive conferences. Decide what you want to communicate and how you will respond to any foreseeable negative responses. Pray for wisdom and love as you approach your family with this sometimes difficult and uncomfortable subject.
Faith & Finance Perspective
Chances are, you’ve encountered a family embroiled in a conflict over the division of an estate. In some cases, siblings battle over their share of the spoils, while others challenge the charitable intent of their parents’ wishes. In any case, the results can be devastating, divisive, and long-term.
Debt and consumerism often undermine the peaceful transfer of assets. Heirs with significant debt are more likely to respond in desperation in order to climb out of the deep hole they’ve dug with the shovel of mismanaged finances. Others, in pursuit of their version of the American dream, feel entitled to grab whatever they can to enter the next echelon of luxury and comfort. Sadly, these issues most commonly arise just after the surviving parent’s passing, adding an element of conflict that robs the family of their opportunity to grieve well together.
These common pitfalls can often be avoided simply through well-planned communication and well-intentioned guidance. Family conferences provide an early-on means to set expectations, give everyone a voice at the table, and offer the entire family a means to “own” the legacy—regardless of how it is divided. Most importantly, it allows the parents to articulate their Kingdom and family values in ways that can be embraced, cherished, and passed on to future generations.
These commandments that I give you today are to be on your hearts. Impress them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up.
- Deuteronomy 6:6-7