Make-A-Will Month: Passing on More Than $$
In addition to your assets and cherished possessions, you hold certain values you would love to see your heirs embrace. But you may not be completely certain how to ensure that what you hold dear will abide for generations to come. August is National Make-a-Will Month—a prime opportunity for you and your family to make sure that your legacy will endure long after you pass.
It's an opportunity most people let slip by. Nearly two-thirds of American adults have no estate planning documents at all — no will, no trust, no powers of attorney. More striking still, the share of adults with a will actually fell last year, from 31% to 26%. This isn't a knowledge problem. Nearly everyone intends to get to it. Far fewer ever do.
The cost of that delay isn't measured only in dollars. When someone dies without a plan, the state supplies one — a purely mechanical division of property that knows nothing about the family it's dividing, and says nothing about the person who built it.
You can do considerably better than that.
Where There's a Will, There's a Way to . . .
Provide for your dependents: A will is the only place you can name a guardian for minor children. If you don't, a court will choose for you — someone who never met your family and has no way of knowing your wishes.
The need doesn't end with young children. Aging parents who depend on you need a plan that doesn't collapse when you're gone. And for a family member with a disability, the stakes are unusually high: a person receiving SSI and Medicaid generally cannot hold more than $2,000 in countable assets without losing eligibility. A well-meant direct inheritance can disqualify them from the very benefits they rely on.
Here's the part that surprises people — leaving them out of the will doesn't solve it either. If you die without a plan, intestate succession may route assets to them anyway. The answer is a properly drafted third-party special needs trust, which allows you to provide for their care without jeopardizing their benefits. This is worth doing correctly, and worth doing with help.
Pass on the gifts and blessings to your heirs: Not everything valuable appears on a balance sheet. The table where every holiday meal happened. The tools your father used. The ring, the quilt, the photographs, the books with your grandmother's handwriting in the margins.
These items carry memory, and memory is precisely what families fight over when no one wrote anything down. A personal property memorandum — a simple list, referenced by your will and easily updated without a lawyer — lets you assign specific items to specific people and, better still, say why. A single sentence explaining what an object meant to you can transform an inherited object into an inherited story.
Ensure the ministries and charities you love will continue to be supported. You have given faithfully for years. A bequest lets that giving continue after you're gone.
This is one of the most articulate things an estate plan can do. It tells your family, more convincingly than any lecture, that you always understood your resources as entrusted rather than owned. And it costs nothing during your lifetime — a percentage of the estate, a specific amount, or whatever remains after your family is provided for. For many households, it becomes the largest single gift they ever make.
Spare your heirs from unnecessary conflicts. Ask anyone who has watched a family fracture over an estate, and they will tell you the fight was rarely about money. It was about a perceived slight, an assumption of favoritism, a decision no one explained.
Clarity prevents most of this. So does conversation. The reading of the will should not be the first time your children hear your reasoning. Gather them while you can still answer questions — explain the structure, name the ministry and say why it's there, tell them what you were thinking. You will spare them a great deal, and you'll get to witness your legacy being received rather than simply leaving it behind.
Pass on what's most important to you. This is where most estate plans go quiet, and it's the part your family will treasure most.
Consider writing an ethical will — sometimes called a legacy letter. It carries no legal weight and requires no attorney. It's simply an honest account of what you believe, what you've learned, what you regret, and what you hope for the people reading it. Families consistently report valuing these pages above anything else they inherit. It may prove to be the single most valuable item in your estate, and it costs you nothing but an afternoon.
Pass on what they truly need. Your heirs will need the house, the accounts, the practical provision. But what they'll need — in the sense that lasts — is to know who you were and what you stood for.
Money divides easily and disappears quickly. Character, faith, and a clear sense of what a family is for have to be handed over deliberately. An estate plan is one of the last and clearest ways you will speak to the people you love. It's worth making sure it says something.
Four Questions Worth Asking
This month, we'll be sharing four short videos that explore questions many people never think to ask when creating or updating their estate plan. They take only a few minutes each, and the answers can make a meaningful difference for your family and your legacy.
Watch for them throughout August here. And if this is the year you finally move this off the someday list, you'll be in good company — and better prepared than most.
In addition, Orchard Alliance offers an easy, no-cost way to create or update a will or trust online. If you’re ready to get started, click here to begin the process. If you need some additional guidance on wills, trusts, charitable giving, or how to weave your values into your plan, our team welcomes the conversation. Just call us toll-free at (866) 802-1490 or email willplanning@orchardalliance.org.
Faith & Finance Perspective
Everything you've spent a lifetime accumulating will one day pass through someone else's hands — and that has been true of every generation that came before you. What endures isn't the estate itself, but the faithfulness woven through it: the way you held it loosely, gave it freely, and never mistook it for your own. Your children will remember far less about what you left them than about what they saw you love. Plan well, then trust that the God who has kept every promise to you will keep them to the ones who come after.
Those who are righteous will be long remembered... They share freely and give generously to those in need. Their good deeds will be remembered forever. They will have influence and honor. - Psalm 112:6, 9, NLT
