Three Key Steps to Planning a Successful Family Meeting About Your Wealth

One of the most common questions family decision makers ask their advisors is, “How can I make sure my children are prepared for wealth?” This usually comes at a crucial point in the family’s collective experience, such as when a death in the family has caused a shift in family wealth, or after the sale of a family-owned business.

Sometimes, discussions are held to help younger generations have a clear understanding of the family wealth: how the wealth came to be, how it has been sustained and how it can be used to fulfill the family’s purpose or goals. Perhaps they are finally coming to an age when conversations about family wealth can become more robust and transparent.

A formal family meeting can create a launch pad for more detailed and sophisticated conversations with your family’s next generations. The opportunity to get the whole family together might initiate unique conversations.

Every family meeting looks different, and you may want to customize your family meeting so it reflects your goals and objectives. The following are a few steps to help you create the most effective meeting possible.

Create goals and an agenda for the meeting
Prepare the family for the meeting
Host the gathering and develop a plan for future meetings

Step 1: Determine goals and create an agenda

A family meeting can mean many things to many people, so it’s crucial to spend ample time with your advisory team to determine your goals for the meeting. For some families, the objective is simply for parents and/or grandparents to communicate with younger generations about their estate plans or financial status, while for others, the goals may be more complicated. Your agenda could address some of the following:

How much needs to be communicated?

Up to this point, you have kept certain aspects of your wealth private. However, now you may feel that your children are at a point where they can fully understand your financial situation and how it might benefit the family as a whole in the future. Even if you know what you want to share, conversations explaining the flow of assets under your estate planning documents or discussing the family’s trusts require careful consideration.

Ask yourself, is everyone starting with the same level of knowledge and understanding? If not, could a meeting where terms and concepts can be reviewed before the formal family meeting is held be beneficial? Do you want to discuss responsibilities, dollar values, or both? Some families find success by starting with educating children about the presence of family trusts and the child’s future role and layering in an understanding of the dollar value of the trust once the children are older.

Opportunity to discuss priorities and values

Today’s families are spread across the country, making every moment a family is together that much more important. If this is a first-time family meeting, you may ask each family member to share what is important to them, whether that is some sort of charitable cause or a value they feel strongly about. These may develop into future philanthropic pursuits to support.

Group decision making

Is there a major decision weighing on the family? Perhaps the fate of a beloved family home or property needs to be discussed. Maybe your family anticipates a series of future decision-making events and wants to put structure around that process. One way to create such a process is with family governance, which is a framework where family members can discuss goals and objectives that affect the entire group. This type of formal, agreed-upon method can help all family members feel confident in the process and be more likely to respect and embrace the ultimate outcome.

Once you have determined the key goals of the meeting, the next step is to create an agenda. Maybe you want to share stories about how you learned of the family wealth or what it was like to run the family business. Perhaps you want to share the investment philosophy that has helped your family acquire wealth or talk about the charities you’ve supported over the years.

Step 2: Prepare the family for the meeting

If you’re the family decision maker, you may be excited to get everyone together. However, it’s possible other members of your family don’t know what to expect or might think the meeting is to address another set of goals entirely. As you communicate your plans for the meeting, consider including:

Who will be there?

Will in-laws be invited to the meeting? Will there be an age cutoff for the children? If this meeting is to convey obligations of certain future decision makers — trustees of family trusts, for example — will there be a separate session for them to learn more about of their duties?

Where will the meeting occur?

One option is to gather in your home, where your family may feel most comfortable.

You might also hold the family meeting in a historically significant family location. A university where family members attended, a frequently visited vacation spot, a city to which the family business spread — all make for meaningful and one-of-a-kind experiences.

What will be covered?

We recommend sharing the agenda for the meeting ahead of time to give family members an understanding of the family meeting experience. A one-page agenda with the highlights of the discussion will typically suffice; there is no need to provide every detail. In fact, an overabundance of preparatory materials may be overwhelming.

Other preparatory materials can help inform your family about what to expect on the day of the meeting. A simple glossary of financial terms can give everyone a basic understanding of what will be covered. A family questionnaire can help present opening questions for family members to consider beforehand and share responses with one another.

Step 3: Develop a plan for future meetings

The energy created by a meeting can either be harnessed or lost as everyday life gets in the way. Carve out time at the end of the meeting to create a strategy for the next steps. This way, family members leave the room committed to the same path forward and aware of their obligations.

Sometimes the next steps can be specific action items. For example, if a family meeting resulted in a family philanthropic calendar whereby all charitable gifts would be made by a specific date, it’s fairly easy to know if you’re on track. But some next steps can be broad or may require the involvement of people outside of the family. If your next step is to continue education on a particular topic, you may rely heavily on your team of advisors to guide your family’s progression in this area. When determining the next steps, designate who will hold the group accountable.

Ample preparation and intentional follow-through allow your family meeting to be a success and act as a launch pad for renewed family engagement and communication.

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Three Key Steps to Planning a Successful Family Meeting about Your Wealth