Philanthropic strategists often work closely with families to help them establish, refine or refocus mutigenerational family foundations and donor-advised funds. Some of these families enjoy long histories of open communication across the generations – about money, values and charity. Many others, however, find these topics extremely difficult to broach.

Multigenerational family philanthropy creates a unique opportunity for every family to set a new table so that all adult and young adult family members are invited to sit, share, develop and act upon common values and goals around money and philanthropy.

  • The first step to setting a new family table and creating a “safe zone” is to jointly establish new ground rules.
  • The next step is to determine a common purpose for the family‘s philanthropic endeavor.
  • Creation of a good mission statement is the next step in setting up a “safe zone” for family philanthropy.

Following these three steps to creating a “safe zone” makes it much more likely that the family’s philanthropic efforts will succeed.

Read the source article by Bruce DeBoskey about family philanthropy from at ncfp.org