The process of estate planning is often looked upon as a purely financial endeavor. You create a will or trust to facilitate asset distributions, and the job is done. This is one way to look at it, and a basic estate plan is far better than no estate plan at all.
However, if you would like to take a more comprehensive approach, you can engage in the process of legacy planning. When you carefully craft a legacy plan, you pass along things to your loved ones that can transcend mere dollars and cents.
In this blog post, we will provide some food for thought that you may want to contemplate when you are thinking about the future.
Family Heirlooms
The heirlooms that you have in your possession may or may not have monetary value to speak of, but they certainly have a great deal of emotional and sentimental value. You have probably had family members tell you that they were especially fond of particular items. When you devise your legacy plan, you can consider the ideal caretaker for each family heirloom so that your ancestors’ legacies can live on after you are gone.
Personal Memoirs
If you are so inclined, you may want to record your personal memoirs when you are putting your legacy plan in place. This can be cathartic for you as the author, and you would also be leaving behind a valuable chronicle that your loved ones could draw from in the future.
The formative experiences that you personally lived would be part of the equation, but you would also be sharing family history if you record your memories in writing.
Ethical Will
We have all heard of the last will or last will and testament, which is an asset transfer vehicle. This is not the only variation of a will that is used in the field of estate planning.
Another type of will that has been used for centuries is the ethical will. Undoubtedly, family members have come to you looking for guidance during difficult times. You will not be around forever to provide advice, but you can pass along moral and spiritual values if you create an ethical will.
Charitable Giving
There are few things that are more personally rewarding than acts of charitable giving. If you are like most people, there are institutions and causes that have touched you in some way over the years. When you give something back, you support entities that are dedicated to the common good.
Many people that are interested in philanthropy focus on their community as well. You can finance a new wing at a hospital, sponsor the construction of a youth athletic field, or help your local museum expand. These are a handful of possibilities, but there are many others.
Direct acts of giving can be part of your legacy plan, and there are also effective structures that can be established to provide ongoing assistance. Private family foundations are quite effective, and the majority of them are funded with less than $1 million. Charitable trusts can be used as well, and a donor advised fund would be another option.
Legacy Planning Report
In this blog post, we have touched upon a handful of things that you may want to consider if you decide to proactively engage in the process of legacy planning. There is actually much more to the equation, and you can get all of the information you need if you download our in-depth special report on the subject.
This report is being offered to our readers on a complimentary basis right now, and you can click the following link to gain access: Legacy Planning Report.
Attend a Free Workshop!
If you are on this website, you must be looking for information about important estate planning and elder law topics. There are definitely some fantastic resources here, like the special reports that we touched upon above. This being stated, there is no substitute for a live interaction with a licensed estate planning attorney.
We are holding a series of workshops over the coming weeks, and you can obtain a great deal of very valuable information if you attend the session that fits into your schedule. There is no admission charge, and you can visit our workshop page to check out the dates and get all the details.
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