How to Hold a Legacy Family Wealth Meeting

How to Hold a Legacy Family Wealth Meeting

Multigenerational wealth can be a blessing for families, but it comes with many responsibilities. Among those are keeping family members informed and involved in matters related to the family wealth, and engaging younger generations so they can understand and embrace the core foundational values on which the family legacy has been built.

Family meetings provide an opportunity to keep the family united in carrying on the legacy. Whether these get-togethers are general updates held on a monthly or quarterly schedule, or special meetings held to make decisions and settle matters related to unexpected life events or emerging opportunities, family meetings offer time for bonding, planning, exchanging ideas and — importantly — celebrating successes.

The following tips are designed to help you get the most from your family meetings.

Establish and share the meeting objective(s)and agenda

Every meeting should have an overarching purpose or objective that every family member knows about in advance so that they can prepare to be a productive participant. Depending on available time, you may choose to cover a range of topics, which should be organized in an easy-to-follow agenda distributed prior to the meeting.

Examples of objectives:

• Educating the next generation about the origins of and vision for the family wealth, wealth management basics (financial planning, investment management, private banking, estate planning, insurance, etc.) and other areas that may help them better understand their place in the family legacy
• Philanthropic strategies and opportunities
• Leadership and succession planning for any family businesses
• Estate plan reviews, including trusts, wills and power of attorney documents; trustee, executor, guardian and beneficiary designations and roles; insurance policies; etc
• Responsibilities and privileges related to the family vacation home(s) or other shared properties

Choose a place that fits the occasion

Sometimes, it may make sense to plan a fun weekend away — possibly at your family vacation home or a resort the family loves — so you can balance your meeting agenda with some quality bonding time. Other times, you may want to get to the business at hand as quickly and efficiently as possible. In either case, choose a venue that is inviting and comfortable.

If you do go the route of a getaway weekend, be sure to invite spouses, significant others and children for the quality time, but set clear expectations as to which family members are invited to the meeting itself. Consider planning a special activity for those who won’t be attending the meeting, particularly if it will span a significant length of time.

Identify the meeting facilitator

Keeping the meeting on track toward achieving your stated objectives demands someone with strong communication, listening, organizational and time-management skills, as well as knowledge of the subject matter. This role could be filled by you or another member of the family, or you may choose to bring in wealth advisors, a family counselor or other third-party experts who can offer insights as well as ensure everyone at the table has a voice.

For example, if your focus is financial education, you might invite members of your advisory team to make presentations, field questions from family members and/or moderate discussions around how certain strategies fit into the overall financial plan. If a beloved grandparent, aunt or uncle has just passed away, you might invite a counselor or member of the clergy in addition to appropriate legal representatives so that family members may seek comfort in addition to learning the financial implications of the relative’s passing.

No matter whom you choose to run the meeting, be sure the matriarch or patriarch, or another senior family leader, offers a warm welcome and thanks to everyone for participating in the meeting.

Assign a note taker

The matters your family discusses at a meeting should be clearly, accurately and confidentially documented to minimize misinterpretations and ensure an ongoing record of decisions, action items, topics for further discussion, etc. You may choose to appoint a member of the family who is particularly detail-oriented, or perhaps you’d prefer a trusted assistant from the family office.

Invite open participation within set guidelines

Family meetings should put everyone at ease and encourage family members of all generations to share ideas and insights, while recognizing the importance of respectful, productive dialogue. Invite every meeting attendee to contribute to the conversation. Setting some ground rules ahead of time — turning phones off, not speaking over one another, yielding the floor when others want to contribute, etc. — can help ensure a fair and orderly discussion.

Keep the momentum going

At the end of the meeting, set a tentative date for the next one. Ask what topics the family members in attendance would like to cover and if anyone has a suggestion of venue. The more involved everyone is, the more likely they will be to support and actively participate going forward. Remember, building and sustaining your family’s financial legacy requires ongoing commitment and action.