Core practices for navigating family wealth with intention
While every family will develop their own approach to how they relate to wealth and navigate decisions, here are five core practices that help families think through how they can best use their wealth with intention.
Authored by Merrill Center for Family Wealth®
At the Merrill Center for Family Wealth®, we're privileged to work with hundreds of client families to help them navigate the complexity that wealth brings. Our mission is to empower families to define the purpose of their wealth and to be intentional about their wealth's impact on themselves as individuals; their families, particularly their children or other members of the rising generation; and their communities and society at large.
While every family will develop their own approach to how they relate to wealth and navigate decisions, we've identified five core practices that help families think through how they can best use their wealth with intention.
The Five Core Practices
- Identify the purpose of wealth. Define a concrete purpose of the wealth, rooted in shared family values.
- Translate purpose into principles. Transform the purpose of the wealth into operating principles and guidelines to help drive decision-making.
- Communicate, communicate, communicate. Develop a process to communicate about wealth as a regular, recurring practice.
- Learn experientially. Build skills through experience and commit to learning over time.
- Work with advisors who understand you. Select a team of advisors who not only possess technical expertise but who also invest time to truly understand your family's goals and values.
Developed through in-depth research and insights from client experiences, these core practices can serve as a scaffolding for wealthy families who want to do great things together.
These core practices may sound simple, but they're not easy to implement. We've found that families who persevered and committed to these values-based practices — identifying purpose, translating purpose, communicating regularly, learning through experience, and engaging the support of a strong team — are able to sustain not only their wealth but also enhance the family's well-being. Connect with your advisor, who can discuss ways to implement these ideas in your family and can also provide you with additional insights on this topic.
