Creating Value Through Your Family’s Philanthropy
Philanthropy goes far beyond tearing checks out of a checkbook. Deploying resources to charity, by way of a family philanthropy plan, is an excellent way to cultivate your family’s legacy in a way that unites your family, enhances the community, and shows you are grateful for what you and your family have achieved.
Coppertree realizes there are many different motivations driving a family to be philanthropic. Some families want primarily to leave a legacy. Others want to strengthen the bonds and character of the family members. Others want to create leverage to change society for the better. Still others want to develop expertise to solve medical or scientific problems. All want to give back in a way that reflects their family’s values. In developing a customized philanthropy plan just for you, Coppertree spends significant time understanding and appreciating your motivations for giving back.
The Process
Coppertree uses the information already present in your Family Continuity Plan to create structures that best fit your situation. What is best for your family: a family foundation, a charitable trust, a donor advised fund, a supporting organization, or some combination of all of them? No one family is the same, so no one structure is always the best for every family.
Coppertree brings the same business discipline of Coppertree’s CFO role to bear on a family’s philanthropy. No matter how great a family’s wealth, it is never great enough to solve all the philanthropic needs that a family chooses to focus on, let alone all the philanthropic needs in the world. Coppertree guides the philanthropic family to judge how best to deploy its resources for giving back. Consider this brief list of issues:
- How do you develop a strategic focus for giving back?
- How should you pick which charities best fit your focus?
- How do you know which charities will use your money to get the best results?
- How can you be sure the charity will use your money the way you want it used?
- Which charities offer leverage to yield big effects from relatively small dollars?
- What are the most effective ways to structure personal experiences for you and your
family members to become involved personally in your giving back?
- What are the best legal ways to make grants internationally?
Coppertree supplies families with resources to handle every aspect of a philanthropy plan, from the first question to the last grant. Coppertree treats family philanthropy as integral to a Family Continuity Plan and to a family’s legacy.
