Managing Relationships with Advisors

I listened in on a conference call hosted by The National Center for Family Philanthropy on Thursday, July 8th. The topic of discussion was Managing Relationships with Your Legal, Financial, and Investment Advisors. The presenters were Patricia Angus, a New York-based philanthropy and family governance consultant and Dawn Dobras, a trustee of the Stocker Foundation.

Three most important take aways:

1. Do your part! The families, foundations and staff are actively engaged in the process of selecting advisors.
2. Use a systematic process through every stage. The process should be independent and non-subjective. You’ll know what you are getting out of the advisors you hire and you’ll know when its time to change your advisor.
3. Learn and grow! Take away something from every experience going through the process of selecting and working with advisors.

Support For Donor Education

Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisors just announced a new grant received from The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation to develop tools and share best practices with emerging donors. The grant is a one-time gift of $3.7 million. The initiative is leveraging the high interest in effective philanthropy.

They are looking to create a new culture of "great giving" by providing knowledge and resources to allow families to create their own roadmaps for their philanthropy.

Over the next three years they aim to develop more than two dozen guides on issues such as giving motivations, approaches, vehicles, family roles, operations and impact assessment. The guides will be available free of charge via the Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisors website. They will also embark on a program to ensure advisors to the wealthy have access to these guides to share with clients.

I believe that the role of the philanthropic advisor is critical because the idea of putting some thought and infrastructure to your gifting could be seen as daunting. This is really wonderful for everyone involved in the space. The end goal seems to be along the lines of - share stories and knowledge to create an even bigger source of funding. It helps to change the mindset a bit from set aside an amount for charity upon your death versus live it, experience it and manage it the way you want to.

More About The Giving Pledge

Eli and Edythe Broad, John and Ann Doerr, H.F. (Gerry) and Marguerite Lenfest and John and Tashia Morgridge have joined Bill and Melinda Gates and Warren Buffet in The Giving Pledge.

Charlie Rose interviewed the Gateses and Buffet. Its an excellent discussion and explanation of The Giving Pledge. If you have 55 minutes to spare I recommend watching it with your partner or spouse. The discussion makes you think about your own ideas about philanthropy - no matter how big or small.

Its interesting to hear some of their guiding thoughts. With $600 billion in potential pledged assets (according to Fortune), there is a lot at stake to do it right. This idea that you "do what your reference set does" is intriguing. It would be fantastic to bring the learnings and ideas of this reference set to those who have also amassed wealth and have committed a portion to their charitable interests. Success of The Giving Pledge, as defined by Melinda Gates, is having people plan for their philanthropy earlier in their lives. It would be interesting to explore how philanthropic advisors could tap into the work of these committed individuals and share the experiences, learnings and outcomes with the individuals and families with whom they work. Using the train the trainer model, a network of philanthropic advisers could be unleashed to share the wealth (of knowledge)!

The Giving Pledge

“They may not have reached a decision about that, but they have for sure thought about it. The pledge that we’re asking them to make will put them to thinking about the whole issue again.”

“If they wait until they’re making a final will in their nineties, the chance of their brainpower and willpower being better than they are today is nil.”

These are remarks from Warren Buffet who is on the path to challenge, dare, motivate and embarrass the "Great Givers" to commit to giving it away.

You know the dinner party question: "If you could invite anyone you wanted to a dinner party who would you invite?" There was actually a dinner party hosted in New York by David Rockefeller which included Mayor Michael Bloomberg, Oprah Winfrey, Ted Turner and about a dozen more influential people. The topic of discussion was giving it away!

There is a website in support of this venture at: http://givingpledge.org. The Giving Pledge is an effort to invite the wealthiest individuals and families in America to commit to giving the majority of their wealth to the philanthropic causes and charitable organizations of their choice either during their lifetime or after their death.

Warren Buffet is the first to post his pledge. Its typical Buffet (or what I perceive to be typical). I love his last paragraph.

"The reaction of my family and me to our extraordinary good fortune is not guilt, but rather gratitude. Were we to use more than 1% of my claim checks on ourselves, neither our happiness nor our well-being would be enhanced. In contrast, that remaining 99% can have a huge effect on the health and welfare of others. That reality sets an obvious course for me and my family: Keep all we can conceivably need and distribute the rest to society, for its needs. My pledge starts us down that course."

I look forward to tracking the success of this effort. It will certainly be interesting to see the response from those who have amassed incredible wealth!

Kelly Anne Dolan Memorial Fund in PEOPLE Magazine June 10, 2010

Congratulations to the Kelly Anne Dolan Memorial Fund (www.dolanfund.org) which was profiled in People Magazine! The article is in the Heroes Among Us section. The Fund provides advocacy, education, and financial assistance to families caring for ill, disabled and injured children. This issue will be on newsstands June 10th, so pick up a copy! I have been affiliated with this organization since 1998. I currently serve as a Board Member and Secretary. Peggy Dolan, co-founder and Executive Director, is tireless with her efforts to support the needs of families with sick kids. Over the past 34 years, the Fund has helped over 18,000 families! This is wonderful national exposure for this local, grassroots organization!

Network Weaver

I came across a term that I really like - Network Weaver. I read about this term at a blogspot - http://networkweaver.blogspot.com. Network Weavers connect people strategically where there is the potential for mutual benefit, help people identify their passions and serve as a catalyst for groups. I have completely gravitated towards this notion of weaving. It is a great metaphor for the work of philanthropic advisors. We do just this - help people uncover their passions and then connect them to people and organizations to carry out the work.

Wealth in Families

Charles w. Collier of Harvard published a second edition of his book, Wealth in Families. The second edition was released in 2006. I just reread the book and I find it to be a wonderful source of information and perspective into the lives of families. He poses "essential questions" for consideration. These are: What is really important to your family? What are your family's true assets? What should you do to guide and support the life journey of each family member over time? How wealthy do you want your children to be? Do you feel you have a responsibility to society? These are tough questions that deserve some hard contemplation. Articulating the answers helps energize and bring together first a couple and then a family. Sometimes having an objective person in the room helps so that you can hear yourself and your partner speak without having to worry about capturing the precious information being gathered. Collier defines a successful family as "one that knows who it is, what it stands for, and where it is going." This sounds simple, but in reality it is more difficult to achieve. The book is full of questions and live examples of families who have been on a journey. I highly recommend this book and I don't think that you need to have significant wealth for it to be meaningful. The issues are truly fundamental.