Does Your Family Have a Mission Statement?

When you're facing critical choices that will affect your family's future, it's a lot easier to decide what to do now if you know where you ultimately want to go.

Without that clarity of purpose, wealth can become a source of confusion and conflict for the next generation.

Your money might also might just run out. According to many experts, 70% of families lose their wealth by the second generation. And 90% lose their wealth by the third generation.

To avoid this fate, your family doesn't just need money. You need a common purpose that you unites each member and helps everyone understand what your wealth is really for.

A family mission statement can provide a guide for making personal, financial, and philanthropic decisions for every member of the family, especially at critical moments, such as generational wealth transfers.

Use this three-step process to write a mission statement that will preserve your legacy

1. Schedule a Family Meeting

A mission statement dictated by parents or grandparents will feel like a set of arbitrary rules to second-and-third-generation family members.

If you want to get your whole family on board, you need the people who will be responsible for carrying out the mission to feel like they had a say in shaping its vision and purpose.

Set aside an hour or two when everyone can get together face-to-face. Put it on your family's calendar so that older children understand that this is a high priority. But try to make the process feel more like fun than a chore. Cook your family's favorite meal, or go out to a restaurant. Talk as you sort through memory boxes or family heirlooms.

In a warm, low-stress environment, your whole family will be able to talk freely and focus on what truly matters most.

2. Ask Questions

Once you're settled in, explain what a family mission statement is and what you hope creating one will achieve. Make sure younger participants in particular understand that you're not making a mission statement to decide how to spend your family's money. You're trying to clarify who you are, what matters the most, and how you can shepherd your resources to make your lives and your community better.

You might ask your family:

·What words would you use to describe our family?

·What are our values?

·What are your responsibilities in our family?

·What are your favorite family traditions?

·What charities, causes, or issues are important to us?

·How do we make a difference in our community? How could we do more?

Don't rush through this discussion. And don't make any family members feel like you're leading them to predetermined answers. If you give your family a chance to speak and take the time to really listen, the answers you hear might surprise you, move you, and lead your family to a stronger sense of common purpose.

3. Assemble Your Statement

A mission statement can take many forms.

It could be a direct statement of purpose printed on a piece of paper, signed by every family member.

It could be a list of questions, like the ones above, and your family's answers.

You could make an audio or video recording, giving everyone a chance to speak, that future generations will be able to enjoy.

The family artist might create an image or a symbol that ties all your values together.

Whichever media you choose, formalizing your mission statement will make it feel truly important, something that your family can rally around, reflect on, and prepare to pass on to the next generation.

We’d love to talk about your mission statement at our next meeting. We can incorporate your mission into your Life-Centered Financial Plan and make an annual review of those priorities a part of our process.

At LI Wealth Management, we believe your family's legacy is about more than the wealth you leave behind. A shared mission can help bring generations together, clarify what matters most, and provide a guide for important financial and philanthropic decisions. Visit our website or book a free session today. Together, we'll review your Lifeline and incorporate your family's mission into a Life-Centered Financial Plan that keeps your values at the heart of your legacy.