One joy I have been given over two decades as a financial planner is seeing how people choose to bless their loved ones. In the financial world, the gift of love often means helping grandkids with college costs, leaving an estate to future generations, an alma mater, favorite charity or church.
To say 2020 has been a record year of people saying “I can’t believe that just happened!” would be an understatement. I think we can all agree on that! But the feeling I get from conversations these days that there’s a lot of uncertainty out there. With my OCD personality, when things get uncertain, I tend to hunker down and focus on what I can control.
Whether you’re currently working with us or not, I hope that, as you’ve read our weekly thoughts, you’ve learned a little about what we do at Family Financial Partners, and about our philosophies when it comes to helping people organize their financial lives and work toward their dreams.
For the last couple of weeks, we’ve been talking about giving, and how and why we see our client families choosing to give away some of their hard-earned assets. Whether it’s for a tax break, to pay forward an opportunity they were given, or simply to feel good about a choice they’re making, we’ve helped many of our clients get the most out of their charitable gifts.
So when it comes to charitable giving, I know I’ve seen patterns over the 19 years I’ve been in this business as people make the decision to give their hard-earned money to an organization or cause.
Winston Churchill once said that, “We make a living by what we get, but we make a life by what we give.” This is why, as financial planners, we always ask our clients about their giving habits, goals and how they feel about their philanthropic efforts. In some ways it can seem counterintuitive – aren’t we trying to help people maximize their assets and save more? Why would we ask them about giving it away? Several reasons, actually.
By now you should have most of your tax documents in hand and you’re thinking about tackling that task of doing your taxes. Maybe you have some charitable donations to consider, or maybe you’re thinking you want to start a giving plan now to maximize your refund next year. Wondering where to start? We can help.
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