Keeping Family Funds on the Same Page

LETTERS TO THE EDITOR

To the Editor:

Your article “Governing From Afar” (August 3), about the growing number of family foundations run by far-flung trustees from different generations, prompts two brief comments, one on logistics, the other on donor intent.

One cannot overstate the disparity of wealth that is already evident by the third generation and the resulting challenges in how to engage future generations in philanthropy.

Children and grandchildren of affluence can often choose lives of “meaning” rather than the pursuit of additional wealth.

Many families don’t want to penalize those choices by precluding their voice in family philanthropy.

Establishing an equitable honorarium system helps to guarantee equitable participation regardless of career choice and geographic residence.

A related issue is the challenge of honoring the original donor intent, which becomes exacerbated as children and grandchildren move, literally and figuratively, from their homestead.

There is a natural and inevitable dynamic tension between wanting to enfranchise subsequent generations and respecting the values of the original donor.

The article mentioned a few ways of relieving these tensions. I would like to add an additional one from my own practice, an unusual reconciliation of these two values:

Faced with a growing range of interests on the part of the second and third generations, one family chose to develop “negative guidelines” — a list of categories that would have been anathema to the family patriarch, and therefore off limits for funding.

Anything that was not precluded could be eligible for consideration.

Richard A. Marker
Principal
Marker Goldsmith Advisors
New York