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A Family Mission Statement Can Keep Family
Goals First and Money Squabbles at Bay
When rich families squabble over the family legacy, it
becomes headline news. Witness the recent battle over the
ownership of the Wall Street Journal between members of the
Bancroft family. When approached by media titan Rupert Murdoch,
various family members fought over whether to preserve the
family legacy at the legendary daily business paper or take the
money and run. Money eventually won.
For most average Americans, such stories are an illustration
not only of how money doesn't buy happiness, but how it breeds
dissention and distance between people who could be enjoying
their wealth and moving in concert. With all that money, how can
people be so unhappy and contentious?
Families with substantial assets — or the promise of
substantial assets as a business grows — might consider creating
a family mission statement. While the end product should produce
a document built from discussion, argument and consensus, it's
not so much about the piece of paper as the process. When a
family sits down to discuss what is really important to them,
it's an opportunity to take the machine apart and see how it
works. Many families start the process as a way to build
consensus about long-term financial, business, estate and
philanthropic goals, but to their surprise, money can take a
back seat. Families discover particular strengths, weaknesses
and unexpected courses of action within their ranks. The process
might identify future leaders of the family.
Trained financial advisors, such as Certified Financial
Planner ™ professionals, can explain and guide the process.
Some planners may be trained to facilitate such discussion based
on the size and goals of the family involved.
The general creation of a family financial mission statement
should have four key touchpoints: estate issues, philanthropy,
business direction and family dynamics.
Here are some questions that should be asked of everyone in
preparing the family's financial mission statement. They should
focus on relationship issues first, and then move into business
and money matters.
- What's most important about
our family?
- What do you think our
goals should be?
- When do you feel most
connected to the rest of us?
- How should we relate
to one another?
- What are our strengths
as a family?
- Where do you think
we'll be as individuals in 5, 10 and 15 years?
- In order, what are the
five things you value most in life?
- How should we behave
toward each other?
- How should we resolve
our disputes?
- How important is the
family business to you?
- What should we be
doing differently with our family money as well as our
assets inside the business?
- What's the best way
for us to be building our wealth?
- What do you think the
role of our family should be in helping the community?
- What should we be
doing individually and as a family with regard to
philanthropy?
Structurally, the written mission statement can be whatever
you agree it should be - a few paragraphs or a page or two. And
it needn't be set in stone - a family should have a meeting
every year or two to revise or approve its mission. The family
mission statement helps your family establish its identity and
the variety of voices within. It can help set goals and diffuse
tensions later. It can also be used to moderate discussions that
inevitably happen after major changes within the family - death,
divorce or happily, an increase in the number of heirs and
participants.
As for the age of the participants, it can start in very
basic form with younger children and the process can mature as
they age. It's actually a good idea to bring young members into
a customized version of the process for youngsters so they can
comfortably adjust to working as adults with the older members
of the family.
For a handy resource on writing a family mission statement,
go to this site: http://www.nightingale.com/mission_select.aspx?from=homepage&element=missiontitle
November 2007 — This column is produced by the Financial
Planning Association, the membership organization for the
financial planning community, and is provided by Don McCarty of
Financial Decision Partners, a local member of the FPA.
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