Private Foundations - How They Can Help You Integrate the Personal with the Professional

How do you bridge the chasm between the personal and the professional? It may be challenging, but the results definitely make it worth the effort. In fact, one thing that has never ceased to amaze me is how powerful financial or business planning can become when it is integrated with one's personal goals. Read on to discover one of the most powerful ways to achieve that integration.

One particular structure is especially well suited to this integration of life and business: the private foundation. There are three major reason why this is so: A foundation helps preserve personal wealth, which makes it a key ingredient in wealth management planning. A foundation can also be a vehicle to allow for the deepest expressions of one's personal interests.

And here's a third way in which a private foundation helps with that integration. It can help solve an area of major frustration that a majority of my high net worth clients struggle with. And that is the challenge that parents face with passing on their values to their children.

I was always been aware of the fact that wealth created in one generation is generally lost or destroyed by the third generation. More specifically, I have seen the first generation businessman have children who go on to become professionals, and grandchildren, who go on to become artists. Essentially, the wealth is gone by the third generation. Rags to riches to rags again.

This means, ironically, that one of the primary challenges faced by families is to pass on money management and entrepreneurial skills. These skills, generally never taught or learned in school, are invaluable in handing down wisdom, especially as it relates to wealth, to future generations.

A private foundation may be the bridge that narrows the gap between the generations and can help that passage of wisdom to be preserved. Foundations are also an excellent way to integrate those activities you hold most dear. And by getting the family involved in the work with the foundation, channels of communication open up, especially with the younger generation, that otherwise might not be as easy to establish.

And that increased level of communication can and should start right from the beginning, as you start working on your mission statement. As you develop and implement your mission statement, you have many opportunities to engage others (friends, family and even strangers) and bring them into your inner circle. This will help with passing on your values to these individuals in a unique and permanent way.

Others can't help but notice your level of commitment and enterprise in this process. You will stir curiosity and envy in others. This learning process can have a particular impact on the young, who will always learn best by example.