If you already have an estate plan in place, it may be time to take that plan to the next level by incorporating legacy planning into your overall plan. Legacy planning is not something that takes the place of your existing estate plan. Instead, legacy planning takes over where your estate plan left off. It allows you to do more than just plan for the disposition of your tangible assets because, when you stop to think about it, you likely want to pass down much more to future generations. It is often the intangible ideals, philosophies, and beliefs that make up your legacy that are what you truly hope to pass down. Legacy planning does that by incorporating what matters most to you into your entire estate plan. The attorneys at Providence Law Group, LLC are committed to helping you include Legacy Planning into your estate plan.
What Is Legacy Planning?
A traditional estate plan focuses almost exclusively on protecting, preserving, and passing down the material wealth you amass over the course of your lifetime. While these goals are certainly vital to your estate plan, they may not be the most important goals. Many people find that, at the end of their life, the most important things they can pass down to their children and grandchildren are not the tangible trappings of wealth. Instead, what they really want to impart on future generations are things such as guiding principles, core values, deeply held philosophies, and religious beliefs. It is, after all, these intangible concepts that make you who you are and that create your legacy.
How Does Legacy Planning Work?
Legacy planning takes your traditional estate plan and weaves those intangible assets into your existing plan. This can be accomplished in a number of ways. For example, if philanthropy is an important core value for you, charitable gifting will become a focal point of your estate plan. That might entail creating a charitable trust that can continue to give to your chosen charities long after you are gone or it could mean establishing a family foundation to encourage children and grandchildren to actively participate in your philanthropic endeavors. Likewise, if the belief in the importance of education is one of your deeply held philosophies, you might decide to create an educational trust that helps pay for the higher education costs of future generations.
What Will Your Legacy Be?
Take a moment to contemplate how your legacy could shape your children, grandchildren, and even great-grandchildren. Ask yourself what principles, values, philosophies, and beliefs you want to pass down to future generations. The answer to that question is what will form the foundation of your legacy plan. That plan, in turn, will use innovative estate planning tools and strategies to encourage future generations to honor your legacy.
Contact Us
At Providence Law Group, LLC we are committed to helping you preserve your legacy by incorporating Legacy Planning into your traditional estate plan. Contact the team today by calling (443) 290 3206 or fill out our online contact form so we can help you get started today.
