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Leaving a Legacy: Ways to Share Your Values with Future Generations

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Families often spend time planning how wealth will transfer from one generation to the next. But the financial assets are only part of the story. Leaving a legacy is about more than the assets you leave behind.

A family legacy can also include:

  • The values that shaped important decisions
  • The money lessons and experiences that influenced the family
  • The hopes parents and grandparents have for future generations
  • The purposes they hope their wealth will continue to serve
Download Your Family Legacy Charter

One way to capture this is through a family legacy charter.

What is a family legacy charter?

A family legacy charter is a personal, non-legal document that captures the ideas and intentions a family wants to carry forward across generations.

Unlike a will or trust, which generally focuses on how assets are owned, managed, or distributed, a legacy charter focuses on the why behind the plan. It gives families a place to document the values, experiences, hopes, and principles they want future generations to understand.

It does not replace a will, trust, or other estate-planning documents. Instead, it can complement them by preserving the family context that legal documents typically are not designed to capture.

Why put your wealth transfer goals and intentions in writing?

It gives your wealth a sense of purpose.

Money can represent security, opportunity, independence, generosity, education, or something entirely different. Writing down those intentions helps connect financial decisions to what the family truly values.

It can create better family conversations.
A charter gives families a reason to talk about subjects that often remain unspoken — inheritance expectations, charitable giving, family responsibilities, property, or what future generations should understand about the opportunities they receive.
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It gives future generations context.
Years from now, family members may know what decisions were made without knowing why. A charter can preserve some of the thinking, values, and experiences behind those choices.

How to complete a legacy charter

A legacy charter can be completed individually, as a couple, or together as a family. The right approach depends on who should have a voice in the conversation and how your family prefers to communicate.

Start by deciding who should participate. That may include spouses or partners, adult children, grandchildren, or other family members who play an important role in the family’s financial or personal legacy.

From there, families may choose to:

  • 1 Complete the charter together during a dedicated family meeting.
  • Reflect on the questions individually beforehand, then come together to share and discuss responses.
  • Have one or two family members create an initial draft that the larger family can review and build on.

A financial professional can also help facilitate the conversation, ask questions that encourage deeper discussion, and connect the family’s priorities with broader financial and estate-planning decisions.

The charter does not have to be completed in one sitting. Families can return to it over time as conversations continue, circumstances change, and new generations become involved.

Create your own family legacy charter

We’ve created a Family Legacy Charter you can start using today. It includes prompts to help capture your family’s values, goals, and priorities for future generations.

Download Your Family Legacy Charter

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