Individuals & Families

Per Capita seeks to confidently achieve what matters most by offering distinctive solutions designed around you.

Whatever your needs – from wealth transfer and tax planning to portfolio design – you should feel confident you have an effective and resilient long-term financial plan. We provide a personalized framework and take a holistic view to help you navigate changing market environments and uncover new opportunities to manage wealth.

Wealth Planning for the Modern Family

While successful families are each unique, they share a common hope that their resources will be a source of opportunity and motivation for future generations.

Working toward that outcome requires making wise investment and business decisions, as well as thoughtfully engaging and preparing future family leaders.
“It’s not just about preparing the rising generation to be responsible owners of wealth, but also preparing them to lead the family, whether that’s running the operating business, leading the family foundation, taking charge of the family office, being a client of the family office or one of the many other ways to lead.”

Attending to family dynamics

When family office leaders are asked about what’s keeping them awake at night, succession and engaging the rising generation top the list, along with market concerns and cyber, according to the 2020 Family Office Benchmarking Report.
In response, forward-thinking families are creating roles for future leaders that acknowledge each family member’s unique gifts and circumstances. The goal is to facilitate participation in a way that works for everyone and that offers opportunities for smooth, well-planned transitions.

Building a bridge to the next generation

Families tend to pay the most attention to the dynamics of the rising generation as a new family office is created or an existing family office anticipates a generational transition. The process often starts with a family meeting.
“A family meeting is the baseline of governance,” says Flanagan. “Especially in multigenerational families, it’s an opportunity to build relationships and share what brought them to this place, perhaps beginning with the history of the family business and the family’s shared values.”
Large families and families experiencing generational transitions may be wise to incorporate a methodical approach to engagement. Consider checking in with family members through conversations or a survey to understand how well their needs and desires are being met.

Meeting with other family offices to compare notes on governance structures and engagement efforts.
Reviewing research and analysis from respected advisors and peer networks such as FORGE and FOX.
Engaging a family office governance consultant to assess the family’s current state and provide recommendations for improvement.

Moving toward more flexible, personal solutions

It’s vital to provide many avenues for engagement, even if participation looks different for each family member. Special consideration should be provided for different life stages and skills, as family members balance their own careers and families with the needs of their extended family.
While some family members may want to be involved in the business or sit on the investment committee, others may consider alternative roles, including:

focusing on charitable work for the family foundation
actively volunteering with charitable grant beneficiaries
educating the next generation, including mentoring new or rising board members
managing communications or planning events

As a best practice, families should create written descriptions of each role that include the time commitment and expectations for participation. As the next generation steps up to assume new roles, families may want to pair them with current family leaders to provide education and context around issues at play.
Families should also include at least one member of the rising generation on the planning committee for events such as the annual family meeting, to ensure their learning styles and topical interests are represented. “Events that are co-created with the audience in mind are the most successful.”

Setting the stage for success

Making plans to thoughtfully engage and prepare the next generation of leaders can help position a family for sustained success. For instance, families should consider being open about the family office’s goals and priorities and the state of the family assets, as well as inviting family members to participate in a way that feels appropriate and authentic. “The key to engaging future family leaders is transparency.” “Transparency breeds trust.”
Providing personalized options for education and participation can help to fully engage emerging leaders even as they navigate the shifting demands of different life stages.

THE ENTREPRENEUR’S TRUST

Sharing wealth too freely with your children or attaching “hard and fast” rules to accessing your wealth, may have an unintended negative impact on their motivation to work hard and forge their own paths in life. Implementing a comprehensive wealth plan with constructive guidance for how beneficiaries can put their wealth to work will not only help to educate them on investing but will also instill in them the curiosity to explore entrepreneurial endeavors and career opportunities.

Fear of facilitating failure often results in estate plans designed to protect beneficiaries from the potential consequences of their own decision-making. Oftentimes, grantors may delay or avoid fundamental conversations about wealth and tie trust distributions to the beneficiary’s earned income or other desired behaviors.
As a result, wealthy children may grow into adulthood relying on a family office or trustee to handle many of the financial aspects of their lives — missing out on opportunities to learn about investing and, on a practical level, seeing how bills are paid and tax returns are filed.

As an alternative to traditional estate planning, which often shields beneficiaries from these learning opportunities, you can choose to establish a different type of trust — an “entrepreneur’s trust” — that can empower and inspire the next generation to become responsible and engaged stewards of your family’s wealth and business holdings. These trusts provide opportunities for trust beneficiaries to try their hands at investing in new private business ventures, practice their entrepreneurial skills and learn from their successes, as well as their failures, under the guidance of a professional trustee.

Rather than viewing trusts as a mechanism to protect beneficiaries from the dangers of wealth, what if trusts were viewed as vehicles to “ignite a fire” with the next generation?