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Tax season is an ideal time to think about your overall financial planning strategies and goals, including charitable giving. In this article, Schwab Charitable provides an overview of the current giving environment, as well as introduce you to five donors to understand their giving strategies in action – and help you consider what might work with your broader family philanthropy planning goals.

Family philanthropy can be transformative for both family members and the communities they serve, sometimes with an impact that lasts generations. However, achieving a positive, enduring impact requires purposeful decision making throughout the lifespan of the family’s philanthropic work. This guide contains worksheets that first help you, as an individual or couple, clarify or update your personal philanthropic purpose and plan.

Along with the guidance of “Defining Your Philanthropic Purpose,” this Road Map workbook will provide donors and their family members with the ability to chart and gain a better understanding of their family’s hope and plans for collaborative, meaningful, and effective philanthropy. As a Road Map, it can become a framework for shared strategies and decision making while strengthening the family engagement in philanthropy.

Reimagined Philanthropy is your indispensable guide to navigating the dynamic landscape of giving. Whether you're just starting your philanthropic journey or looking for new ways to go deeper in your giving, the insights and tools shared here will empower you to architect positive change with intentionality, structure, and focus.

In an era marked by unprecedented wealth transfer and shifting societal dynamics, philanthropy is being called to actively adjust to a new reality. In the middle of all this, younger people are starting to have a bigger say in where philanthropic money goes. They care more about equity, inclusion, and transparency, as well as changing systems that cause problems.

By recognizing there are various charitable giving vehicles—including donor-advised funds, charitable remainder trust, and CRUTs—that donors use to engage in philanthropy, there is also the recognition that there is no single method that is a universally perfect solution and that there are donors who may wish to utilize more than one structure. So how do families know which charitable structures will work for them?

Using charitable giving strategies to enhance the tax-efficiency of your donations plays a vital role in maximizing the impact of your gifts. To make the most of your charitable gifts and achieving high-impact philanthropy, take the time at year-end and during the year to review these giving strategies that include different ways to give, knowing and understanding gifts that protect assets and pay income, and giving from other entities such as donor-advised fund gifts.

Through interviews with dozens of donors, Legacy in Family Philanthropy: A Modern Framework, explores big concepts, such as how the ever-evolving idea of legacy relates to values-driven giving and a commitment to impact. It also explores practical matters, such as how multigenerational families can—and do—navigate conversations about legacy.

Families are reconsidering their motivations for giving and how their philanthropy carries forward their values, aims, and objectives. It’s promoting deeper intentionality, humility, empathy, understanding, and trust. These shifts are prompting families to reflect on what they seek to build now and how it informs their legacy. It’s imperative to shift legacy from a reactive construct to an emergent one that serves as a guide and measure of accountability.

The explosion of the use of philanthropic vehicles, coupled with massive intergenerational wealth transfer, means that affluent families are giving in more ways, both collectively and individually. Taking a deeper look, researchers found that as families evolve, they face common dilemmas regarding their philanthropy—most critically, the choices they make about balancing the individual philanthropic priorities of their members with a collective family philanthropic endeavor.