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CHAPTER 9
On the Shoulders of Giants

Revolutionaries aren't known for their deep respect for legacy. The whole point of revolutions is typically to overthrow the ideals and institutions of the past.

But next gen donors are approaching their Impact Revolution in ways that don't quite fit the radical mold. They want to transform the future of giving, yes, but they also have an admiration for those who contributed to social change before them. In fact, the primary challenge facing many of the donors we talked with is reconciling this respect for the past with their avid desire to improve the future.

One thread connecting the past and the future is the concept of legacy. Next gen donors see legacy not as an anchor holding them back so much as an engine pushing them forward. They embody the famous image that Isaac Newton gave to describe his innovations: “If I have seen further, it is by standing on the shoulders of giants.”¹

The Importance of the Family Narrative

For many, legacy is rooted in a master narrative communicated from one generation to the next. Whether we hail from wealth or not, hearing our families' stories offers us a platform to feel we are part of something bigger. It invites us to write our own chapter in what feels like an overarching history. Our study of next gen donors has convinced us that conveying the family narrative—especially in a candid way—influences how much a next gen family member will want to become a giver instead of a taker, the causes he or she will donate to, and maybe even some of the organizations he or she will support.

Psychologists Marshall Duke and Robyn Fivush of Emory University have articulated the significance of family narratives on next generation family members from many backgrounds. Using a “Do You Know?” scale, Duke and Fivush asked children to answer 20 questions about their family history. They found that those who knew more about the stories of their parents and grandparents demonstrated higher self-esteem, had a stronger sense of control over their lives, and believed their families functioned more successfully.²

We, too, have seen the importance of passing on family narratives. Yet we often find that families are afraid to share details of their stories that may not seem pretty or positive, for fear of undermining what next gen family members conclude about their forebears. However, Duke and Fivush's research shows that sharing the highs and lows of one's story actually has beneficial outcomes. They distinguish between presenting an “ascending narrative” (rags to riches), a “descending narrative” (riches to rags), and an “oscillating narrative” (weathering ups and downs over time and coming out stronger). Duke and Fivush feel this third narrative leads children to develop an “intergenerational self,” where family members are aware they belong to something bigger than themselves. In other words, families who share their oscillating narrative with their next generations foster resilience.³ Similarly, anyone who connects with a larger narrative—a religion, political party, or social movement, for instance—can feel empowered by being part of that collective effort.

For next gen donors who are inheritors, the issue of narrative is even more important because most inheritors keenly feel that their potential to make an outsized impact on the world is leveraged from the legacy of their predecessors. “I have to start from a place of deep respect and humility of why I get to be here. So it still hits me, ‘Wow, I get to participate in this through no doing of my own,’ and so at the most basic level, it is a total honor to be able to be in this [philanthropic] world at all.” As another inheritor put it, “I do what I do because my grandfather started with nothing, grew up in the Great Depression, and was a war veteran. [He] was very successful and lucky and built up this very successful business, but always said, ‘Don't forget where you came from’ [and] ‘Take care of those less fortunate than you are.’”

While some next gen donors feel the family narrative motivates them to give, others are more explicit about honoring their legacy by supporting particular types of organizations. Says one, “My grandparents were Holocaust survivors, so I first started to give to the U.S. Holocaust Museum in Washington, D.C., as part of my wedding. I feel like I have to continue to pass on their stories and teach people about what happened during the Holocaust so that I can ensure that it doesn't happen again.”

We heard the theme of legacy underscored when we interviewed next gen donor Alexander (“Alex”) Soros. Alex is the son of financier George Soros, one of the most successful investors in history—and, at the time of this publication, one of the 30 wealthiest people in the world. Alex feels he is honoring his parents—particularly his father, an outspoken survivor of Nazi-occupied Hungary—by continuing the family narrative of Jewish identity and advocating for others who may find themselves “stateless,” as his father once did.

Alexander Soros

I'm getting my PhD in history now from the great public university of Cal-Berkeley. I try to understand our story and our past through studying the history to which my family is so closely connected. My father is George Soros. He's considered a person of history, a “financial god” in many a circle. And he's given birth to what is now the second-largest foundation in the world, the Open Society Foundation, which is where I participate actively and where my father still focuses the majority of his time.

My father's instincts have always been grounded in his own personal history, and he spoke to me as I was growing up about who he was and how his identity informs his philanthropy. The conversation that ultimately changed my life—and the first time I remember bonding with my father—was when he told me of his experience going into hiding in Budapest during the Holocaust. I was 8 or 9 at the time. In that moment, a man who so many people saw as a hero became human. He spoke of the year when the Germans rounded up the Jews living in Budapest for extermination, which he has acknowledged as the formative experience of his life. My relationship with my father would be quite different if we hadn't had this exchange.

The Formative Years, and Being a Minority

Like other Jews who survived the war by hiding in Hungary, my father has had a complicated relationship with his Jewish identity. Over time, he came to publicly embrace his identity, and his marriage to my mother was an important step in this process. Eventually my father's Jewish identity became a facet of his public persona that his success and fame would amplify.

As I was growing up, my father's and my Jewish identity was one of the commonalities upon which we built a relationship. I was the first Soros to become a bar mitzvah in America, and my decision to do so was linked to my father's public reclamation of his Jewish identity. I know that one of the proudest moments in his life and mine was when I had my bar mitzvah, a Jewish coming-of-age ceremony.

I am most proud of my father for never forgetting what happened to him and what could have happened to him. He was rendered stateless and could have died as a consequence of the Nazis' Final Solution, yet he has resolved to fight for those doomed to a similar fate, regardless of the wealth and security he has attained.

Growing up, I knew it was sheer luck that I had even been born. Here I was, living in the lap of luxury, in one of the most accommodating countries and eras for Jews in history, and yet I always felt like a minority, like a Jew, and developed an affinity for other minority groups who were victims of persecution.

Family Stories Imprinted on Me

I remember being in Santo Domingo with my father and the former president of the Dominican Republic, who was making excuses for his country's deplorable treatment of those who were either at risk of or had become stateless. My father wouldn't back down. “I was stateless,” he said. “I know how that feels.”

Similarly, a friend of mine working at the United Nations recently asked me why my father cares so much about the Rohingya, a small Muslim minority in Myanmar who are stateless. My response was easy: “He was once a Rohingya himself.” When my father saw Sarajevo under siege in the 1990s, he gave a huge humanitarian gift because he saw similarities between the situation there and the situation in Budapest earlier in the century. So while many see him as emotionless, based on my experience as his son, I have no choice but to see him differently—as a passionate, committed, values-driven philanthropist.

I have also come to learn how my grandfather shaped much of my father's outlook. My grandfather moved to America in 1956, but before that he was responsible for getting my father and other members of the family, as well as numerous other Jews, into hiding to survive World War II. Nevertheless, much of our family never made it out alive. I never met my grandfather, but his outlook on life has lived on in me through my father, and I feel a close affinity to him. After the war he wrote down our family's account, and his own reflections from it, in his memoirs entitled, Masquerade. I recall my father giving me the transcript when I was a teenager and the stories being almost a complete replica of the stories my father had been telling me throughout. Sometimes when I feel disoriented or need inspiration I look to this book and his narrative. Out of all the things he wrote, the lines that have struck a lasting chord with me were these:

The feeling of affinity this quote describes has lived on in my father's philanthropy, and it has definitely shaped my own!

Of course, there is also the influence of my mother, who was instrumental in starting what today are called the Open Society Foundations (OSF), or Soros Foundations, in various parts of the world. I can't overstate her influence on me. Growing up a Jew in the United States, she was linked to the stories of the New Deal, the Great Society, and the civil rights movement. She taught me to aspire to make something of myself while at the same time giving back to society. My mother taught me to be philanthropic, civic-minded, politically involved, and accomplished in my own right. Her and my father's values in this area are not all that different; these values were shared and still are, despite the fact that they are no longer together.

Proud to Be a Steward of Legacy

Around the time of my bar mitzvah, my parents opened the foundations in Central and Eastern Europe, where my father was often attacked as a Jew during the war. My father based his philanthropic mission around Karl Popper's idea of an “open society.” Popper and my father have many things in common: Both are Jews from a similar time and place (former Habsburg dominions in Central Europe at threat of statelessness); they both witnessed totalitarianism; and they both have an affinity for cosmopolitanism and the ideology that all human beings belong to a single community with a shared morality.

I grew up with the foundations as they were being incubated, and I see OSF not only as a part of my family but also as a part of my family's legacy. Most of our vacations coincided with visits to existing or newly formed foundations and NGOs [non-governmental organizations] around the world. I have been shaped by many of the OSF-linked people I met along the way, and I feel as though I also want to carry on their legacies and pass along the lessons they taught me. As a member of the OSF Global Board of Directors, my work within the foundations now takes up a large amount of my time. And my father counts on me to be of service in certain areas, especially those areas in which he feels our family will be involved past his lifetime.

Now that I have had the opportunity to witness with my own eyes how my father's legacy makes him the sort of philanthropist he is, I am proud to also be a part of this legacy myself. As I've explained, for my father being stateless and not having citizenship, was a traumatic experience he can personally relate to, and that is now something he fights to keep others from experiencing. More than anything else, that is what we work to achieve through our philanthropy.

I'm most proud of my father for doing all of this because he doesn't need to do it. He could very easily take his wealth and be comfortable, or just fight for his own safety in various ways. Instead, he devotes his effort and time, which are valuable commodities, to this work. That is something that I am proud of and also something that I want to keep the torch lit on, something I want to keep doing.

A Legacy Applied

With my own philanthropy, it wasn't a question of if; it was a question of when. Why wait? I knew I was going to do it, to set up a foundation, so why wait until I was older? There are problems going on in the world now; why not get started with my own giving now? My father said, “This is your money; you can do whatever you want with it, but that's the amount of money you're receiving.” His saying that obviously makes me feel the need to be responsible with it.

So then I began to think about how I wanted to do that. My father and I have this ongoing discussion about the difference between philanthropists and activists. He is definitely more of an activist. For example, I remember one time somebody came to ask for money for a hospital in the Congo, and my father's response was, “You know, you are putting a Band-Aid on a wound. I would rather solve the larger problem there, which has political implications.” But this would require more than just giving money. You get more reward, obviously, in giving your time and fighting for issues, whether it's working with local governments or on international governance, than just writing a check for a hospital.

In the last year, I've encountered myself becoming what I would describe as more of an advocate than a philanthropist. I find I want to fight for those things in the world that I want to see change. And I look at donations, whether foundation grants or political donations, as instruments for the type of change I seek to make or commitments to the convictions I have. Therefore, I have encouraged my grantees that are seeking to become more politically active to count on me as a 501(c)(4) donor, since it is harder to raise money for that sort of political organization than it is for the more traditional 501(c)(3).

This is partly because of my legacy and partly because of my studies in history. I worry that, throughout history, trying to avoid politics has often been a predicate for totalitarianism. I won't get a tax deduction if I give to a 501(c)(4) political organization, but the consequences of a lot of people not being willing to support political change has, from my own study of history, not been good.

As it is, I believe foundations and philanthropists get too much credit for their giving, which ultimately is a gift they are allowed from the IRS. For example, I was asked to speak to a group of donors in Brazil about American foundations and incentivizing philanthropy there—the assumption being that Brazilian foundations were not as robust and civically engaged as American foundations and were more risk-averse in comparison, too. I first needed to learn about the Brazilian tax code and discovered that it doesn't incentivize philanthropic giving. I didn't want to come across as a proponent of American exceptionalism or a blind champion of philanthropy, so I encouraged the audience of Brazilian donors to see the change they could advocate for in their own tax policy, and I conjectured that by building in incentives like tax deductions, they might catalyze more philanthropy. That said, I didn't want to provide them with a solution; instead, I wanted to point them to the tools they had themselves if they wanted to utilize them.

I'm also not interested in being known as a philanthropist, being part of the philanthropy industry. There was a literary scholar who did a study looking at the rhetoric of the World Bank in the 1950s versus today, asking, “What has changed?” Well, a few things have changed—for one, the number of times the World Bank cites the World Bank. In the 1950s, the World Bank talked about actual things like ending poverty, building roads, dams, etc. Since then, the World Bank has talked a lot more about themselves, and they've also created new words, which this scholar calls “bank talk.” This creates an inherent problem. In order for the World Bank to reach its goals, like ending poverty, they're asking people to end their careers by succeeding at their jobs. But this is harder when you talk mostly about yourself instead of the external problems. Similarly, in philanthropy, we have what you might call “NGO talk.” It's easier to focus on self than on solving problems. So organizations like the World Bank or big foundations exist in perpetuity rather than asking people to end their own careers by ending poverty or succeeding at solving societal problems.

Risk, Impact, and Affecting Change

A lot of the greatest things that OSF has been able to achieve—and hopefully the Alexander Soros Foundation will, too—have been because of a willingness to take risks and chances on both people and our own reputations, to act boldly, and to see the way things go. When it comes to things like aid or development, a lot of people say, “Oh, the Gates Foundation does that.” Or, “Open Society Foundations does that. So we don't need to do that.” But this is a misunderstanding of the role of philanthropy. A New York City nonprofit director once said something to me such as, “I could ask your father for X amount of money, but in the end, New York taxpayers have much more money than your father does.” It's the truth. As collective citizens, the idea that a couple of progressive wealthy people are dealing with societal issues alone is a problem.

So how can we affect change? How can the philanthropic sector solve problems? We now live in an age of governance and procedure, but that's all very new. If there is a right way to have a foundation, I'm agnostic toward it.

If asked by other next gen donors what to fund or how to fund, I would say, “Find out what your idea is, find an ideology, locate your convictions.” I would ask: “What are your personal stories? What are the things you want to change? What is the reason?” If you have convictions, this will make what you are doing much more rewarding, and it will give you a better understanding of what it is you are trying to accomplish. As I've said, my own convictions are linked to personal history and to our family legacy. I'm proud of that, and I intend to keep doing whatever I can to affect change.

Learning Your Past to Shape Your Future

Alex's identity and ideology are built on his family's history and clearly influence his philanthropy and the way he approaches making a difference in the world. Hearing the actual stories and discovering the man behind the icon gave Alex a family narrative he could connect to and find himself in. His grandfather's narrative, furthermore, is a guiding light when Alex needs inspiration, providing him with an intergenerational self and a strong legacy upon which to build.

In addition to this theme, Alex raises some provocative questions that other next gen donors are asking as well: Are foundations and philanthropists already getting too much credit for their giving? How will next gen donors use political giving to affect democracy? How can we avoid the perception that “big philanthropy will take care of it all,” and instead encourage everyone to embrace their social responsibilities to give within their means?

To do his part, in 2012, Alex set up the Alexander Soros Foundation, with many of the same values as his parents. It will fund issues complementary to the mission of the Open Society Foundations but in a way that suits Alex's vision for carrying his legacy forward. Similarly, in Chapter 6, we heard self-made donor Hadi Partovi extol his father's commitment to creating an educational system in Iran amid the overturn of the political system, inspiring Hadi's own commitment to creating a computer science education movement in the United States.

Whether we are earners or inheritors, wealthy or of modest means, the stories of our parents and grandparents very often have a profound effect on who we become in the world. However, their choices don't have to become our journeys. We can comprehend the significant influence that legacy has on our lives and also make our own choices within the different contexts in which we live. Next gen donors have deep respect for those upon whose shoulders they stand, but they also want to see further: “For me, knowing the history, knowing the story, inspires what I do next, even if it's evolved and adapted in different ways. It's knowing the history that allows me to pick and choose and decide what resonates going forward.”

Taking Stewardship to the Next Level

The notion of stewardship has a long history, starting in ancient Greece, where it referred to the person charged with the care of a household and entrusted with other valuables. Over time, it took on a religious meaning—humans are responsible to care for the world that God created and entrusted to them; in recent years it has been used to justify environmental sustainability, the idea being that we are stewards of the earth and must preserve it for future generations.⁵

But next gen donors want to take stewardship to the next level. They do not merely want to honor family legacy by preserving it and passing it along to future generations. They want to improve their legacies to have even more impact. In other words, they are carrying a torch not only out of respect for their predecessors but also to illuminate new paths for progress.

Some talked about the pressure they feel to take philanthropy to the next level, especially when the family narrative is already so impressive. “Because your family has done so much in so many areas, you feel like, if we are really going to add something to the legacy, you need to do better than just be a caretaker. You need to do something that is really different and new.” Others grapple with the question: “How can I make a difference?” This donor articulates a sentiment we heard from many of her peers: “[I'm] paying respect to the opportunities that I had, paying respect to the philanthropy that I learned, but taking that and evolving it into something that will be more uniquely my own.”

Whether they see it as an opportunity or a responsibility, potential or pressure, significant numbers of next gen donors feel that stewarding the legacy of their predecessors means adding to an already impressive narrative—and, specifically, adding something “different and new.” As one explained, “I do value the foundation, the legacy, the communal component of us doing things together. But I think we can have a bigger impact than we're having. I would like us to be riskier; I'd like us to use our connections and networks, all of the tools in the toolbox, more than we do.”

We can see here another impetus behind the deep desire of next gen donors for impact, innovation, and new adventures in philanthropy. It is a way for them to take their legacies to the next level. Once again, we can predict a somewhat messy and chaotic—yet exciting—time ahead as next gen donors stretch their wings. This drive to take legacy to the next level can lead to powerful results. We've seen this already with Victoria Rogers, building on her father's initial inspiration to give to your passions by finding new ways of bringing to life the creative projects she loves, and with Jenna Segal, who revives respected existing institutions with relevant new programmatic ideas.

The contributions of America's great entrepreneurs and philanthropists can be awe-inspiring, but just imagine thinking that one's own accomplishments would be measured against such feats. John R. Seydel III could easily have let being Ted Turner's grandson define his identity, crumbling under the weight of that magnitude. Instead, he has embarked on a journey, encouraged by his parents and grandparents, of self-discovery, of learning about the world outside his privileged upbringing, and perhaps most important, finding and then cultivating his own passion for giving and ability to affect change.

John Rutherford Seydel III

People have always said to me, “You must be thrilled that your grandpa created CNN. He created this media empire, and his team won the World Series.” However, I was really too young to even appreciate all that, as I was only starting to mature when he accomplished those wins. Then things took a turn for him when I was 12 or 13, and it began the third phase of his life, which has by far had the biggest influence on me. In this phase, my grandpa has been focused on making the world a better place, making people's lives better. He wants to show that you don't have to wait until you die to give; rather, it's better to make change and make a positive impact on people's lives now, when you are alive. It seems to me that's a pretty good way to feel fulfilled.

Clearly my grandfather's legacy is huge. I have big shoes to fill. This third phase of his life—his philanthropic phase—has been the most important, and his spirituality has really given him a tremendous humanitarian perspective and sense of fulfillment, more than making billions of dollars did for him; it certainly has been more influential to the way I think.

My Own Choices

I believe it is extremely important to look at what your parents and grandparents value, and what makes them fulfilled, on your way to figuring out who you want to be. I often think about how Grandpa Ted raced and lost in thousands of sailing races, and yet, learned from all of them, before that one race when he won the America's Cup. Similarly, my dad preaches to me every day that something you've tried is only a true failure if you don't learn from it. So I'm willing to take the risks to create my own legacy and, in doing so, to learn from my mistakes and my potential failures how to become a better person and make a bigger impact. Obviously, I also want to be able to do my own thing, whether it's fixing political infrastructure or having an impact through a social entrepreneurial venture. So I'm trying to apply what Grandpa Ted has taught me, and what my parents have taught me, and then add my own creative aspect to it to find new solutions.

For example, one of my long-term goals is to be a politician. It would be my dream to be a senator and represent the values of my generation in the local and national political discussion. In college, I majored in political science with a minor in business and communications. I hope to use that training to try to fix the political infrastructure by using technology, which has simplified our life so much in every other aspect. One way to do this is to amplify people's voices using social media. I started building a web-based platform called Revolution Nation that helps simplify and customize politics according to what you are passionate about. The platform will help you hold your politicians accountable when they are making decisions on issues you care about.

Balance Takes Many Forms

John R. appears at ease talking about stewarding his legacy while finding his own passions. But for some next gen donors, the tension between maintaining family legacy and writing their own chapters is palpable.

One way rising donors can ease that tension is by being crystal clear that their first (though not only) role is to maintain the existing mission and the original donor's intent, even supporting legacy organizations funded by their predecessors. As this donor notes, “I have always felt an intense responsibility to ‘the family.’ The stewardship of the family is going to allow you to do everything else, and so you take good care of the family, and the family takes good care of you.” Another next gen donor concurs, “To us it was very clear that that is what we should be doing, that this is his legacy, and there is this feeling that this should honor his legacy and his interests. We shouldn't confuse that with our own interests.”

Others find ways to respect legacy while also revolutionizing philanthropy, funding some legacy organizations out of a sense of duty or obligation while making room to fund their own interests. “I think you have to get creative with it and figure out how that innovation and that personal connection can fit within the legacy to engage the next generation.”

Most try to strike a balance. Alex Soros serves on the board of the Open Society Foundations as well as funds some of his own interests under the auspices of his own foundation. John R. serves on the board of the Turner Foundation while creating his own app. Katherine Lorenz, who is president of a foundation her grandparents established and is featured in Chapter 10, has managed to find a balance between stewarding the family legacy and helping the next generation realize its own impact, too:

As president of a family foundation with multiple generations on the board, I see my role as trying to balance three goals: to make an impact, to help the family stay together, and to carry on the legacy established by my grandparents. One way I believe I can help lead the foundation is by encouraging us to invest in high-impact philanthropy, having the most bang for our philanthropic buck. But equally important is having this be a valuable experience for the family—that the foundation brings us together around issues we are all passionate about. I think if we are successful in meeting these first two goals, seeing how one informs the other, then we will inevitably accomplish the third and leave a positive and lasting legacy for my grandparents.

Others, like self-made entrepreneurs, are freer to become the philanthropists they want to be. Yet even they feel the pressure to write a new kind of chapter in their family history, as they have acquired more financial resources than previous generations ever experienced. Many are starting to communicate the importance of philanthropy to their own children: “I would like for [my children] to see me and to learn about getting involved in a more hands-on way, whether it's board roles or volunteering. I want my kids to understand that there's a universe beyond them that they need to contribute to.”

Another donor understands that she and her husband may be the initiators of a philanthropic legacy that could last for decades beyond themselves: “To what extent will we pass on this experience [to our children] as we get more familiar with it? How much do we want philanthropy to be part of their lives, and how much will they take to it? What if, for all we know, they actually really end up being the most engaged and innovative thinkers in all of this?”

What Does This Mean?

In our experience working with and studying family foundations and the next gen, we've seen siblings and cousins struggle with how to implement their parents' or grandparents' wishes if those aren't written down or otherwise captured in specific detail. Rather than leaving the next generation to guess, we encourage elders to tell their stories and communicate their legacies during their lifetimes in a very direct way. Talking about your family stories gives you the chance to be intentional about what you convey and gives your next generation family members the chance to ask questions about what you mean. After you're gone, it's too late, and children are left to interpret for themselves.

Moreover, most next gen donors actually want to have an open discussion with their elders about how to implement—and hopefully evolve—their wishes. Such clarity can be grounding and even affirming for the next gen. It can move them from sadness and ambiguity when someone dies to clarity and self-confidence. We will see a lovely example of this in Chapter 10, where Katherine Lorenz describes how hearing what her grandfather wanted for the family foundation has helped her navigate the road forward.

Frank family conversations about legacy before elders pass let the next generation figure out how to resolve the tension we've described between stewarding the family's legacy and improving upon it. As we've heard, next gen donors often feel the potential to build on their heritage and make an impact on the world in their own right because of their family legacies. On the flip side, the conversations can help older family members appreciate members of the next gen as respectful revolutionaries with the best of intentions. All sides can be more satisfied that the family narrative can remain intact even as the story evolves.

Even when a family takes to heart how important it is to communicate legacy to the next generation, that communication isn't always easy to do; it can be hard for family members to talk about what will happen when they die. But tools exist that can help spark the conversations. 21/64 has developed Picture Your Legacy™ cards to help donors describe their legacies; donors sift through images designed to enable them to articulate what they haven't yet found words to express. Advisors like Susan Turnbull, Eric Weiner, and Elana Zaiman help people write “ethical wills,” or legacy letters that capture—beyond financial inheritance—the stories, lessons learned, and messages that people want to leave to their family, friends, and communities.⁶ And, of course, there are biographers, videographers, oral historians, and others who help people to convey their family stories.

Open conversations about legacy are not only essential for families; they are also crucial for nonprofits that want to ask next gen donors to continue a predecessor's support of their organization. This is particularly true when families have supported key institutions in our society that may be at risk. Without direction from parents and grandparents, especially about those organizations they hold most dear, next gen donors do not always know how to handle requests for support, and organizations can suffer the consequences.

It behooves the nonprofit to ask major donors before they pass to speak with their children about their wishes. Even if the next gen donors decide they will not continue these legacy gifts, the earlier a nonprofit knows about that possibility, the better. For example, while 21/64 was working with an institution on building relationships with next gen donors, the organization's leader described a troubling problem. He had sheepishly admitted that a major donor who had funded 10 percent of the group's annual budget had recently passed away, and the leader didn't have a relationship with the donor's next of kin. He shrugged, embarrassed by his failure and chagrined by the gravity of the situation. He wasn't sure this donor's son would continue to support the nonprofit, leaving him with a huge funding gap to fill.

This executive is not alone in his predicament. Just as some family members don't want to talk about their mortality, nonprofit executives are often reticent to raise that reality with their donors. However, proactive practitioners will realize they need to discuss legacy with their donors during donors' lifetimes. They need to ask to meet the next of kin and maybe even suggest endowing gifts if donors don't want to burden their children with that obligation. Smart nonprofit professionals should pitch the opportunity to have these important conversations, facilitated by them, a trusted advisor, as a value-add for their donors.

Similarly, advisors to wealthy individuals will likely find that their clients are interested in talking not only about their financial legacies but also about their philanthropic legacies. Most, in fact, are more interested in talking about engaging their next generations than they are in talking about their tax planning.⁷ Advisors would do well to learn how to help families have not just what Scott and Todd Fithian called “below the line” conversations about the mechanics and laws of estate planning, but also “above the line” conversations about their values, legacies, and ideas for the future.⁸ The Fithians learned that clients want a space to discuss their personal and philanthropic legacies with others in the family. Professionals should strive to become trusted advisors who offer that space to their clients, both those who want to communicate their hopes and intentions to the next generation and those who are looking for help in carrying those intentions forward while still following their own hopes and dreams. In short, advisors should help their philanthropic clients have transformational, not just transactional, conversations.

Though we are convinced that next gen donors want to be revolutionary and respectful, we shouldn't fool ourselves into thinking these two impulses always mix well. The next gen's powerful commitment to impact and experimentation will sometimes clash with its commitment to legacy. In some dramatic cases, the generational differences will be so great that not even the most compelling version of the family narrative can help the next gen see a path forward that still honors the past. The next gen might want to actively disavow any controversial history—how the money was made, for instance. In other cases, the approach suggested by legacy might be producing such meager results that the next gen cannot find a way to continue it without compromising the dominant desire for impact.

But on the whole, our research has shown us many more examples of next gen donors who are earnestly and eagerly searching for ways to honor their elders' legacies and adapt their giving to have maximum impact. We talked to plenty of donors, like Alex Soros and John R. Seydel III, who consider making an impact in the future to be the best way they can steward their legacy. What worries us more are the many families that do not have the open, constructive conversations about legacy that allow next gen donors to take this productive approach, encouraging and guiding them to craft their own philanthropic identities and to reach their potential as the philanthropists of tomorrow that we need them to be.

Notes

1. This metaphor was originally used by Newton in a 1675 letter to Robert Hooke. On the origins of the aphorism, see Robert K. Merton, On the Shoulders of Giants: A Shandean Postscript (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, [1965] 1993).
2. As reported in Bruce Feiler, “The Stories that Bind Us,” New York Times, March 15, 2013.
3. Ibid.
4. Tivadar Soros, Masquerade: The Incredible True Story of How George Soros' Father Outsmarted the Gestapo. trans. Humphrey Tonkin (New York: Arcade Publishing, [1965] 2011), p. 203.
5. Robert L. Payton and Michael Moody, “Stewardship,” in Philanthropy in America: A Comprehensive Historical Encyclopedia, ed. Dwight F. Burlingame (Santa Barbara, CA: ABC-CLIO, Inc., 2004), pp. 457–460.
6. On ethical wills, see Susan B. Turnbull, The Wealth of Your Life: A Step-by-Step Guide for Creating Your Ethical Will, 3rd ed. (Charlotte, NC: St. Benedict Press, 2012); Eric Weiner, Words from the HEART: A Practical Guide to Writing an Ethical Will (Deutsch-Weiner Enterprises, Inc., and Family Legacy Advisor, 2010).
7. See U.S. Trust, 2016 U.S. Trust Insights on Wealth and Worth: Annual Survey on High-Net-Worth and Ultra-High-Net-Worth Americans (Charlotte, NC: Bank of America Private Wealth Management, 2016).
8. Scott Fithian and Todd Fithian, The Right Side of the Table: Where Do You Sit in the Minds of the Affluent? (Denver, CO: FPA Press, 2007).

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Table of Contents for CHAPTER 9: On the Shoulders of Giants

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