The Part of the Financial Plan That Isn’t Financial

A financial plan can answer a lot of questions about money.

How much do you need? How should it be invested? What can you spend? How much risk makes sense? What happens to it later?

All important.

But several of this week’s signals raised another question:

What do you actually want the money to do?

A lot of this week’s stories were about charitable giving. But underneath them was a broader idea: intention.

What do clients want their money to accomplish? And does the financial plan actually help them get there?

One story about dinosaur bones, of all things, made the point even better.

Signal 1: The Opportunity May Be in What the Client Isn’t Saying

WealthManagement called one of this week’s stories “The Opportunity Hiding in Plain Sight.” The premise was that charitable planning can begin by hearing what clients may not be saying directly.

Clients rarely walk into a meeting and say, “I want to talk about purpose.”

They talk about retirement. Their children. A business they built. A school they care about. A nonprofit board they serve on. Something their family went through that changed what matters to them.

It can sound like conversation around the edges of the financial plan.

But sometimes that conversation is the plan.

Sometimes the client is telling you what the money is for without saying it that way.

Signal 2: The Goal Usually Comes Before the Structure

Another story looked at fiscal sponsorship and how a charitable initiative can operate under an established nonprofit’s tax-exempt umbrella rather than immediately creating a separate organization.

The structure can help accelerate fundraising and reduce some administrative burden.

But before the structure, there is usually a person who wants to make something happen.

Maybe they have been thinking about it for years. Maybe they see a need they want to address. Maybe they want their family involved.

The structure comes later.

If we start with the vehicle, we can end up talking about mechanics before understanding what the person is actually trying to accomplish.

A useful question might simply be:

What are you trying to make happen?

Signal 3: The Tool Isn’t the Purpose

There was also a piece this week addressing misconceptions about donor-advised funds and the importance of understanding how the vehicle works.

DAFs can be useful tools.

So can trusts, foundations, and other structures used in financial planning.

But clients usually aren’t excited because they selected the correct financial vehicle.

They are excited about what it lets them do.

Help a school.

Support research.

Take care of family.

Give something back.

Build something that lasts.

The tool matters because it enables the purpose.

It isn’t the purpose itself.

That distinction can get lost when financial planning conversations become too focused on products, structures, or tax mechanics.

The better conversation may begin with the outcome the client wants—and then work backward toward the tools that can help make it possible.

Signal 4: Giving Well Takes More Than Good Intentions

Another signal looked at protecting gifts to institutions that may be at risk of failing, including steps to consider before a client commits to giving.

Wanting to help is one thing.

Making sure the money has a reasonable chance of doing what the client intends is another.

Will the organization still be there?

Will the gift be used the way the client expects?

Are there questions that should be answered before the commitment is made?

Those questions are part of stewardship too.

The financial plan isn’t simply about getting money from one place to another. It can also help clients think through whether their resources are likely to accomplish what they intend.

Signal 5: Retirement Can Change the Question

WealthManagement also looked at charitable giving in retirement and where Congress might go next.

Rules change. Tax policy changes. Planning strategies change with them.

But retirement can also change the way people think about the money itself.

For years, the focus may have been on accumulating enough.

Then the client reaches a point where they realize they probably do have enough.

The questions start to change.

What do we want to enjoy ourselves?

What should the children receive?

Is there something we would like to support while we’re still here to see what happens?

Those aren’t just tax questions.

They are life questions that involve money.

And the advisor may be one of the few people in a position to bring those questions into the financial plan.

Signal 6: And Then There Were the Dinosaur Bones

One of my favorite signals this week was a WealthManagement piece about valuing fossils and other non-traditional collectibles.

Provenance was one of the important considerations.

At first glance, dinosaur bones don’t have much to do with charitable planning.

But they do have something to do with value.

A financial statement gives an asset a number.

People often give it something else.

A painting can have an appraisal value and still mean far more to the family that has looked at it every day for forty years.

A collection can have a market value and also represent a lifetime of interest, travel, or memories.

Even a dinosaur fossil can come with a story.

The financial value still matters.

It just may not be the only value that matters.

The Part of the Financial Plan That Isn’t Financial

That may be the thread running through all of these signals.

Clients bring financial questions into the planning relationship. But underneath those questions are often human ones.

What matters to me?

What do I want to preserve?

Who do I want to help?

What should happen to what I’ve built?

What do I want my money to make possible?

The technical planning still matters. The tax rules matter. The structures matter. The valuations matter.

But they work better when they are connected to something the client actually cares about.

A financial plan can tell you what the money can do.

The deeper conversation is figuring out what the client wants it to do.