It’s an old story winningly told by TOM ROGERSON senior director and wealth management advisor at WILMINGTON TRUST COMPANY (trogerson@wilmingtontrust.com). A 14th generation Mayflower descendant, still living on the family’s original land in Massachusetts, Tom is the scion of a wealthy Boston family that lost all its money – in three generations.
He weaves his personal story into
solid wealth management advice for families. Speaking to a meeting of
philanthropic advisors in Vancouver BC - members of the Giving Institute (www.givinginstitute.org) - it is less
a story about money itself but how family dysfunction and poor-to-non-existent
communications among the family, from the paterfamilias downward, took away the
wealth.
A recent study, Tom reported,
showed that typically a family loses lost 80% of its wealth within 50 years of
the fo under’s death. The takeaway is only partly about how the wealth will be
managed, or by whom, but ratherthe family dynamic. A
dysfunctional family will end up with a dysfunctional foundation – quarreling about the founders’ (usually
parents) commitments versus the children’s interests – either philanthropic but
commonly about money that they’d rather have themselves; about who’s in charge
and how decisions are made. Tom’s presentation
included this quote attributed to George Burns:
|
“Happiness is having a
large, loving, caring, close-knit family in another city.”
 Tom Rogerson |
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