In 2015, I wrote a blog titled, “This Is War” and the position I wanted to refute was Christian advisors, community foundations and organizations promoting the perspective that leaving wealth to children was not in the best interests of the parents or the children. This was a common quote: “Leaving children with wealth is like leaving them a case of psychological cancer.” You could not trust your children or you loved them too much to make them wealthy so it would be better to leave the money to an organization that could be trusted or establish a firm sunset for the foundation. Anyone but your children.   No one ever thought to question why an organization receiving the assets would not be equally as harmed by the increase in wealth. So, I wrote making a case for preparing children for wealth and not disinheriting them or spoiling them with a wealthy lifestyle and then being surprised they had not been ready for inheritance.

(Suggested reading: The Family Farm)

For several reasons, I think the tide is turning and parents are more interested in their children being prepared for personal and foundation wealth and the responsibilities that come with it. Three of those influences, I believe, are the rise in homeschooling, a growing interest in multiple generational wealth that was not possible until now and, finally, a theological shift. There are more than three but we only have ten minutes.

Homeschooling has created and benefitted from an emphasis on not only the content of education but the values and character shaping of the children. These cannot be farmed out to public or private schools or parachurch organizations as they might have been in the past. Homeschooling has changed the dynamics of many families across the wide spectrum of the population. Families are not only spending more time with their children but their attitudes toward family trust and generations of family are changing. The family bonds are stronger than ever. The appeal to fear has less influence. “Do your givin’ while you’re livin’ so you’re knowin’ where it’s goin’”is losing steam.

There has been up until now very little evangelical dynastic wealth. There are few examples like the Kennedy’s, Mellon’s, Rockefeller’s, Ford’s and others. Our wealth is relatively new and first generation for the most part. That is changing. We are increasingly interested in engaging the next generation in the work of our foundations and that is by definition dynastic wealth. Until now there was an implicit assumption that the next generation would not create wealth or they would squander it. That is changing.  As well, a growing number of parents are interested in not only leaving wealth to children but open to foundations that go on in perpetuity. This is not universal and institutions that would benefit from receiving the wealth are, understandably, opposed to the change.

Twentieth century evangelical philanthropy was shaped by premillennial dispensationalism and that meant time was short with a task to be completed. With enough funding the work could be accomplished and then the end would come. There was a sense of urgency in evangelical philanthropy. That is changing and the change effects the dynamics of family wealth. There is more interest in the here and now for other issues, environmentalism, homelessness, poverty, disease, criminal justice reform, climate change, social justice, and other interests that were of little theological importance to a previous generation. There is a growing recognition that foundations should be thinking long term and not simply bringing in the final days. Families are learning they want to think more about dynasties than about one generation giving. They are beginning to realize the next generation’s realities and values are as valid as theirs.

(Suggested reading: The Rise and Fall of Dispensationalism by Daniel Hummel)

How does that change your role as staff?  A couple of ways.

First, while this is not often a part of the initial job description, a growing number of principals are beginning to include preparing the next generation as part of your work. They are not thinking about giving everything to a ministry or Christian community foundation upon their death. Some are not thinking as much about sunsetting the foundation. They are wanting help raising their children to understand the responsibilities of wealth and to be prepared not only for personal wealth but for the work of the foundation or donor advised fund. They are staffing for this part of their life along with the mechanics of giving. They may not be saying that when they are hiring but it is in the front of their minds now more than ever.

How does this affect your preparation for this role? How does it affect your actual work? How does it affect the characteristics of new staff for these families and foundations?

Second, the impact of Artificial Intelligence is only going to increase. I mentioned last year that one of the AI consultants I talked with (Quentin Walz at DataKind) thought AI could do 90% of the work of foundation staff within the next five years. That forces everyone to think hard about what value you bring to the principals that is both unique and irreplaceable.

In 1992, Peter Drucker wrote in the Harvard Business Review, “In a matter of decades, society altogether rearranges itself – its worldview, its basic values, its social and political structures, its arts, its key institutions. Fifty years later a new world exists. And the people born into that world cannot even imagine the world in which their grandparents lived and into which their own parents were born. Our age is such a period of transformation.”

For Drucker, the newest new world was marked, above all, by one dominant factor: “the shift to a knowledge society.”

Indeed, Drucker had been anticipating this monumental leap – to an age when people would generate value with their minds more than with their muscle – since at least 1959, when in Landmarks of Tomorrow he first described the rise of “knowledge work.” Three decades later, Drucker had become convinced that knowledge was a more crucial economic resource than land, labor, or financial assets, leading to what he called a “post-capitalist society.” And shortly thereafter (and not long before he died in 2005), Drucker declared that increasing the productivity of knowledge workers was “the most important contribution management needs to make in the 21st century.”

Each one of you is a knowledge worker. That is your primary value to your principal, at least for now. However, if AI can do everything you currently are doing with knowledge and information – and do it faster, better and cheaper – then how will you adapt to that new world? How will you use AI to your advantage?  To paraphrase Clayton Christensen, what is the real job you have been hired to do? The shift won’t be immediate. Foundations don’t do immediate. Principals don’t do immediate. You have time. For the moment this may be “a cloud smaller than a man’s hand rising from the sea” but sooner than we expect the sources, preparation, work, and continuing professional development of foundation staff will change.

(Suggested reading: Competing Against Luck by Clayton Christensen)

Glen Eyrie Conference Center

May 2023