Why Inheritors Don’t Give Enough Money Away (and What To Do About It)
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Most people assume that inheriting millions makes philanthropy easy.
You have tons of money to write the big checks…right?!
But my personal experience as an inheritor, and professional experience working with other inheritors, tells a very different story.
Learning to give money away in a way that feels personally impactful and meaningful is one of the hardest challenges many new millionaires face.
It means fighting against everything capitalism taught you.
It means coming to grips with your own version of “enough.”
It means learning that giving money away doesn’t make you smarter than the people who are doing the work on the ground.
Building a lifelong practice of charitable giving is one of the most fulfilling and rewarding parts of being a younger inheritor.
It’s also the part that no one helps you with.
But that’s about to change.
If you’ve been writing checks but still feel like something major is missing in your giving, this episode is for you.
🗓️ Schedule a FREE call to talk more about how I can help you navigate a current or future inheritance.
Transcript:
Hey, I'm Katherine and thanks for joining me at Heir Necessities, the podcast that turns complex financial topics into real talk for Gen X, millennial, and Gen Z inheritors. Each episode of this podcast, I break down a different topic related to generational wealth and inheritance.
My goal is that you can stop trying to manage your money by asking Google or ChatGPT what to do and come here instead for real talk, real solutions, and real advice that you can start implementing in your life today.
In this week's episode of Heir Necessities, I'm going to be talking about wealth redistribution. If you don't know what that is, the fundamental premise is that as a person who has money and lives in a deeply flawed capitalist society, your fundamental responsibility is to give away a significant portion of the money you have, to redistribute it to people who have greater need.
Because you won in an unfair system. So you have an obligation to give back.
What Does the Wealth Redistribution Movement Actually Focus On?
A lot of wealth redistribution is focused less on the traditional nonprofit system and more on individual giving, movement giving, political advocacy, and coalition building. I'm going to be diving into all of it today and you are going to get my unfiltered thoughts about what I think about the wealth redistribution movement.
Spoiler alert, I think it's amazing. And I think there are some huge problems in the movement that not enough people are talking about.
Before I dive into it, if you're enjoying Heir Necessities, I would be so appreciative if you could take two seconds to leave us a five-star review wherever you listen to podcasts — Spotify, Apple Podcasts, wherever. It is hugely helpful for the show, and it helps me connect with and support more inheritors just like you.
Now let's dive into wealth redistribution.
What Is Resource Generation and How Has It Shaped Wealth Redistribution for Young Inheritors?
If you have heard about wealth redistribution at all, it's probably through an organization called Resource Generation — an organization that mobilizes young people with wealth and class privilege to redistribute their wealth, to giving more of their money away and to recognizing the privilege that they have. I'm going to tell you about my experience and my thoughts on Resource Generation later in the episode, but I want to set the stage because they are a really huge driver of this redistribution movement.
They have done, as an organization, incredible work in waking a lot of people up to the fact that they did win in an unfair system and that does come with a fundamental responsibility to give back.
But first let's dive into what redistribution really means. The trick of the thing is that it can mean different things to different people.
There are people who inherit millions of dollars and redistribution to them means giving all of it away. They don't want any of that money. There are people who haven't inherited anything yet, but still benefit from wealth and class privilege and recognize that privilege by giving away a significant portion of the money that they earn.
Why Is It So Hard for Wealthy Inheritors to Give Money Away Intentionally?
I am of the belief that if this is an impulse that you have — to recognize your privilege and give back — that is an impulse that should be celebrated. I also recognize that it is objectively not an easy thing to do.
There are two main factors that make it so difficult. One is the really obvious one.
We live in a capitalist ecosystem that glorifies the creation and the accumulation of wealth and perpetuates this scarcity mindset that I need to have and to hoard everything that I can so that I am protected, so that my children are protected, so that I have status, so I can live a secure life. That is first and foremost the biggest thing you're fighting against when you're looking at giving away a large portion of either the money you make or the money that you have.
But the bigger thing is that it's actually really hard to give money away with intention. It's easy to scatter-shot money around.
What Does an Intentional and Impactful Charitable Giving Plan Really Require?
If you're talking about creating a giving plan that is comprehensive, that really creates impact and that centers the communities that are impacted as opposed to the people in power — it's a difficult thing to do. It takes time, it takes energy, it takes research and we're all busy.
It's not necessarily the thing that you're going to prioritize. I understand all of those factors and I'm extremely sympathetic to them.
And it's why at Sunnybranch my goal is meeting clients where they are. It's very rare for someone to come in with $10, $20, $30 million and say, I have a full plan, I'm totally confident, I know what I'm doing, I'm ready to give this money away.
Yes, it does happen, but for the majority of people who are interested either in redistribution or in giving money away, it doesn't look like that. It looks like this gnawing feeling that you need to do more, this guilt that you haven't done enough, that you're not giving enough, that you have too much privilege.
How Do Wealth Guilt and Fear of Running Out of Money Keep Inheritors Stuck?
And you know where you want to get — you want to feel like you're creating impact, like you are mitigating some of that privilege that you're born with. You have where you're starting and you have where you hope to end, but all those steps in the middle are really unclear.
And organizations like Resource Generation are a huge part of helping people set up that end goal of where you want to get. But the part that I think is missing in a lot of those conversations is giving your money away — all of it — is not a sustainable long-term plan.
And I understand that there are going to be people who want to argue with me about this and who say that I'm a product of the fascist capitalist overlords. And that is true, right? We all are to some degree.
I run a wealth management business. I can call a spade a spade with the best of them. But the fact is that we also live in this ecosystem run by the fascist capitalist overlords. And we need to make that work.
Can You Support Wealth Redistribution Without Giving Away Everything You Have?
Giving away money at a rate that is so high that you then have no money is not in my mind a good decision, a wise decision, or the best way to recognize that privilege. I wouldn't say that I'm at odds with wealth redistribution.
I fully support it, but I also think that it can't be done sustainably without the support of a plan to understand not only the impact of the money that you're giving away on the organizations or the individuals that you're giving to, but also on your own life.
Because what I see over and over with people who have come out of Resource Generation, who are just kind of familiar with the movement generally, is there's this guilt that they're not doing enough — which I fully understand — and this guilt runs into the fear that if they do more, they are going to run out of money and have no money. And this guilt and this fear just keep running into each other over and over and over and nothing gets done.
How Do You Shift From Giving Out of Guilt to Giving Out of Gratitude?
With clients at Sunnybranch, I don't want to give from a sense of guilt and I don't want a sense of fear to stop giving money away. The goal in my mind of a well-executed wealth redistribution plan is giving not out of that sense of guilt or obligation, but out of a sense of gratitude and joy.
That you, yes, were born with this privilege and you get to participate in this. Not as someone who's calling the shots, not as someone who's making the decisions, but as someone who is sharing wealth and resources with people who have not had the same opportunities to be in the spaces that you're in, to be in the rooms that you've been in, and to have access to the privilege that you've had access to your entire life.
So how do you get to that point where you're giving from gratitude instead of guilt? You need to understand your version of enough.
And it could look really different if you're 25 or 30 and a single person living alone versus if you're 40 and have two kids, a mortgage, and the whole shebang. That enough number can change over time.
What Is Your "Enough Number" and Why Is It the Foundation of a Wealth Redistribution Plan?
But I don't think that you can really execute a wealth redistribution plan without understanding what that number is for you. What is your enough number? And how does that number change over time?
For clients at Sunnybranch who are interested in redistribution — giving more money away — a lot of people don't call it redistribution, they literally just call it giving to charity, which is also fine. You don't have to use the approved nomenclature.
Those giving plans center first with understanding what that enough number is. So that you get rid of that fear — if I give, I'm not going to have enough, I'm going to be putting myself in a scary position.
And you get rid of that guilt that I'm not doing anything, because you are doing something. You're finding that place of financial stability and financial comfort from which you can give.
How Can a Financial Advisor Help You Build a Confident and Sustainable Charitable Giving Plan?
Giving away a lot of money is a hard thing to do. My goal is to meet you where you are in that journey.
I have clients who are already giving away huge sums of money, and I have clients who know that they want to give back more, but have also said, now's not the time when I can deal with it — and that's okay.
Just by recognizing your privilege and recognizing that you want to do more, you've taken an important step. My goal is to push you gently and kindly towards your goal of giving more money away and help you put a framework in place so that you feel confident doing that and not scared and out of control that the money you're giving away is taking your financial life in a direction that you're not comfortable with.
If you want to talk more about redistribution or want to come at me for anything I've said in this episode, I am here for it. You can get in touch with me over email at katherine@sunnybranchwealth.com. You can find me on Instagram at @sunnybranchwealth. And if you prefer to just follow along with the pod and get my next hot take, I'll catch you on next week's episode of Heir Necessities.
Let’s take the next step together
Understanding how to protect, invest, grow, and/or give away a multi-million dollar inheritance isn’t easy. Inheritors can encounter a wide variety of different situations requiring knowledge and finesse to manage. If you need more help, reach out to Katherine Fox, CFP® and CAP®, financial planner for inheritors, to learn how Sunnybranch can help you evaluate your financial situation and build a plan for your financial future.
