It is important to document your story for the future
What we leave behind matters. What will your legacy be, asks Suzanne Korf
I recently attended a talk on legacy giving and personal philanthropy given by adviser and speaker Paul Nazareth. His presentation was very entertaining, but it also made me think. I want to share some of the things I learned because what we leave behind matters.
Our legacy is not something we like to talk about. We don’t even like to think about our mortality, but as Benjamin Franklin is quoted as saying, “In this world nothing can be said to be certain, except death and taxes.” And while I hope that everyone lives a very long and healthy life, we should all be prepared. Stuff happens.
Most of us will spend about 50 years of our life working, but almost no time thinking about how we will leave what we built behind and how it will have meaning. Many of us don’t even have wills, let alone a plan for how we want to leave our legacy.
Each of us has a story. It doesn’t matter who you are, your story is important. If you do not take the time to write it down or document it in some way, much of it will be lost.
As a fundraiser, it is always sad to receive a generous bequest from someone you didn’t know, but who left all or a part of their wealth to your cause without so much as a note to indicate the motivation behind the grand gesture. Wouldn’t it be nice to know the donor’s story and to be able to share it and keep it alive?
Nazareth told us the true story of a man who invented dynamite and amassed a huge fortune. He was also a generous man who gave back to the community. When the newspapers incorrectly reported his death, the headlines on the front page read, “The merchant of death is dead.” He was shocked to find out that this would be how people remembered him, so he made a plan to change his legacy. That man’s name was Alfred Nobel and, after his death, his fortune was used to establish the Nobel Prizes. Today, he is remembered for his message of peace.
How do we want to be remembered? Whether the fortune we leave behind is small or large, how we decide to distribute our life’s work and worldly possessions is important. If we leave a stamp collection to a nephew, or an amount to charity ( which Paul calls our “charity child”), our story explains why this is important to us and makes our legacy a deep and meaningful one.
The art of telling, and listening to, stories is powerful. Stories define us and move us and engage us. They help us to learn and remember. So think about your legacy and share your story.