Her Giving Changes Lives

Debra Bianchi

Business Owner and Philanthropist

For Debra, making money isn’t as important as making a difference. She volunteers at the local food pantry, and wants her legacy to provide hope for the homeless. As a highly sought after public relations consultant, she juggles a successful business, marriage to a physician, the demands of two young and active children, and a passion for giving to those in need.

Debra was savvy about money issues and the family was doing very well financially. She simply didn’t want to take so much time away from her responsibilities and passions to manage the family’s finances. Debra and her husband met with us to discuss several challenges:

1. Growing her wealth to meet family, legacy and charitable goals
2. Simplification of her family finances
3. Creating an active process for charitable giving

We discussed various estate planning strategies to help them balance the dual goals of structuring a legacy for their heirs and leaving a generous gift to support the work of the community food pantry so close to Debra’s heart. Through our conversation we quickly discovered that Debra and her husband did not want to have their greatest legacy impact when they passed. They wanted to enjoy the gift of giving while they were alive and preserve a legacy for their grandchildren. Using WealthVision™ we were able to illustrate their current financial situation by creating pictures with numbers as both Debra and her husband were more visual learners than numbers driven.

We followed up by illustrating several gifting techniques to benefit their children and the charities they support, and how each technique may impact their current finances and lifestyle without impacting their retirement lifestyle goals.

Debra and her husband were able to envision the joy they could create by funding their charitable goals during their lifetime, while helping their children when they needed money the most by establishing education legacy gifts for their grandchildren.

Working in conjunction with their attorney, all of this was seamlessly woven into their estate plan to help them protect their assets, avoid probate, and mitigate taxes while enjoying the pleasure of helping others today.

Moving forward, we lifted several other financial management tasks off her shoulders, and now help Debra and her family with monitoring and adjusting their legacy and tax planning, investments, and insurance needs. She appreciates the additional time she now has to pursue her business, family, and volunteer interests.