Incentive Trusts Build Fortune and Character

When you imagine leaving your hard earned money as an inheritance to your children or beneficiaries, chances are you imagine it supplementing their income, allowing them to have some of those “little extras,” saving them from having to struggle quite as hard as you did, helping them to take care of their family. What you probably don’t imagine is that your legacy will allow your child to flit from job to job, never really having the incentive to settle down and become a contributing member of society.

You may think, “but I’ll be dead, what can I do about it? I can’t control what my kids do with their inheritance.” But the fact is that you can give your children an inheritance and incentive to live a productive life and contribute to their community. Or perhaps you would rather give your kids incentive to go as far as they can with their education, or to follow their dreams and become entrepreneurs. Whatever your goal for your children, the inheritance you leave for them can help you encourage them in that direction by leaving it to them in an incentive trust.

By creating an incentive trust you don’t take anything away from your heirs, you are still helping to provide for them. The difference is that an incentive trust gives your heirs something to work for. Working to build your fortune is something you can take pride in, something that brings you character and confidence; would you want to take that same opportunity from your children? And creating an incentive trust doesn’t mean that you’re pulling strings from the grave, you can make your trust as lenient or strict as you wish. 

Whether you value education, entrepreneurship, charity or family, an incentive trust can help you pass those same values on to your heirs. It allows you to provide for your beneficiaries’ characters as well as their financial well-being.