The Syverson Strege team has spent decades helping families build and protect wealth. But the longer I do this work, the more I understand that financial planning is really the easy part. The harder work, and the more important work, is helping families figure out what the money is for.
That question sits at the heart of everything we do with our clients, and it is why I attended the Mastering Multigenerational Wealth Conference in Frisco, Texas, in May.
One of the most important components we help clients wrestle with is clarity of purpose.
These aren't estate planning questions. They are identity questions. And until a family can answer them with some degree of honesty, no amount of sophisticated planning will stick. Syverson Strege sits at the intersection of financial planning and family purpose, and we take both seriously.
The generational dimension of this work has never been more urgent. Tom Rogerson, another engaging speaker at the conference, has conducted research that confirms what we’ve learned from client families over the years: more than 60 percent of wealthy families lose their unity, connection, and shared history by the end of the second generation. More than 80 percent by the third. Traditional estate plans, designed primarily for tax efficiency, can accelerate that separation. That's a sobering reality. Wealth doesn't cause families to fall apart, but wealth gives them the resources to drift apart, and without intentional structure, many do exactly that.
Tom’s framework clearly identifies what drives failure. Less than 5 percent of family wealth failure traces back to poor investments or bad tax planning. The overwhelming majority comes from failures of a family’s ability to make decisions together (often referred to as governance), unprepared heirs, and lack of shared purpose. That reframes our entire job as advisors. Yes, we need to get the financial plan right. But we also need to ask whether the next generation has been brought into the conversation, whether they understand the family's values, and whether they've had any real experience making decisions together.
This is where the concept of "crossties" resonates deeply with me. Crossties are the things that connect a family — shared philanthropic work, family meetings and shared experiences, a culture of entrepreneurship and learning together. They are structural, and they are what allow the family to bear the weight of wealth and transition without fracturing. We help our clients think about how to build and fund those family dynamics and goals intentionally, and increasingly, how to endow them in ways that outlast the founding generation.
What I find most hopeful in all of this is the reminder that the patterns that destroy family wealth across generations are knowable, and they are preventable. The families who succeed aren't necessarily the ones who hired the best lawyers or found the best investment returns. They're the ones who invested time and intention in building a family culture where the next generation feels connected, capable, and called to something larger than themselves.
At Syverson Strege, that's the work we're privileged to do alongside our clients. Not just planning for wealth transfer but helping families become the kind of family that has something worth transferring. We would be happy to answer any questions you might have. Feel free to contact us online or at (515) 225-6000.