Transforming everyday giving
Financial planning helped one family make a difference in their world today
Through financial planning, our clients explore how to align their money with their values, build confidence in the path ahead, and empower themselves to be generous with the people and causes they care about most. In this final step, we help them plan for how much they can direct toward creating a positive impact in their world – what we call their impact gap.
For many of our clients and our staff, determining the impact gap is a favorite part of financial planning. It’s where thinking shifts from what our money can do for us, to how we can use it to transform.
We ask our clients to think about how the Impact GapTM might help them:
- Strengthen the relationships that matter most.
- Contribute to causes and organizations they’re passionate about.
- Give themselves permission to live out lifelong dreams and bucket list items.
Eric and Heidi* are young professionals in their early 30s with two young children. Earning roughly $200,000 a year, they came to financial planning looking for guidance on how to steward their excess margin well.
Beyond their strong cash flow, they'd also built a sizable nest egg early in life — much of it gifted by Heidi's parents at her college graduation. For years, they described this investment portfolio as a burden, unsure of how to use it in a way that aligned with their faith. They lived simply and wanted counsel on stewarding their assets according to their values.
Early on, it became clear that Eric and Heidi are naturally generous people who would benefit from an intentional giving strategy. Rather than thinking about generosity only in terms of income, we broadened the conversation to include their appreciated assets as a powerful giving tool.
Our team helped them calculate a reasonable lump sum of appreciated securities to seed a donor advised fund. This let the couple fund their charitable giving for years to come while achieving significant tax efficiency.
The result: a six-figure contribution into a donor advised fund through Everence, which they now use to support the causes and organizations they care about. Because they are no longer giving strictly from their earned income, the family has more monthly cash flow – money they're now putting toward college savings, retirement and experiences that build relationships with family and friends.
Much of this work was technical, but Eric and Heidi never lost sight of the impact they wanted their wealth to have. By bringing clarity and confidence to their long-term financial plan, we helped lift an emotional weight they'd carried for years and freed them to live out their generous calling.
Our staff has had the privilege of walking alongside this family as they align their finances with their faith — transforming not just their giving, but their hearts and their financial future.