When we met Sal and June, they were in their early 70s and had been savers their whole lives. Sal and June are active volunteers in their community and support a number of causes close to their hearts across the city. 

Sal and June had never looked at how much they needed to live on, so they weren’t sure how much they could safely give and still meet their needs. They also had three adult children, who lived across Canada, and wanted to make sure their estate left their family something to allow them to get together regularly. 

We used a special legacy and value-based survey we have developed to get to know them better.  We realized that faith and family were two of their most important values. We also ran detailed financial planning models that looked at their spending needs and the potential impact of long-term care on their situation. 

We showed them that even if both of them ended up in long-term-care situations until age 95, they would still have plenty left in their estate. We showed them that they could give up at five times their current rate and barely make a dent in their estate size. 

We introduced them to a community foundation that arose from a similar faith-based background as their own. Through this foundation, they centralized and simplified their annual and estate giving strategies and will eventually bequeath part of their estate to a fund that their children can then direct in their lifetimes.  
 
On top of all of this, we helped them allocate their investment savings into Socially Responsible Investments (SRI) that better matched their personal values and ethics than their original portfolio.