Advisors
To engage the rising generation in legacy planning, do not make attendance at a family meeting the first test of commitment. Start with a personal invitation connected to the adult child’s own life. Give them a private way to reflect, let them choose what they want to share, and show how their contribution affects the family’s next step.
A missed meeting tells you someone was absent. It does not tell you whether they care about their family, understand its legacy, or want a relationship with the advisor.
For wealth advisors, the opportunity is to create a path into legacy planning that feels useful before it feels formal. Total Family supports that path by giving each person a place to begin individually and several ways to contribute over time. The software provides structure. The relationship still depends on how you invite, listen, and follow through.
Key takeaways for wealth advisors
Do not equate meeting attendance with commitment to the family.
Start with a voluntary invitation connected to the adult child’s own priorities.
Offer private reflection and flexible ways to contribute.
Respect consent, sharing boundaries, and a decision not to participate.
Follow up with a specific explanation of how their input shaped the next step.
Our broader guide to engaging the rising generation before the wealth transfer explains why these relationships should begin early. This article focuses on a common obstacle: what to do when the usual family-meeting invitation is not working.
Why does the rising generation skip family meetings?
There are many possible reasons an adult child may not attend. Work or caregiving may make the schedule difficult. The agenda may seem unrelated to their life. They may expect to listen while decisions are presented to them. They may also want some separation between their own life and a parent’s advisory relationship.
Treat these as possibilities to explore, not explanations to assign.
Start with the client who has the established relationship. Ask whether an introduction would be welcome and whether the adult child has expressed a preference about how to participate. Then let the adult child speak for themselves.
A simple opening might be:
“Your parents mentioned that the usual meeting time has been difficult. If you are interested, I would be glad to hear what parts of your family’s story or future feel relevant to you. You do not need to join the full meeting to contribute.”
That invitation is specific, voluntary, and open enough for a real answer.
A recent Visionary Advisor conversation with Emily Harper and Jessica Gibbs of Monument Wealth reinforces this approach. Families often delay because they are waiting for the perfect moment. Advisors can lower the stakes by starting small, leading with curiosity, and using values or family stories to open the conversation.
Start with their life, not their anticipated inheritance
Rising-generation family members have priorities that may have little to do with an eventual wealth transfer. They may be building a career, raising children, caring for relatives, reconsidering where they live, or trying to understand what they want their own life to stand for.
Begin there.
Questions could include:
What is taking most of your attention right now?
Which family traditions feel meaningful to you?
Is there a family story you want to understand better?
What do you hope your family carries forward?
What would make a family conversation worth your time?
These are conversation starters, not an assessment. The person can decline any question or choose a different one.
This is also where the advisor’s role matters. You are not asking the rising generation to adopt the parents’ definition of legacy. You are helping make room for their perspective while the family still has time to hear it.
Use individual reflection before asking for family alignment
A shared family purpose is more useful when people have had time to decide what matters to them personally. That does not require everyone to begin in the same room.
Total Family’s Personal Vision gives each participant a guided way to define their Values, Purpose, and Roles. An advisor can introduce it as a private starting point, then ask what, if anything, the person would like to discuss. The goal is not to collect a complete account of their personal life. It is to help them arrive at the family conversation with language for what matters to them.
From there, Family Vision gives participating family members a way to identify shared Values, Purpose, and Priorities. Agreement should not be assumed. The value is in seeing where people align, where they differ, and what deserves a conversation.
This sequence makes legacy planning more accessible:
Invite individual reflection.
Let each person decide what they want to share.
Bring shared themes into a family conversation.
Identify one decision, story, or practice the family wants to carry forward.
Revisit the Vision as people and priorities change.
A meeting can still be part of the process. It simply does not have to be the only door into it.
How Total Family helps advisors engage the rising generation
Total Family is family legacy software that helps wealth advisors engage rising-generation family members before they are ready for a full family meeting. Individuals can begin with Personal Vision, contribute on their own time, and later participate in shared Family Vision, Milestones, Quotes, or Legacy Letters.
Offer more than one way to contribute
Some people think best in conversation. Others need time to write. One person may care about the family’s purpose, while another connects through a story, a tradition, or a message from a grandparent.
Multigenerational family engagement tools work best when they offer more than one type of participation. Inside Total Family, a rising-generation family member might:
complete a Personal Vision on their own time;
contribute to a shared Family Vision;
capture a meaningful family Milestone;
save a Quote that should not be lost; or
write or receive a Legacy Letter with the appropriate visibility and permissions.
These are not substitutes for human conversation. They are ways to make that conversation easier to enter and easier to continue.
An adult child who will not attend a two-hour meeting may still add the story behind a family tradition. Someone who does not want to discuss financial details may want to record a milestone or write a letter to a younger relative. Those contributions reveal what legacy means to that person without forcing them into a format that does not fit.
Make room for a different answer
An invitation is only credible if disagreement is allowed.
Suppose a parent wants an annual gathering at the family home, while an adult child wants to alternate locations to share the travel demands. The adult child’s answer should not be treated as a lack of commitment to family. It is information about how participation could become more workable.
Ask what each person wants the tradition to accomplish. They may share a desire for connection while preferring different arrangements. The advisor can help the family name that distinction and decide which question it wants to resolve.
The same principle applies inside Total Family. A shared Vision is not valuable because every person produces the same answer. It is valuable because the family can see what it is trying to hold in common and where more conversation is needed.
Show how their contribution changed the next step
If you invite someone’s perspective and nothing happens, the next invitation may feel less meaningful.
Close the loop with permission and specificity. For example:
“You said a full-day gathering was hard to manage. The family agreed to try a shorter session and share questions in advance. Would that be worth considering?”
If the family does not adopt a suggestion, acknowledge that honestly:
“The location will stay the same this year, but your concern about travel time will be part of planning the next gathering.”
The same follow-through can happen in Total Family. A Milestone might become the opening story at the next meeting. A shared value from Family Vision might guide a decision. A Legacy Letter might start a conversation that would have been difficult to begin aloud.
The contribution should lead somewhere visible, even when it does not lead to agreement.
An example of engagement without full meeting attendance
The following is an illustrative scenario, not a documented client case. Consider a family with two adult children living in different cities. One attends the annual meeting. The other regularly declines because the agenda usually covers decisions the parents have already made.
Instead of asking the absent child to justify the decision, the advisor offers a short introduction and a Personal Vision exercise that can be completed on their own schedule. The adult child shares that they care deeply about the family’s volunteer tradition and the stories behind it, but do not want to review the parents’ portfolio.
With permission, the advisor brings that interest back to the family. The adult child adds a Milestone about a volunteer trip with a grandparent and submits one question for the next family conversation: “What do we want service to look like in the next generation?”
Later, they join only that part of the conversation. The family chooses one service project to complete together and records it as another Milestone.
The useful result is not meeting attendance for its own sake. It is a relevant contribution, a clearer sense of shared purpose, and an agreed next step.
Measure the relationship, not just attendance
If the only measure of engagement is who appeared at a meeting, advisors will miss quieter forms of participation.
Look instead for signs of an emerging relationship:
A welcome introduction
A completed reflection
A question offered for the family
Permission for a future conversation
A story, Milestone, Quote, or Legacy Letter shared
A jointly agreed next step
Keep those observations distinct from email opens, software logins, or attendance. Ask whether the person found the interaction useful. Do not turn private reflection into a score of how engaged or loyal someone is.
For the wider service model, our guide to building a multigenerational client retention strategy provides additional context. A meaningful relationship must develop on its own terms. A family connection alone does not establish one.
Questions advisors ask about rising-generation engagement
How can advisors engage the rising generation in legacy planning?
Start with a relevant, voluntary invitation rather than asking someone to attend a full family meeting. Offer individual reflection, flexible ways to contribute, clear sharing boundaries, and follow-up that shows how the person’s input shaped the next step. Total Family gives advisors a structured way to support that process through Personal Vision, Family Vision, Milestones, Quotes, and Legacy Letters.
What if adult children will not attend family meetings?
Find out what makes the meeting difficult or unappealing. Offer a shorter individual conversation, a written prompt, or a specific contribution through a tool such as Personal Vision, Milestones, or Legacy Letters. Respect a decision not to participate.
What tools support multigenerational family engagement?
Useful tools help individuals reflect privately, identify shared family values and purpose, preserve stories, and contribute asynchronously. Total Family brings Personal Vision, Family Vision, Milestones, Quotes, and Legacy Letters into one guided legacy-planning experience for families and advisors.
Should an advisor contact an adult child directly?
Begin with an appropriate introduction and a welcome invitation. Clarify the purpose and who the advisor represents. Do not assume a parent’s client relationship establishes consent from another adult.
Can software solve a lack of family participation?
No. Software can create structure, offer more ways to contribute, and preserve the family’s work over time. It cannot make an unwanted conversation welcome. Relevance, choice, trust, and follow-through remain essential.
Make the next invitation easier to accept
Choose one rising-generation family member whose perspective is missing. Confirm that an introduction is welcome. Ask what would make legacy planning relevant to their life, then offer one manageable way to contribute.
That could be a Personal Vision, a family story captured as a Milestone, a Quote worth preserving, or the beginning of a Legacy Letter. The next step does not have to be a full family meeting. It can be one question someone finally feels invited to answer.
