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Wealthy parents and their adult children are drifting apart on charity. Only 35% of younger high-net-worth Americans say their approach to philanthropy matches their parents’, according to Bank of America Private Bank’s 2026 Study of Wealthy Americans. Two years earlier, the figure was 63%.
The split comes at an awkward time. Cerulli Associates expects $124 trillion in U.S. wealth to change hands through 2048, and about $18 trillion of that is expected to go to charity. Who decides where that money lands is now a family question as much as a financial one. Justin Nelson JP Morgan highlights why families should involve the next generation in planning their charitable giving.
For Justin Nelson, Managing Director and Head of the Asset Management and Financial Principals Coverage Team for J.P. Morgan Private Bank in Connecticut, the question is being raised more often in estate planning conversations. His 20-person team advises leaders in hedge funds, private equity and real estate, along with their family offices and foundations, and the client list has grown to include the next generation.
“We have shifted from working with principals to principals and their families,” Nelson says.
The JP Morgan banker folds charitable giving into the estate plan from the start. “For many families, charitable giving is really an extension of their estate plan,” he says. “The question isn’t just, ‘How much do I want to leave to my children?’ It’s also, ‘What do I want my wealth to accomplish, and what values do I want to pass along with it?’”
Why Justin Nelson Tells Families to Start With Problems
The first mistake he sees? Families open the conversation with a list of specific organizations. Nelson flips the order.
“Before asking, ‘Which charity should we give to?’ I think families should ask, ‘What problems do we care about solving?’” he says.
The sequence helps most when generations disagree. They often do. Gen Z and millennial donors in the Bank of America study support 12 charitable causes on average, compared with eight for wealthy individuals overall. Only 40% say they back the same causes as the generation before them, down from 50% in 2024.
One relative may care deeply about education, another about health care, a third about the environment. Nelson considers that normal. Everybody probably won’t care equally about every issue, he says, and that’s fine.
Katherine Lorenz, who leads the Giving Pledge’s next-gen group, sees the same tension from the heirs’ side. “Family dynamics kind of trump all, in both good ways and bad ways,” she told Fortune in June.
How a Shared Budget Gives Heirs a Seat at the Table
Nelson’s answer? A split budget. A family might commit 60% or 70% of its annual charitable dollars to causes everyone agrees on, then divide the rest among individual members, who each recommend their own grants.
The model works especially well with children and grandchildren, he says, because it gives them both a voice and a responsibility.
“Successful family philanthropy doesn’t require everyone to have the same passions. It requires a process that allows everyone to participate.”
Plenty of wealthy households already give as a group. Nearly half (49%) of the Bank of America respondents say their philanthropy typically includes other family members. More than 1 in 4 of those with $25 million or more in assets plan to educate their heirs on charitable giving and board participation. Justin Nelson JP Morgan encourages families to involve younger generations in charitable giving and decision-making.
Foundation or Donor-Advised Fund?
Sooner or later, governance becomes a question of structure. A private foundation gives a family control and a lasting institution, Nelson says, complete with a board that can seat several generations. That control comes with paperwork, though: ongoing administrative, tax, reporting and governance requirements that don’t go away once the foundation is up and running. Justin Nelson of JP Morgan helps families understand these responsibilities when choosing the right charitable giving structure.
A donor-advised fund is simpler. Donors contribute assets, take the charitable deduction when eligible and recommend grants over time, while most of the administration is handled by the sponsoring organization.
“I sometimes describe a donor-advised fund as giving you much of the experience of having a charitable foundation without having to operate a foundation,” Nelson says.
His rule of thumb turns on what the family wants to build. “A foundation makes sense when the infrastructure itself is part of what you want to build. A donor-advised fund makes sense when you primarily want an efficient vehicle for giving.”
Younger donors seem comfortable with both. Gen Z and millennial respondents are more likely than older peers to use a family foundation (24%), per Bank of America, and their donor-advised fund adoption (20%) runs roughly twice the 9% rate among wealthy individuals overall.
Justin Nelson has spent close to 30 years advising wealthy families and serves on the board of the Greenwich-based Breast Cancer Alliance, a nonprofit that funds breast cancer research. He stresses that the right structure depends on each family’s tax and estate picture and should be worked out with tax and legal advisors.
“You don’t want the investment strategy, the tax strategy, the estate plan and the charitable plan operating independently,” he says. “The real opportunity comes when you design them together.”
With parents and heirs now split on how to give, that design table needs more chairs than it used to.
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Original source: https://homebusinessmag.com/blog/financial-news/justin-nelson-jp-morgan-gives-heirs-voice-giving/