If you’re into podcasts (who isn’t?), and you happen to make your living as a trusts and estates attorney, you’re going to love a recent episode of the Future Perfect podcast entitled Dead people leave billions in their wills. How long do we have to listen to them? Here’s an excerpt from the show notes:
We don’t let dead people vote.
We don’t let dead people run for political office.
But we do let dead people donate money that shapes the world, using charitable trusts.
And as we learn on this episode of the Future Perfect podcast, letting zombie donors pull the strings often doesn’t turn out all that well….
Ray Madoff, a professor at Boston College Law School, wrote a whole book about people donating from beyond the grave, called Immortality and the Law: The Rising Power of America’s Dead.
She says the all-powerful zombie donor is a relatively new American phenomenon.
For the first century or so after the American Revolution, the idea that the dead would have much control over the resources of the world seemed very undemocratic. But then came the Gilded Age, and the rise of a class of unprecedentedly rich people. Some of these robber barons were willing to spread their wealth around — in exchange for immortality. And that immortality came in the form of charitable trusts that lasted forever.
In the decades since, perpetual charitable trusts have become the norm.
The problem? Forever is a long time. And when donors write specific instructions in their trusts, they can’t predict the ways the world will change.
Click here for the podcast audio link. Great stuff, highly recommended.