A Legacy Trust can benefit family as you define it, charities, friends, community organizations and more all while carrying forward your legacy.
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Introduction
Pride Month is a time to celebrate authenticity, resilience, community, and the many ways people create families and build lives of meaning. It is also an ideal time to reconsider what estate planning can accomplish.
Traditional estate planning has been presented as a technical exercise: avoiding probate, minimizing taxes, drafting documents, and transferring wealth. While those goals remain important, many people—particularly members of the LGBTQ+ community—may view their wealth through a different and perhaps broader lens. They may see it not merely as property to pass on, but as a tool to support the people, causes, and communities that helped them become the authentic people who they are now.
An estate plan might, for example, bequeath 75% of the estate into traditional planning trusts to protect and provide for a partner, spouse and children (or those viewed like children). The remaining portion, say 25% of the estate may be bequeathed into a Legacy Trust to accomplish a wide range of goals, and even providing a backstop for key loved ones should the other arrangements prove inadequate.
Trusts traditionally are used to protect wealth for a spouse, partner, child or other heir. But they can do much more. The Legacy Trust concept begins with a simple premise: estate planning should reflect not only what you own or who you love, but also what you value.
For discussions of different aspects of planning see two prior forbes.com articles: “LGBTQ+ Estate Planning And Pride Month” (2024); and “Pride Month Estate Planning: Cautionary Steps To Consider” (2025).
Family Doesn’t Always Mean What The Law Assumes
Traditional estate planning often follows a predictable pattern. Assets pass to a spouse and then to children and grandchildren. If there are no descendants, assets may pass to siblings, nieces, nephews, or other blood relatives. But many LGBTQ+ individuals have built families that extend far beyond those conventional categories.
For some, the most important people in their lives include a longtime partner, close friends who became family, former partners who remain beloved companions, community members, mentors, godchildren, caregivers, or chosen family. Some may have strained relationships with biological relatives. Others may have strong ties to both biological and chosen family.
Legal documents can certainly leave assets to any of these individuals. But a simple will or series of outright gifts may not fully reflect the broader vision many people have for their legacy. It also provides no guardrails to encourage those recipients use the inheritances they receive in the ways that their benefactor had hoped.
A Legacy Trust can provide a framework for expressing that vision.
Instead of focusing solely on who inherits assets, a Legacy Trust focuses on the values and purposes those assets are intended to support.
A Different Conversation
Imagine planning an LGBTQ+ estate and saying:
“I’ve worked hard all my life. I want to help the people I love, and the community I love, but I also want something of me to continue after I’m gone.”
Many advisers might immediately begin discussing tax planning, beneficiary designations, and trust structures. Those issues matter.
But the more important conversation may be asking: What do you mean by “continue”?
The answer may be remarkably different from traditional planning objectives.
- Perhaps you want to ensure that younger LGBTQ+ individuals in their family have educational opportunities they never had.
- Perhaps they want funds available for emergency support when friends encounter health crises, discrimination, housing instability, or other challenges.
- Perhaps they want future generations to remain connected to community organizations that played valuable or even pivotal roles in their own lives.
- Perhaps they want future generations to understand the importance of inclusion, advocacy, creativity, resilience, or service.
These goals are not primarily tax goals. They are legacy goals. They are goals that a Legacy Trust can foster.
The Modern Legacy Trust
A Legacy Trust may be designed to last for generations while serving multiple purposes.
The trust could provide financial support for a broad group of beneficiaries defined by you, rather than by rigid family-tree relationships.
Those beneficiaries might include:
- A spouse or partner.
- Those who are like children.
- Chosen family.
- Close friends.
- Caregivers.
- Future generations.
- Selected charitable organizations.
- Community organizations that may not qualify as traditional charities and which may not meet the tax law definition of a “charity.”
- Causes.
The trust can be flexible enough to adapt as circumstances change.
For example, a trustee might be encouraged—but not required—to favor distributions for:
- Education.
- Health care.
- Housing.
- Entrepreneurship.
- Professional development.
- Community service.
- Creative endeavors.
- LGBTQ+ advocacy.
Here is an illustration of what might be one of many permissible applications of a Legacy Trust. One of the lesser-appreciated aspects of legacy planning is preserving the capacity to address challenges that future generations may face. Before the Stonewall uprising, LGBTQ+ people had few legal protections and often faced discrimination that was accepted by society. Before Obergefell v. Hodges, same-sex couples were generally denied the right to marry, with profound legal, financial, and emotional consequences. Few could have predicted decades earlier precisely which issues would become defining civil-rights concerns. The next generation will undoubtedly face its own challenges, but those issues may not yet be apparent. A Legacy Trust can provide a mechanism for future family members, advisors, or a Legacy Advisory Committee to support educational, community, and advocacy initiatives that address the needs of the time. Unlike a traditional charitable trust, which may be constrained by specific tax and legal requirements, a Legacy Trust can be structured with greater flexibility, allowing future fiduciaries to respond thoughtfully to emerging concerns and opportunities. In that sense, the trust is not merely a vehicle for preserving wealth; it is a means of preserving engagement, values, and the ability of future generations to participate in shaping a more inclusive society.
Imagine how the community, and society as a whole, could benefit from a growing allocation to these types of Legacy Trusts.
Importantly, these instructions often work better as guidance rather than mandates. Elaborating on the actual legal trust document with a personal letter of instruction may provide guidance that those administering the trust in the future can consult.
No one can predict what challenges or opportunities beneficiaries will face decades from now. The trust should preserve flexibility while still communicating the creator’s values.
Balancing Family and Community
Many LGBTQ+ people have played active roles in supporting community organizations. Some volunteered during the AIDS epidemic. Others mentored LGBTQ+ youth. Many contributed financially to causes they believed in long before those causes enjoyed widespread support.
As a result, charitable giving may occupy a larger role in their planning than in many conventional estate plans. But the beneficiaries of those charitable purposes may evolve over time as society, community needs, and other factors change.
The Legacy Trust concept permits you to blend family (however defined), charitable and community (whether or not formal charities) objectives rather than viewing them as competing priorities.
A trust might benefit descendants and chosen family while also authorizing distributions to LGBTQ+ organizations, scholarship funds, community centers, health initiatives, or other charitable endeavors.
You may even wish future generations to participate in those charitable decisions.
Imagine a trust that permits adult beneficiaries to recommend annual grants to organizations serving LGBTQ+ youth. The financial benefit provided by the trust could be accompanied by an educational experience that helps transmit values from one generation to the next.
The inheritance becomes more than money.
It becomes a continuing conversation.
Creating a Legacy Advisory Committee
One feature of the Legacy Trust concept is the use of a Legacy Advisory Committee. This group can provide guidance to trustees regarding your intentions and values. It can even direct Legacy Trust distribution decisions. Consider the dynamics of a group of people you designated (and their successors) meeting once a year to review your wishes and dreams for your legacy (perhaps reading from your letter of instruction as discussed below), having a dialogue about each person or cause dear to you, and deciding year to year how to best accomplish your goals. And they do this with the benefit of the hindsight that you cannot have.
For an LGBTQ+ family, Legacy Trust Advisor Committee members might include three (or some other number) people from the following categories:
- Family members.
- Trusted friends.
- Community leaders.
- Advisors.
- Representatives of charitable organizations.
- Mentors.
- Religious or spiritual leaders.
The committee does not necessarily control trust assets. Instead, it can help preserve institutional memory about your wishes. That may be particularly valuable when a trust continues for decades after the creator’s death. Future trustees and beneficiaries may never have met the person who created the trust. The Legacy Advisory Committee can help bridge that gap.
The Power of a Letter of Instruction or an Ethical Will
One of the most underutilized estate-planning tools is the ethical will or letter of instruction.
A legal document tells beneficiaries what they receive.
An ethical will tells them why.
You may find this especially meaningful.
Many members of the community have lived through periods of profound social change. Some faced rejection, discrimination, secrecy, or loss before acceptance became more widespread. Those experiences often contain lessons future generations may never fully understand unless they are intentionally shared. A letter of instruction can preserve those stories.
The document may explain in personal and not legal terms:
- Personal values.
- Family history.
- Experiences overcoming adversity.
- Why certain charitable organizations matter.
- Hopes for future generations.
- Lessons learned throughout life.
Assets can create opportunity.
Stories create meaning.
A comprehensive legacy should include both.
Wealth Is Not The Requirement
One misconception about trusts is that they are only for wealthy families. That is simply not true. The Legacy Trust concept is not fundamentally about tax minimization or dynastic wealth (although it can easily be adapted as appropriate for those purposes). It is about intentionality.
A family with modest assets may benefit from a Legacy Trust just as much as an ultra-high-net-worth family. The amount transferred is less important than the purpose behind the transfer.
An estate of $200,000 can leave a powerful legacy. So can an estate of $20 million, or $200 million, or more. What matters is aligning a portion of the plan, that portion that is devoted to the Legacy Trust, with your vision. What matters is transmitting some portion of your financial legacy in a manner that fosters and cultivates your most important values and hopes for the future.
Pride Beyond A Single Month
Pride Month celebrates identity, courage, and community.
Estate planning should do the same. But not just for a month, but for generations, or longer.
For LGBTQ+ individuals and families, planning is not merely about distributing property. It is an opportunity to define family in its broadest sense, transmit values across generations, support causes that matter, and create a legacy that reflects a life authentically lived.
The most successful estate plans are not necessarily the ones that save the most tax dollars. Estate planning should be about the transmission of not just wealth, but of values as well. Successful estate plans inform future generations: “This is who I was. These are the people I loved. These are the values I hoped would endure.” The Legacy Trust provides a framework to transmit these goals and values. That is the true purpose of a Legacy Trust.
Pride is for Everyone
NYC Pride’s message that “Pride is for everyone” is both an achievement and a challenge. The LGBTQ+ community is extraordinarily diverse, encompassing people of different races, religions, cultures, national origins, and life experiences. At times, some groups may feel overlooked or insufficiently welcomed, reminding us that inclusion is a value that must continually be expanded and reaffirmed. A Legacy Trust reflects that same aspiration. It recognizes that families and communities are rarely defined by a single characteristic. They are built from many identities, experiences, and relationships. The most enduring legacy may be not only transferring wealth, but also transmitting a commitment to ensure that everyone has a place at the table.
At the core of the Legacy Trust idea is that it is fundamentally a concept of expanding inclusion. The trust is not limited to a traditional legal definition of family; it extends concern to community, future generations, charitable causes, and people whose importance might otherwise be overlooked. In that respect, the concept translates naturally to the LGBTQ+ community because many members of that community have long understood that family can be broader than bloodline.
The strongest advocacy often comes not from criticizing who is not sitting at the table, but rather from gently asking whether the table is large enough. Pull up a few more chairs.
Let’s create a legacy that we can all take pride in.
