About Future Legacies
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Future Legacies is developing a new service to transform small seed fund contributions into significant and ongoing posthumous gifts to charity. With Future Legacies, seed funders can one day affordably help charities far beyond their dreams.
Charities are vital in addressing social issues, but charities require significantly more capital to meet society’s diverse needs. However, donors have financial limitations after providing for family needs. If donors could harness the long-term power of compounding after they die, their gifts could become immense.
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​Portions of the invested seed capital would be periodically transferred to charities as specified by the funder while the rest of the investments continue to grow considerably. For example, a funder might choose to give 25% of the fund every 25 years. Using past performance return on investments (which do not guarantee future performance) this approach yields significant growth of each progressive transfer.
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With ever-growing inbound transfers, charities will eventually have the funds to address needs comprehensively. The vision is a financial infrastructure that repeatedly refills and augments the coffers of charities and foundations, permitting endless growth for the charitable sector.
The financial industry has evolved significantly over the past century. We now have multiple investment opportunities, online brokerage accounts, financial advisors, and extensive performance data on stock market indices. The financial industry focuses on capital for use during our limited lifetimes. Now is the time to recognize long-term societal needs over an extended timeframe.
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Future Legacies aims to balance today’s needs and the needs of future generations. For a donor who plans an estate gift of ten percent to charity, allocating one percent would suffice as seed funds. It is a seed level contribution we seek to balance now vs the deep future.
For example an estate of $1M would see $900K to family, $100K to charity, with about $10K to Future Legacies. Using the 25% every 25 years in today's dollar values might generate a cumulative gift by year 100 of 64% of the entire estate, and 5,000% or fifty times your estate by year 200.
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Future Legacies services will include governance integrity, enforceable contracts, and audited transparency, keeping expenses at industry norms. Creating a purpose-owned for-profit entity ensures a lasting organization that cannot be sold or manipulated.
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Future Legacies proposes expanding donor timelines by investing gifts of seed funds in portfolios that accumulate forever. Funders can choose from using their current advisor to invest, and/or selecting what portion to invest in Social Finance Impact Investments. Impact investments allow immediate benefits to communities while the investments grow.
To my knowledge, Future Legacies is the only organization attempting to do this.
About Cam Anderson
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Thanks for visiting my website. I write primarily about how our society should fund charities both now and in the very deep future.
My good fortune is to have skills in financial analysis. I learned these first in business school while studying for my MBA and honed them through 40 years of practical application working in the corporate world.
I worked for over 25 years at TELUS, one of the most philanthropic companies in the world.
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I have years of experience in creating and marketing new businesses, products, and services. And now, being retired, I have the time to find a different way to help. My ancestors were committed to social causes, and so I focus now on adding to their legacy
My foremost curiosity is about why charities and governments are not better financed. I am surprised that collectively our society does not save for the future to fund charities. Sure, we invest in our pensions, but that is as far out in time as we think.
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Suppose we leverage the incredible power of compounding our money over many decades and even centuries before we spend it? In that future world of saving before spending, charities will never lack funds, and governments could be debt and even tax-free.
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For now, I spend my energy on charities. Our community should embrace saving before spending as an opportunity to support the future for charities. Given we have many significant multi-generational initiatives like for cathedrals, the environment, space exploration, and scientific research, why not for charity?
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We must strike a better balance between funding for today's needs and funding for tomorrow. The state of charitable funding could not be a more compelling need. Every day I read stories of charities who know how they could help if only adequate funding were available. I believe an answer is for individuals to use a small seed gift to create their own perpetually growing legacy. I am working to make this possible one day.
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I have been lucky in life and so have a lot to be thankful for. My motivation is to give back. Also, I am a big fan of innovation. Taken together, I am looking to address society's critical needs in radically new ways. I advocate for a paradigm shift by promoting saving for the deep future, and investment approaches to solving today's issues.
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Personally, I love being with my family, golfing, playing ice hockey, travelling, writing, reading business books, or enjoying the great outdoors. And I am always thinking about ways to improve my grandchildren's future.
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Read my vision for a better future where money becomes abundant for public needs. Then, if my dream appeals to you, even in just one aspect, I hope you will consider collaborating with me.
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You can reach me at:
Cell 604-220-3763
Coquitlam, BC, Canada