Better Than We Found It
By: Erin Meisner, CHS, PFA
Master Financial Planner – Philanthropy
The season of giving, the power of planning and the legacy we leave behind.
There is something about fall as a season that naturally invites reflection. As the year winds down, many Canadians find themselves reviewing investments, considering year-end tax strategies and looking for opportunities to make charitable donations before December 31.
And while reducing taxes is a worthwhile goal, I believe a far more meaningful conversation is waiting to be had.
What if we stopped thinking about charitable giving as something we do with what’s left over, and start thinking about it as something we intentionally design into our lives?
We spend years planning for retirement, protecting our families and building our businesses.
Yet one of the most rewarding parts of that planning is often the last thing we get to: the opportunity to use what we've built to make a difference.
A legacy isn't simply what we leave behind when we're gone. It's also what we choose to put into motion while we're here.
It's the student who receives an opportunity they otherwise wouldn't have had. The family supported through an unimaginable diagnosis. The community organization that can continue its work because someone believed in its mission.
These are the returns on generosity that never appear on a financial statement.
Giving with purpose, planning with intention
Here's what I've seen when families don't have this conversation: the causes they cared about most get nothing. The tax dollars that could have gone to something they believed in go to the government instead. And their family, the kids and grandkids, inherit a number but not a story.
That's a loss that doesn't show up on a statement. But it's real.
The beauty of strategic philanthropy is that doing good and making sound financial decisions are not mutually exclusive. In Canada, thoughtful charitable planning creates real opportunities to reduce taxes while directing more resources toward causes that matter.
Depending on your situation, strategies may include donating appreciated securities, incorporating charitable gifts into your estate plan, using life insurance to create a future gift or building a structured giving plan that supports your chosen charities over time.
And here's something worth sitting with: as we move through the Go-Go years into the Slow-Go and eventually the No-Go years of retirement, the savings we built for travel and adventure may quietly shift toward funding care and recovery. Planning now means those resources can serve both purposes, instead of being consumed by one.
But the real value isn't in the tax savings alone. It's in designing a strategy that aligns your financial resources with your personal values.
And perhaps most importantly: you don’t have to wait until you’re wealthy, retired or gone to begin building a meaningful legacy.
Planning isn't about predicting the future. It's about creating options.
A different kind of year-end conversation
As we approach the end of 2026, I want you to ask yourself a few questions:
- What causes have shaped my life, or the lives of people I love?
- If I could make one meaningful difference in my community, what would it be?
- Does my current financial and estate plan reflect the values I want to pass along?
- Could a more intentional giving strategy allow me to accomplish more than I thought possible?
These are conversations worth having with your family, not just your advisor. Because here's the truth I've seen play out more times than I can count — when there's no plan for what your generosity looks like, the family becomes the plan. And that's a role they didn't sign up for and aren't prepared to take on.
The best time to solve a crisis is before it becomes one.
Leave more than an inheritance. Leave an impact.
When we think about legacy, it's easy to focus on what we want to leave to the people we love. But perhaps we should also consider what we leave for the world around them.
The greatest legacy may not be measured in dollars, assets, or even the size of a charitable gift. It may be measured in the opportunities we create, the lives we touch and the generosity we inspire in others.
This fall, as you consider your year-end financial decisions, I invite you to think beyond the tax receipt.
Think about the story you want your generosity to tell.
Because with a little intention and the right strategy, we all have an opportunity to leave this world better than we found it.
Your legacy doesn’t begin someday. It begins with the decisions you make today.