VALUES BASED FINANCIAL AND ESTATE PLANNING:

MOVING FROM SUCCESS TO SIGNIFICANCE

Let me introduce myself – my name is Bill Moritz and I am a practicing attorney and also do consulting work for several major charities. My law practice has been primarily concentrated on Estate and Business Planning as well as tax-exempt organization law. For my estate planning clients, I have developed what I call “values based planning”, which is a way to organize a family’s financial affairs so that they can serve God personally and with their finances while encouraging and enabling family members to do the same.

During the last twenty years I have lost my father, mother, a twelve year old daughter and a twin granddaughter in the womb. Death has become very real to me and, as a result, so has God and His grace. You would think that when an Estate Planning Attorney faces death in such a tangible way that he would have an overwhelming burden to get his estate affairs in order, because, as was so true in my daughter’s case when she died instantly in an automobile accident, death can come at any time. But, I have come under a different conviction, an overwhelming concern about what I am dong with the rest of my life. How can I make my life count in a more significant way for God, for my family, for friends and for others that God brings my way. Values based planning is all about life planning for significance, where death is simply one of the contingencies for which you plan. If God has blessed you with success, he has done it for a reason. I am not here to tell you what the reason is or to even suggest what it might be, the reason is something you need to determine for yourself in communion with God. My mission is to help people structure their estate and financial affairs so that they can do what you’ve been called to do and do it in a way that is honoring to God, respectful of their family and personally rewarding. Read More

THE INSIDE STORY ON SAM WALTON

In 1945, with a $20,000 loan from his Father –in-Law and $5,000 of his own savings, Sam Walton started a Ben Franklin store and used concepts that no one was employing at the time.  He kept the shelves stocked with low-priced goods, stayed open later hours and bought in large volumes so he could get discounts.    These revolutionary concepts would become the basis for future WalMart stores.   He wanted to help people by creating stores that served the lower-income population in small towns.  Read More