Sage & Main · The Generosity Multiplier

What if your giving outlived you?

Start with your situation

Slide to match your numbers. Everything below updates as you move.
$25,000
45
50%
to charity now
builds the engine

Two paths, same generosity

Total dollars reaching charity — through your lifetime and two generations beyond it. Tap a card for the story behind the number.

Keep giving as you do

$1,000,000
total to charity, lifetime through grandchildren’s era
Given during your lifetime
Giving after you’re gone$0
Standing endowment at the end$0
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What this card shows

Where the number comes from

A common concern

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2.8× the impact

Give with leverage

$2,800,000
total to charity, lifetime through grandchildren’s era
Given during your lifetime
Policy benefit funding the fund
Grants after you’re gone
Endowment still standing
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What this card shows

How the leverage works

A common concern

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Watch the lines separate

Cumulative dollars to charity over the next 100 years.

Three generations of grants

After your lifetime, the policy benefit lands in your donor-advised fund. Your children — and theirs — direct the grants. The principal keeps working. Tap any card for detail.
You
given to charity in your lifetime
plus a benefit at your passing
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What happens here

Good to know

⟳ back
Your children’s era
granted under their direction
fund balance:
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What happens here

Good to know

⟳ back
Your grandchildren’s era
granted under their direction
fund balance:
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What happens here

Good to know

⟳ back

What if your family runs the same play?

You start it. Now picture your children — and theirs — each adopting the same strategy with their own giving, every policy benefit flowing into one shared family fund.
2
4

total to charity across the family movement
Given by hand across the family
Granted by the shared family fund
Still standing for the next generation
If everyone simply gave as they do now

The inheritance that isn’t money

Research on what wealth does to the people who receive it — and what changes when purpose comes attached.
They inherit money
but if a mission comes with it…
They inherit money and a mission

Directional, drawn from published research — not a prediction about any one family. Sources below.

The Future Letter

A note from the next generation, written with the numbers on your sliders right now.
— your grandchild, still at the table you built
This letter regenerates as you move the sliders above. The figures in it are the same hypothetical projections shown in the charts.
Assumptions & sources (the honest fine print)

The strategy. A donor-advised fund (DAF) owns and benefits from a whole life insurance policy on the donor’s life. Premiums are paid from charitable dollars — either a portion of annual giving (Faithful Giver) or a slice of a larger sum already destined for charity (Business Sale, Idle DAF, Estate). The remaining charitable dollars keep flowing to causes as usual. Contributions are generally income-tax-deductible, so the comparison ignores tax savings.

Policy growth. The death benefit is modeled so the internal rate of return on premiums equals 4.5% (conservative) or 5.5% (expected) at life expectancy, assumed at age 85. Published analyses place whole life death-benefit IRRs at life expectancy roughly between 3% and 5.5%; carrier-illustrated charity-owned policies often run higher. 2026 dividend interest rates at the four major mutual insurers range from 5.75% to 6.60%. Dividends are not guaranteed.

The family fund. The invested DAF balance earns 6% (conservative) or 7% (expected) and grants 5% of its balance to charity every year — double the typical private-foundation payout and below the 2024 DAF-sector average of 25.3% (DAF Research Collaborative, 2025 Annual DAF Report; sector assets $326B). At the donor’s passing the death benefit lands in the DAF and refills it.

The human research. The Williams Group’s 20-year study of 3,200 affluent families found 70% lose their wealth by the second generation and 90% by the third (Williams & Preisser, Preparing Heirs). Zagorsky (Ohio State, 2012) found about one-third of inheritors had negative or unchanged savings within two years. Luthar (Columbia/ASU) found affluent youth show depression, anxiety, and substance-use at 1.5–2.5× national norms. On the hopeful side: Women Give 2013 (IU Lilly Family School of Philanthropy) found children whose parents talk with them about giving are ~20% more likely to give; Whillans et al. (Health Psychology, 2016) and Dunn, Aknin & Norton (Science, 2008) link giving to lower blood pressure and greater happiness.

What this is not. Not an illustration, not an offer of insurance, not tax or legal advice. Real policies require underwriting, insurable interest, and carrier illustrations. Your numbers will differ. That conversation is the whole point.

See your real numbers

A short conversation and a carrier-illustrated policy design will replace every estimate on this page with your actual figures — age, health, charities, and all.

Talk with Sage & Main
Hypothetical and for illustrative purposes only. Actual results will vary. Life insurance values are not guaranteed; dividends are declared annually and are not guaranteed. Projections assume survival to age 85 and constant inputs; neither is promised to anyone. This tool does not provide investment, tax, or legal advice — please consult your own professionals. Whole life policies owned by a charity or donor-advised fund require insurable interest, medical and financial underwriting, and sponsor approval. Sage & Main, LLC.