How Family Rituals Anchor Generosity
By: Kaky McGinness Grant, Founder and Principal
When your family gets together, what sacred practice lands everyone in the room? What actions symbolize that your family is truly connected? What grounds your family in your values? These feel like heavy questions, but the answers can be simple.
For my extended family, since I can remember, we say grace before meals. When she was alive, my grandmother would say the blessing and conclude with, “Make us ever mindful of the needs of others.” Through this simple phrase, she grounded us in the value of service. She was telling us that it is incumbent on us to observe and help those in our community. Now that she is no longer with us, that phrase lives on in our blessings.
This ritual has evolved over the years to include my Aunt Margaret singing, “Hallelujah”, at the end of the blessing. It is her way of punctuating the moment with joy and making us all laugh.
As I grew up and moved away, when this ritual took place, it signaled to me that I was truly home and with my people. It sounds small. That ritual, which is modest, repeatable, and succinct, does more to transfer values across generations of my family than any family motto could.
At Grant Philanthropic Advisors, we have the privilege of witnessing and facilitating family rituals at the giving table. They’re beautiful, unique, and grounding.
I recently read this compelling piece by Bruce Feiler in the New York Times. Feiler spent three years studying the global renaissance of ritual — attending ceremonies in 16 countries, reading more than 500 academic studies, interviewing over 100 ritual designers. His conclusion is remarkable: at a moment when loneliness and disconnection are epidemic, human beings are turning back to ritual as their best tool for building meaning and belonging. “Rituals calm us when we’re stressed,” he writes, “synchronize our heartbeats when we’re scared and align us to others when we celebrate or mourn together. They strengthen families, neighborhoods and groups of all kinds.”
He is describing something philanthropic families know intuitively.
What exactly is a family ritual?
It is more than a routine. A routine is repeated behavior. A ritual carries symbolic weight. It communicates who the family is and what it values. It is a commitment on behalf of the family to continue enacting the ritual, which is what makes it so meaningful. It would be an easy thing to eschew as it is not required; it is a clear choice to keep rituals centered in family gatherings.
Why Ritual Works
Research in family psychology has long supported what Feiler highlights on a cultural scale. Family rituals convey a sense of identity and membership, reminding each family member that they are part of a continuing family story. Each family member serves as a vessel for transmitting values and beliefs across generations, strengthening individual identity, and contributing to better outcomes for families over time. Studies of intergenerational families in Canada found that rituals — birthdays, shared meals, religious observances — served as connections between the past and the future, providing a sense of continuity.
For philanthropic families, this is not an abstract psychological benefit. It is the mechanism by which donor intent survives. Values do not transfer through bylaws. They transfer through shared experiences, repeated over time, until they become part of the family DNA. We see philanthropic families read the family values aloud at the beginning of every meeting to set the tone for consensus building and decision making with warmth and empathy.
What Philanthropic Ritual Looks Like
The most enduring rituals in family philanthropy are often the most simple. What matters is that they are intentional, repeated, and emotionally meaningful. It is important that they have “stickiness” and are engaging to all generations and branches of a family. Below are several that we see working well.
The Founder’s Story: Many families we work with open each board meeting by reading a short passage from the founding donor’s original giving statement or sharing a story about what inspired the family’s philanthropic passion in the first place. This is not simply nostalgia. It is not “the dead hand” governing from the grave; we interpret this ritual as reinforcing an organic, living legacy that guides a family as they navigate the twists and turns on their philanthropic journey. Reading the founder’s words aloud is one way of keeping that legacy alive in the room.
Legacy Grant Partners + Site Visits: We work with families who support a handful of grant partners year over year; they were the “favorite” grantee of the founder. In some cases, the family name is on the building of the nonprofit. Going back to visit that organization annually; understanding its mission and its community impact; and reflecting on why the Founder’s passion aligned with that organization’s values is a powerful ritualistic practice for all generations and family branches.
Next Generation Grant. Many families reserve a portion of their annual grantmaking budget for grants recommended entirely by the rising generation of leaders within a family. The younger family members research, deliberate, and present their recommendation. The older generations ask questions, offer advice, but ultimately, the next generation makes the decisions. The ritual accomplishes several things at once: it signals trust in the rising generation, builds their confidence and competence, and connects them to the mission on their own terms. We have watched this single practice transform reluctant participants in family philanthropy into passionate philanthropists.
Grounding in the Same Place: The ritual is not the place itself. Rather, the place is a repository of every decision made; every milestone celebrated; every life mourned; every argument fought over generations. A place accumulates a family’s identity over generations. Anthropologists call this genius loci: the spirit of a place. Returning to the same chair, the same view out the same window, the same smell of the same kitchen – these cues signal that meaningful things happen in that particular place with people you love.
Ritual and the Question of Donor Intent
One of the tensions that surfaces in nearly every multi-generational family philanthropy is the question of fidelity to the founder’s intent. Families are discovering that moving from a founding-donor foundation to a multi-generational one requires asking thoughtful questions that give way to important conversations impacting philanthropic focus, governance, and family engagement. This transition cannot be managed by governance practices alone.
Ritual can help here: it holds space for both continuity and evolution. When a family regularly revisits the founder’s story, they can honor intent while remaining responsive to a changing world. The ritual is the container in which that conversation happens safely.
Feiler makes a point that resonates deeply in this context. The most successful rituals, he observes, “welcome people with joy, promote compromise, build empathy and end with a moment of hope.” That is, in essence, a description of excellent family philanthropic governance. The two are not as far apart as they might seem.
Rituals Through Time
Back to my family ritual – my grandmother’s blessing encouraged us to pay attention to something larger than ourselves. It oriented us before we acted. This simple phrase came to mean different things to me over time. I did not understand it fully until I was older and found myself reaching for those same words with my own children.
That is what the best family philanthropic rituals do. They give the next generation something to reach for.
About Grant Philanthropic Advisors:
We’re an independent firm helping clients to focus and maximize their philanthropy—in turn, strengthening the fabric of our communities. Founded in 2019, we help donors move from responsive patterns of giving by assisting clients to identify values and become more strategic in their philanthropy. Our goal is to help donors to become more effective as change-makers. We work with foundations (large and small staff teams), donor advised fund holders, multi generational families, individuals, philanthropy supporting organizations and corporations to design philanthropic strategies.