Living Legacy Projects and Other Ways to Paint an Estate Plan
Every aspect of a legacy does not need to be captured in legal documents or even the nonlegal documents that accompany them. Some of the most meaningful expressions of legacy are created alongside the estate plan rather than inside it. Family legacy projects are a way to preserve stories and experiences that do not neatly fit into formal planning but may matter just as much.
How legacy projects work:
-Created or co-created during life with family members
-May exist in digital, written, audio, or visual formats
-Can be shared informally or referenced in estate planning documents
-Able to evolve over time; do not have to be completed all at once
Examples include recorded video interviews with family members, digital scrapbooks or photo archives for online sharing, illustrated family trees, or “story maps” that trace ancestors’ migration from other parts of the world. Families may also create music playlists, recipe collections, or written reflections that capture traditions, identity, and special everyday moments that pass quietly between major milestones.
How legacy projects add color to an estate plan:
-Incorporate voices, stories, and perspectives that legal documents cannot express
-Create connection across generations that complements asset distributions
-Invite loved ones to participate in shaping the legacy together
-Turn memories into something tangible, shareable, and enduring
Newer tools make this kind of preservation even more accessible. Services such as Remento send prompts to loved ones and record their spoken responses as digital keepsakes while others, such as Storyworth, Meminto, Memorygram, and StoryCorps, offer different ways to capture written stories, audio interviews, and multimedia family histories.
Legacy projects can function like an informational placard placed in front of your finished work or a pamphlet visitors take home. They help explain what others are seeing and make the process feel more inclusive. A legacy project may be the last part of your plan, created after the paperwork is signed and filed, but it could have the greatest emotional impact.
If you are feeling like Dorothy stuck in a black-and-white world, an estate planning lawyer can help you step into Technicolor and express your legacy with your own unmistakable artistic stamp.