A will says where the wealth goes. The best estate planning lawyers ask what it is for.

A will records intentions. It sets down what a client already knows they want: who receives what, and when. But the more valuable work often happens before any of that is drafted, in drawing out the intentions a client has not yet put into words. Giving is often one of them.

For most of a lifetime, an inheritance answered a fairly simple need: the next generation needed the money. Increasingly, that is no longer the whole story. Inheritances often arrive when beneficiaries are older, established in their careers and homes, with the third generation sometimes already supported along the way by the Bank of Mum & Dad. The money may arrive after the need has passed, which leaves families confronting a broader question: not simply who should receive the wealth, but what should that wealth make possible.

For some families, the answer is about more than provision. It is about meaning: what values should travel with the wealth, what should endure beyond the transfer itself, and whether some part of it should serve a purpose beyond the family. That is where philanthropy can enter the conversation.

It helps to think of giving as a spectrum. At one end is what we leave behind at death: a bequest, a gift in a will, or an estate structured so that wealth flows not only to family but, where the client wishes, to community too. At the other is giving during life: putting wealth to work for your family and community while you are still here to see its effect, involve your children and make decisions together. Most people picture only the first. In reality, giving runs the whole length.

In my legal practice at Rofe + Co., much of my work sits at the intersection of estate planning, succession and the transfer of wealth between generations. Much of it is technical: testamentary trusts, superannuation, tax, asset protection, and structuring an estate so that value is not unnecessarily lost along the way. But estate planning is as relational as it is technical. The difference between a lawyer who drafts a will and one who prepares an estate plan is what the lawyer sees: not just the assets and instructions, but the family, the relationships and the future those assets are meant to serve.

Amongst the technical questions sits another: what does the client want their wealth to make possible, for their family, for the next generation and, perhaps, beyond it? Sometimes the answer lies in structure. Sometimes it lies in giving. Often it lies in both. And that question does not stay neatly at one end of the giving spectrum; it runs through the whole of a client's financial and family life.

The evidence suggests we are not having the giving conversation particularly well. Australians give substantially less, as a proportion of GDP, than comparable countries, and the proportion of taxpayers claiming a deduction for charitable gifts has fallen over time, despite Australians consistently describing generosity as an important value. That may not be a failure of generosity so much as a gap in the advice.

Few professions sit closer to that gap than ours. Estate planning lawyers are in the room at precisely the moment the legacy question is live, when a client is deciding what happens to everything they have built. Research has repeatedly shown that when charitable giving is raised sensitively in the estate planning conversation, more clients choose to include it. Yet often the question is never asked.

The reasons are understandable. Giving feels personal. Lawyers worry about overstepping, appearing to direct a client's money, or introducing something that feels peripheral when the brief appears technical. So the subject can remain untouched, even where the client might have welcomed the conversation.

But giving is not simply a soft addition to estate planning or indeed financial planning. It can involve questions of control, timing, tax, structure and succession just like any other part of the plan. In the right circumstances, there can also be material tax consequences attached to how philanthropic intentions are structured. The values question and the technical question are not the same, but they belong in the same conversation.

The opportunity if we improve that conversation is significant. Modelling by the Edward Alexander Foundation and Minderoo Foundation has estimated that better engagement by professional advisers could unlock between $1 billion and $2.7 billion in additional annual giving by 2030. The vehicles already exist. The tax system already recognises and encourages giving in various ways. Many families are open to the conversation. The bottleneck is often simply whether anyone raises it.

That is a gap I want to help the profession close. Alongside my estate planning practice at Rofe + Co., I advise Generous You as its Philanthropy Expert in Residence, bringing my experience across estate planning, philanthropy and structured giving to support its mission to grow giving in Australia.

Generous You is an independent and for purpose initiative helping lawyers, accountants and advisers hold these conversations with greater confidence. It has no giving products to distribute, no ancillary funds of its own and no stake in where a client's money ultimately lands. It is funded purely by purpose, backed in full for the five years of its operating mission. Its role is simpler: to build the capability of the professionals already sitting across the table.

Equipping an adviser to raise giving well is not complicated, but it is specific. It means knowing which question to ask, and when. It means being able to open the conversation without steering the answer, and recognising the moments when the door is already open: the sale of a business, an inheritance, a liquidity event, the establishment of a giving structure, or a will being drawn. Most of us were simply never taught how to do it.

The wealth will move regardless. What is not yet decided is whether it moves with intention, or simply changes hands; whether the next generation inherits money, or inherits money together with some understanding of what it was meant to serve.

A will can record the answer. Good estate planning helps the client find it. And when giving may be part of that answer, our profession should know how to have the conversation.

Rachael Rofe is an estate planning lawyer and founder of Rofe + Co. She works with individuals and families on the transfer of wealth, values and legacy, with particular expertise in testamentary trusts, superannuation succession and structured giving. She also supports Generous You as its Philanthropy Expert in Residence.