Yolanda Chavez Knull: Professional Advisor Spotlight
We sat down with Yolanda Chavez Knull at her office on the 15th floor of a Greenway Plaza high-rise, which has panoramic views of some of Houston’s finest neighborhoods, the neighborhoods many of her clients call home. We asked Yolanda to share her story about working in partnership with Greater Houston Community Foundation on charitable solutions that help her clients make strategic giving plans for their future.
About Yolanda
Yolanda is a partner at Ytterberg Deery Knull LLP. She has experience assisting clients with estate planning, estate administration, cross-border estate planning, planning with art, and philanthropy. Her work with philanthropic individuals and families has led to broad experience with private foundations and planned giving, including everything from helping them formulate their mission statement to federal and state compliance matters. Yolanda received her Bachelor of Arts from Vassar College and attended New York University School of Law to receive her J.D. degree.
Q: What was your perceived reputation of Greater Houston Community Foundation before beginning an ongoing relationship with them?
I didn’t have any, it was brand new. I moved to Houston in 1986 from New York City to practice law at Vinson & Elkins. In my New York practice, we integrated quite a bit with the New York Community Trust. When I got here [Houston] it was curious to me that we did not have a similar organization. Several of my [Houston] clients were in the first leadership group at Greater Houston Community Foundation and that is how I became involved.
Q: How would you describe your relationship today with Greater Houston Community Foundation?
It is a very important tool for use in the estate planning that I do with my clients. I am fortunate to have always worked with very high net-worth clients who are by and large, most of them, very interested in philanthropy. It was a natural fit to use in so many ways whether to partner with a private foundation, in lieu of a private foundation, or as a recipient of gifts as they passed away. Another interesting way that I use Greater Houston Community Foundation as a tool is when we have clients from time to time who are new to wealth. They’ve sold a company or experienced a similar liquidity event and they do not know the first thing about philanthropy, but they want to learn. They could always donate to a big donor advised fund sponsor somewhere, but they really like the idea of getting to know other people who are similarly situated – to learn how to be a careful donor, to learn about opportunities, to meet other like-minded people. Greater Houston Community Foundation is a wonderful way to do that.
Q: What was the first experience you had with Greater Houston Community Foundation?
My clients who were involved were such impressive people. Knowing that they were 100% backing Greater Houston Community Foundation was very reassuring. I was always confident, because of those people, that it [Greater Houston Community Foundation] was going to do well.
Q: What is a takeaway that you have learned from Greater Houston Community Foundation through our different Professional Advisor programs?
Often, the most important thing that my clients worry about is not allowing their wealth to poison the lives of their descendants. There have been several programs put on by Greater Houston Community Foundation where they have experts in that field present on this topic that have been beneficial to me and my clients. I have learned every time I have gone to one of those programs.
Q: Conversations about end-of-life planning are hard. What are some tools that you use to start a dialogue around legacy planning?
I learned a long time ago that you can’t avoid the obvious. This is what people need from me. You must face it squarely and be totally honest with clients and they will hopefully be totally honest with you in return.
Q: What do you do when a client seems to be putting off this conversation [regarding end of life]?
I am very good at nagging. I learned the hard way when a young woman passed away from cancer, very early in my career. I did her planning and did not receive the follow-up that I needed from her. At the time, I did not want to pester her as I knew she was sick. Then it was almost too late, and I ended up doing things with her in the hospital with her family. I learned from this that you have to be persistent, you have to pester… what we do is too important, so you can’t let politeness or nicety or worrying about hurting people’s feelings get in the way. It is not always fun, but it is necessary.
Q: What strategies do you have for clients incorporating children into the conversation about wealth transferbetween generations?
From my experience, the results of raising responsible children are most achievable based on a good solid education on wealth, information about wealth, and giving them the tools to deal with it. Springing it [wealth] on them when a parent dies is not a recipe for success. Most clients listen to this advice and slowly, slowly bring the kids into the tent. A few won’t, no matter how much you advise them. The tricky part is at what age do you start?
One of the things I suggest is to start the process when they are fairly young by using a charitable vehicle as a teaching tool. Especially for teenagers, it is easier, I think, to get them to listen and cooperate if it is someone else’s money than if it is their own money.
Q: How do you balance transaction vs. personal components of your job?
To me, it is 90% personal and 10% technical. We can’t do a good job implementing and writing a plan until we have a very clear understanding of the client’s goals and objectives with respect to their family members, with respect to their investments, with respect to their companies, especially with entrepreneurs with companies who have a lot of employees. It is all very personal.
I always start and spend a lot of time developing a personal relationship. It takes a while sometimes to get people to feel confident enough in their lawyer to open up and really tell you what is worrying them, what they think, what they would like to accomplish – without regard to taxes or formalities or anything else. Just tell me what would make you happy the day after you die. Once they tell us that, it is not that hard to build the infrastructure, within the tax laws, as best we can to make it work efficiently. Some things are not going to be as efficient as others, but you have to start with what is in their hearts and what they really want to do.
Q: What does it look like when you give advice about philanthropy?
It is pretty clear when you talk to a client whether their focus is on maximizing the amount of wealth they are going to pass to their children or it isn’t. For clients where it seems that philanthropy is not a high priority to their family, we might very briefly talk about philanthropic aspects – maybe in the course of a long conversation on the personal side, something might emerge.
Then there are those clients who are more of the belief that it isn’t necessary to provide your children with every single dollar the parents have access to. They would like their children to be very well taken care of, of course, we all do. But what do we do with the rest? Some come in with very strong philanthropic objectives they want to accomplish.
Donor Advised Funds with Greater Houston Community Foundation are a great help, especially in cases where my clients don’t have an obvious person to take care of their philanthropic priorities when they are gone – it ensures that the wealth they worked so hard to achieve will be well taken care of.
Continue reading: What is a Donor Advised Fund? The Complete Guide
Q: You mentioned that you worked in New York before working in Houston. Do you have a sense of the difference between the philanthropic community of New York vs. Houston?
Very much so. People in Houston appear to me to be much more generous. I felt the generosity immediately. I asked a client many years ago [about Houston’s generosity], ‘What is going on here in Houston? What is it with this place and the obvious generosity of so many?’ This is what my client, who is now gone, said ‘A lot of us feel we didn’t do anything to deserve this wealth – it came from the ground so there is this lingering little shred of guilt. Because we didn’t do anything to earn it, we need to give it back.’ This is an old-fashioned sentiment, not a lot of people left in that generation, but I don’t know what else explains the incredible generosity of the wealthy people in this city.
More Helpful Articles by Greater Houston Community Foundation:
- Philanthropy Made Easy: 3 Do’s and Don’ts for Your Donor Advised Fund The Importance of Charitable Giving in Financial and Estate Planning
- Celebrating the Ultimate Boy Mom
- Advancing Impact Donor Breakfast: Building Thriving Neighborhoods
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