Giving Across Generations
Generosity Path and TrustBridge invite you to a focused morning on how families steward wealth across generations. The session is built around time together with other families in the same journey and hear from the Maclellan Foundation and the story of how $1 billion in total grants have been given on a cumulative, inflation-adjusted basis over its 100 year history.
Nicola James, Director for Global Programs at the Maclellan Foundation, will share an overview of the Foundation’s strategy for strengthening ministries and building local sustainability. Maclellan, together with the giving collaboration it serves, seeks to help ministries become stronger, healthier and better equipped to fulfill the calling God has placed upon them. Alongside this, it works to encourage local generosity, releasing the resources needed to support Kingdom work. Her session is followed by a Q&A on how the programming actually works, the frameworks, and the strategic calls behind it.
Why the Maclellan story matters
The Maclellan story begins in the late 1800s with Thomas Maclellan, founder of Provident Life and Accident Insurance Company in Chattanooga, Tennessee, who built systematic giving into the family rhythm from the start. Across four generations, the family refined what strategic Christian philanthropy looks like at institutional scale.
The Maclellan Foundation, formally established in 1945, has been a quiet but profound force behind many of the most consequential global ministry initiatives of the past 80 years, from Bible translation to indigenous missions, leadership development, and church planting. Over its history the wider family enterprise has deployed roughly one billion dollars into advancing the gospel globally, and helped seed adjacent institutions including Generous Giving and the broader generosity movement.
What makes the story instructive is not the scale of the giving. It is the discipline of it. A multi-generational view, married to rigorous strategic analysis and deep theological conviction. For families in Asia thinking about how to steward wealth across generations, there are few stories more useful to learn from.
What you will take away
The multi-generational giving framework used to plan future sustainability in Kingdom work
Practical structures for family foundations, covering governance, and succession.
How to bring the next generation into giving decisions without losing focus or unity
Best practices already being applied by Asian families building generational architectures here in the region
A curated peer network of principals, trustees, and advisers facing the same questions
Programme
11:30 — Arrivals and coffee
12:00 — Welcome and framing, Generosity Path and TrustBridge
12:25 — Introduction and overview of the Maclellan strategy
12:45 — Generosity across the generations: video byDaryl Heald and Frances Sheffield
13:15 — Table discussion, part two: generosity across the generations by Nicola James
13:50 — Close
14:00 — Optional one to ones with Nicolas James
An intimate room, by design
Beyond the headline session, the real value of the morning sits in the room itself. Seats are limited and deliberately curated so that principals, trustees, and advisers can meet each other properly, not just observe from a distance.
Facilitated table conversations where you work through your own governance and succession questions with peers
An unhurried lunch built for the conversations that matter more than the agenda
Warm introductions across the room, so you leave with relationships, not just notes
Who this is for
Principals of families with existing family foundations
Families considering establishing a foundation
Trustees and advisers to family foundations
Operating leaders of Christian and values-aligned foundations
Those serving the philanthropy ecosystem in Asia
Attendance is by invitation, with limited seats. We are curating the room for depth of conversation.
Hosted by
Generosity Path. A global community that empowers individuals and families to live generously, creating positive change in communities and advancing God's kingdom.
TrustBridge. International grant-making infrastructure for Christian donors and foundations, enabling cross-border giving with theological integrity and operational excellence.
Supported by the Maclellan Foundation, whose leadership will share directly from four generations and eight decades of strategic Christian philanthropy.
A note on the room. This is a closed gathering. We ask that attendees come ready to participate, not just observe. Chatham House rules apply to all conversations.
"Generosity is not a campaign. It is a generational rhythm. The families who get this right do not give from leftover capacity."