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Farm Transition & Estate Planning Programming: Participant Behavioral Change, Cumulative Outcomes & Impacts 2004-2012

David Bau, Gary Hachfeld, and C. Rob Holcomb

Summary

“Farm Transition & Estate Planning: Create Your Farm Legacy” is an interactive, 5 hour workshop targeted to farm and ranch families. Program outcomes are participant behavioral change and increased knowledge around the key educational points of the program. Key educational points included individual, family, business and retirement goals; intergenerational communications; tax issues; business entities and transition strategies; treatment of heirs; personal estate planning; long-term health care planning issues; and development of a written transition plan outline. These were measured by an end-of-meeting evaluation utilizing a Likert scale of 1 (strongly disagree) to 5 (strongly agree). Impacts include how participants acted on their new knowledge and the financial impact of those actions. This was measured by a follow-up evaluation done six months after the last workshop. Participants reported their progress with the transition and personal estate planning process and how useful the workshop and workbook they received were in the process. They also listed obstacles and challenges they encountered that may have halted their progress. The end-of-meeting and follow-up evaluation data was used to calculate the impact of the program as well as enabling the program team to improve future programs. Workshops have been delivered in Minnesota, Iowa, North Dakota, and Wisconsin. A total of 5,069 farm and ranch family members have attended representing 2,503 farm/ranch businesses and 1,381 different communities. The cumulative evaluative data shows a financial impact in excess of $354 million dollars for the eight year program period.

Details

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