Giving Together: Inside One Family’s Multigenerational Philanthropy Practice

Most stories about philanthropy center on institutions, or on the single visionary donor whose name ends up on a building. It’s less common to hear from a family, parents and young adults together, in their own words, about what it actually takes to build a giving practice across generations. The Gutierrezes, who have a donor advised fund at Tides Foundation, offered us that window. It’s a glimpse at what it takes to build a giving practice that belongs to the whole family, not just the generation that started it. The family had already run a private foundation for years. As their giving grew, they opened a fund at Tides in 2020 to expand what they could give without adding to their plate.

Giving has been part of the Gutierrez family for as long as Fell (now 19) and McEwen (now 22) can remember. It started with a deliberate choice their mother, Kate, made when they were young: philanthropy would not be something that happened around them. It would be something the whole family did together.

That wasn’t easy at first. In the early years, Kate tried reading Fell and McEwen long lists of grantee organizations, and it fell flat. A list of unfamiliar nonprofits doesn’t mean much to a kid, and they tuned out fast.

What worked instead was narrowing the field. Kate began curating shorter, more focused lists tied to whatever her children were already curious about or concerned with. From there, their evolving understanding of the world, shaped by school, travel, and the questions they asked, guided where the family’s giving went next.

Kate puts it this way: “It’s less about handing your kids a stack of homework and more about listening for what they already care about.”

How Fell and McEwen Shape the Gutierrez Family’s Philanthropy

As Fell and McEwen grew older, that early approach evolved into something more like partnership. Today, each of them brings a distinct set of concerns to the family’s giving, shaped not by what Kate hands them, but by who they’re becoming.

McEwen has a degree in environmental sustainability and is an avid diver. Unsurprisingly, ocean protection and environmental causes have become central to his giving. He connects that firsthand experience underwater directly to his sense of responsibility toward the work he supports.

Fell’s path to giving started earlier, and closer to home. As a kid, Fell remembers directing some of the family’s early giving toward a local theater program. It was one of the first times giving felt exciting rather than abstract, because it was tied to something they already loved.

That early spark carried forward. Today, Fell supports organizations serving LGBTQ+ youth, a cause that became personally and urgently important to them as they came into their own identity, but that’s not the whole picture. Fell’s giving is also shaped by an ongoing interest in youth mental health and a continued commitment to the theatrical arts. Fell sees these causes as connected rather than separate, since self-expression, belonging, and wellbeing tend to show up together.

For Kate, watching her children’s giving take shape around their own passions rather than her prescriptions has been part of the point. Involving her kids, she says, has changed how she thinks about giving and about justice. It’s pushed her to keep learning alongside them rather than simply modeling values for them to absorb.

Teaching Kids About Equity Through Family Giving

Equity and systemic change aren’t abstract concepts in the Gutierrez household: they’re part of the ongoing conversation that shapes where the family’s resources go. Kate describes the work of raising philanthropically engaged kids as a balancing act. She wanted Fell and McEwen to simply be kids, while also helping them understand that being able to give, whatever the amount, comes with a responsibility to think about who it reaches and why.

That balancing act isn’t unique to families with a formal giving practice. A parent setting aside a few dollars a month with their kids for a cause they choose together is doing the same core work. It means making giving a shared decision instead of something that just happens quietly, out of sight.

McEwen puts it simply: “The world isn’t fair, but that’s exactly why it’s worth taking steps to help make it more fair.” No one gift, and no one family, can close every gap on its own, he says, but that doesn’t make the effort less worth it. Holding both of those truths at once, rather than letting either one cancel out the other, is something he’s carried forward from growing up in this practice.

Some of the most resonant conversations, Kate, Fell, and McEwen all agree, haven’t happened around a spreadsheet of grant candidates at all. They’ve happened on the road, at the dinner table, running errands together. Traveling has been one setting where those conversations come up, prompting the family to reflect on different cultural perspectives about giving, fairness and justice, but the smaller, everyday moments matter just as much.

Advice for Families Starting a Multigenerational Giving Practice

Asked what she’d say to another family curious about doing this but unsure where to start, Kate’s answer comes back to something simple: start where your kids already are. That means meeting children at their own level of interest and understanding rather than trying to make them care about everything at once. The goal isn’t to produce a mini philanthropist who can rattle off cause areas. It’s to build a habit of paying attention to the world and asking what you can do about it.

And for other young people navigating something similar, inheriting not just resources but expectations, Fell and McEwen offer a lesson of their own. It’s possible to grow into a family’s giving practice without simply inheriting it wholesale. Their giving reflects who they are, even as it grew out of a practice their mother started long before they had any say in it.

Why Multigenerational Family Philanthropy Is Worth It

Reflecting on what she hopes people take away from a story like this, Kate returned to something she’s clearly thought about before. It’s worth doing this with your kids, she says, even when the amount feels significant to your family and even when it feels complicated. It’s also a genuine opportunity to connect with them and to learn what they think and care about.

That, perhaps, is the real throughline of the Gutierrez family’s story. Philanthropy, in their hands, hasn’t just been a mechanism for moving money to good causes. It’s been a two-decade-long conversation about fairness, about identity, about what each of them owes the world and each other, conducted one grant, one trip, one dinner-table chat at a time.

Curious what family giving could look like for you? Learn more about the philanthropic options available for families who want to give together, at any scale.