Byline: By danny hakim section: Section B; Column 0; Metropolitan Desk; Pg. 1 Length

URL: http://www.nytimes.com
SUBJECT: COFFEE & TEA STORES (90%); COFFEE (89%); MERGERS & ACQUISITIONS (78%); FAST FOOD (78%); BEVERAGE PRODUCTS (77%); BAKED GOODS (74%); SHAREHOLDER MEETINGS (73%); TALKS & MEETINGS (70%); COFFEE & TEA MFG (68%); ENVIRONMENT & NATURAL RESOURCES (66%)
COMPANY: STARBUCKS CORP (56%); WILLIAM BLAIR & CO LLC (64%)
ORGANIZATION: CONSERVATION INTERNATIONAL (55%)
TICKER: STB (LSE) (56%); SBUX (NASDAQ) (56%)
INDUSTRY: NAICS722213 SNACK & NONALCOHOLIC BEVERAGE BARS (94%); SIC5812 EATING PLACES (94%); NAICS523120 SECURITIES BROKERAGE (64%); NAICS523110 INVESTMENT BANKING & SECURITIES DEALING (64%); SIC6282 INVESTMENT ADVICE (64%); SIC6211 SECURITY BROKERS, DEALERS, & FLOTATION COMPANIES (64%)
PERSON: MICHAEL MCMAHON (58%)
GEOGRAPHIC: SEATTLE, WA, USA (93%) WASHINGTON, USA (93%) UNITED STATES (93%)
LOAD-DATE: March 20, 2008
LANGUAGE: ENGLISH
GRAPHIC: PHOTO: Howard D. Schultz, Starbucks's chief executive, at the shareholders' meeting in Seattle on Wednesday, held a shot of expresso from a Mastrena machine to be in most stores by 2010. (PHOTOGRAPH BY MARCUS R. DONNER/REUTERS) (pg. C4)
PUBLICATION-TYPE: Newspaper

Copyright 2008 The New York Times Company

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The New York Times
March 20, 2008 Thursday

Late Edition - Final

A Budding Conglomerate Is Really A Home for Ex-Gang Members
BYLINE: By JAMES FLANIGAN
SECTION: Section C; Column 0; Business/Financial Desk; ENTREPRENEURIAL EDGE; Pg. 5
LENGTH: 1248 words
IN Los Angeles, a corporation that runs several small businesses is demonstrating that the training and discipline of working in a small company can make a big contribution to changing the lives of former gang members.

The corporation, Homeboy Industries, runs a silkscreen business, for example, that produced revenue of $1.1 million last year from sales of custom T-shirts and other apparel for radio stations running promotions and college and private groups holding events. The business employs former gang members to make the T-shirts and uses the money to help offset the corporation's expenses. Homeboy Silkscreen started 12 years ago in a converted warehouse under a freeway overpass near downtown Los Angeles and now has 18 employees.

Homeboy Bakery has a new plant that has $3 million in ovens and machinery and its managers hope to produce millions of dollars in revenue within a year or two, said the master baker, Alvaro Ocegueda. He supervises 25 former gang members who have become bakers under his guidance and with professional training at Los Angeles Trade-Technical College, a two-year community college.

There is also a Homegirl Cafe, that has a staff of 27 girls who were ''gang impacted'' either as auxiliary gang members or as residents of neighborhoods under gang influence. The cafe has brought in more than $220,000 in five months of serving breakfast and lunch six days a week, said Patricia Zarate, who cooks for and manages the business.

Homeboy Maintenance takes in about $6,000 a month, and a Homeboy retail store sold $25,000 in Homeboy shirts and caps in a recent three-month period.

Though it may sound like a budding conglomerate, Homeboy is a nonprofit charitable corporation that last year had a budget of $5 million and goals that emphasize rehabilitation over revenue.

''The aim of the cash-producing businesses is that they bring in enough to pay for the free services,'' said the Rev. Gregory Boyle, a Jesuit priest who founded Homeboy Industries in East Los Angeles two decades ago and is now its executive director. Those services include mental therapy for former gang members, housing assistance, job development counseling and tattoo removal treatments.

The tattoo removals are not a fashion statement but a safety concern. Gang tattoos are a marker of the rivalries among the 26,000 members of Los Angeles's 250 gangs, according to the Los Angeles Police Department. Many gangs have been in existence for decades, and, police department figures show, their activities in the last five years have resulted in 12,000 assaults, 10,000 robberies, 784 homicides and 500 rapes.

Twenty years ago, when he was assigned to Dolores Mission Church, the poorest parish in the Archdiocese of Los Angeles , Father Boyle decided to try employment as a way to break the cycle of gangs, crime and imprisonment for the neighborhood's young men. He tried to persuade businesses to hire reforming gang members through a parish organization he called Jobs for a Future. Then, in 1992, he bought an abandoned bakery with a contribution from Ray Stark, the Hollywood producer (''Funny Girl,'', ''California Suite,'' and ''Annie'' among others). Father Boyle put a half dozen former gang members -- ''homeboys'' in street parlance -- to work cleaning up the bakery and producing tortillas for sale. Tortilla sales led to making bread for a large baking company that supplied restaurants.

That ultimately led to Homeboy bakers being trained at Mi Vida-My Life, a family bakery run by Mr. Ocegueda, who tutored them in the mystical tradition of baking. ''You knead the dough by hand and all of the tensions and the spirit you are feeling go into the bread,'' Mr. Ocegueda said in an interview.

Homeboy Bakery was offered a grant to buy an automatic dough mixer, Mr. Ocegueda said. ''But Father Greg said no, it is better to have them knead by hand because we can employ more people.''

The assignment seems anachronistic because Homeboy Bakery, with its gleaming new ovens and storage bins, is now housed in the Fran and Ray Stark Homeboy Industries headquarters, an $8.5 million center built with philanthropic contributions and opened last October.

But Homeboy's emphasis is on putting gang members to work. ''Our most important task is job training,'' Father Boyle said in a telephone interview from Italy, where he is on a three-month sabbatical to write a book on Homeboy's work in reclaiming lives. Indeed, Mr. Ocegueda's assignment is to double the number of Homeboy bakers to 50 next year. The jobs pay $9 to $10 an hour, with health benefits after the employee is on the job three months. The aim is to introduce gang members to the discipline of work and eventually to graduate them to jobs in the commercial marketplace.

The Homeboy organization conducts thousands of job development interviews every year, with Father Boyle seeing more than 50 people a day. In his current absence, the chief operating officer, Veronica Vargas, is taking on that work. The organization is now compiling a database of all the people who have been helped or treated through the years, said Mona Hobson, director of development.

The organization is also anticipating expansion. The new Homeboy headquarters, a few blocks from Los Angeles City Hall, ''gives us a chance to reach out to African-American gangs; our focus is countywide,'' Father Boyle said.

The new center has spurred ideas for growth among supervisors of the businesses, some of whom were once troubled youths but not gang members. ''I was a tagger,'' a graffiti painter, said Rosaliano Mendez, who heads the maintenance business. ''I dropped out of school, but I went back and now I'm studying for an associate degree in business.''

Mr. Mendez sees opportunity for expansion in commercial office cleaning. Eric Bennett, who heads the retail operation, said he ''met Father Greg when I was in some trouble.'' Mr. Bennett said he was hopeful that ''we can spread the Homeboy brand in off- campus stores not only in California but across the country.''

Homeboy Industries' board, whose members are business and professional people, would like to see expansion. ''I think the bakery should be bringing in $4 million to $5 million in revenue per year,'' said David Adams, the chairman of real estate investment firms in Santa Barbara and Los Angeles and the chief fund-raiser for the new Homeboy headquarters.

At the moment, the bakery is close to signing a big order for bread and pastries from a chain of coffeehouse restaurants and is seeking other big customers.

Ruben Rodriguez, who with his wife, Cristina, heads the silk screen business, also says he believes expansion is possible. A big factor for Mr. Rodriguez, one of the longest-serving Homeboy supervisors -- ''I met Father Greg at a bad time in my life.'' -- is that ''Father Greg does all the marketing'' for Homeboy products and services.

A question for Homeboy Industries, which is common to all small businesses, is whether the company could go on and prosper without its entrepreneurial founder. Father Boyle, 54 and healthy today, survived leukemia six years ago.

''Several years ago, I might have doubted that it could,'' said Michael Hennigan, president of the Homeboy directors and founder of a Los Angeles law firm. ''But today I think the organization is large enough and talent from the Jesuit order and elsewhere would come forward. The organization will go on and prosper.''

URL: http://www.nytimes.com
SUBJECT: SMALL BUSINESS (90%); GANGS (89%); POLICE FORCES (78%); CHARITIES (77%); COLLEGES & UNIVERSITIES (76%); RELIGION (74%); BAKERIES (74%); RADIO BROADCAST INDUSTRY (72%); RETAILERS (71%); COMMUNITY COLLEGES (71%); NONPROFIT ORGANIZATIONS (70%); HOUSING ASSISTANCE (70%); CLERGY & RELIGIOUS (66%); PUBLIC HOUSING (64%); CATHOLICS & CATHOLICISM (66%); HOMICIDE (60%)
GEOGRAPHIC: LOS ANGELES, CA, USA (95%) CALIFORNIA, USA (95%) UNITED STATES (95%)
LOAD-DATE: March 20, 2008
LANGUAGE: ENGLISH
GRAPHIC: PHOTO: Alfredo Hernandez, a onetime gang member, waits for customers at the Homeboy bakery and cafe in Los Angeles. The Homeboy businesses offer training and discipline. (PHOTOGRAPH BY J. EMILIO FLORES FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES)
PUBLICATION-TYPE: Newspaper

Copyright 2008 The New York Times Company

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The New York Times
March 19, 2008 Wednesday

Late Edition - Final

To the Cheese Course, Prepare to Add Camel
BYLINE: By PERVAIZ SHALLWANI
SECTION: Section F; Column 0; Dining, Dining Out/Cultural Desk; Pg. 4
LENGTH: 526 words
WITH cheeses in all shapes, sizes and aromas so easily found, a new curd can have trouble standing out. This is not likely to be a problem for Caravane.

A brie-like cheese with a bloomy rind and a gooey off-white center, Caravane is made in Mauritania at one of the world's first camel milk dairies.

The cheese, known to some admirers as Camelbert, has had a difficult time clearing regulatory hurdles in the European Union. But with the help of Gary Guthrie, an American importer, it has received a green light here. About 100 pounds of Caravane will be available in New York beginning this week at some Garden of Eden stores, Sahadi's, Stinky Bklyn, Zabar's and Todaro Brothers. It will also appear on the menu at Azza, a French-Moroccan restaurant on East 55th Street, and Zaytinya, a Middle Eastern restaurant in Washington.

''It's got an animal flavor like a goat, but it's definitely not a goat,'' said Dan Granke, a cheese buyer for Stinky Bklyn in Carroll Gardens, where the cheese will be selling for $30 a pound. ''It's kind of cool. If you're looking for a kick of camel, this is not it. It's got pleasant barnyard undertones and is perfect to be spread on bread.''

The dairy that makes Caravane is run by Nancy Abeiderrahmane, who is also its founder. Born in England and raised mostly in Spain, Ms. Abeiderrahmane, 61, married a Mauritanian politician and eventually settled in the country in 1986.

She fell in love with the rich, earthy flavor of camel milk, and wanted to make it more easily available to Mauritanians while helping herders make more money. As Ms. Abeiderrahmane said: ''I thought it would be so nice to find packaged clean camel milk in the corner shop, instead of driving to the edge of the city to have a camel milked, and then filter it and take a health risk.''

She started the dairy, now called Tiviski, in 1989. Nomads took their camel herds to her, and soon she was collecting, pasteurizing, bottling and selling more than 500 gallons of milk a day.

At some times of the year supply outran demand, and this made her wonder if she could make the milk into something with a longer shelf life, like cheese. But unlike that of cows, goats and sheep, camel milk does not have the proteins to curdle naturally. Ms. Abeiderrahmane contacted a camel expert in France who had discovered an enzyme that aids curdling, and made him a technical consultant. Production began in 1994.

Mr. Guthrie, an importer and entrepreneur who has worked mostly with electronics, was on a hunt for camel milk in 2007 after reading about its health benefits. Camel milk is rich in nutrients like iron, and vitamins C and B, according to a 2006 report from the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations.

He approached Ms. Abeiderrahmane, and by September was peddling half-pound samples of Caravane to New York retailers and restaurants. Some of those that declined to carry it initially are nevertheless keeping an eye on it.

''I think it's got potential,'' said Max McCalman, the dean of curriculum and a cheese buyer for Artisanal. ''It's a wait and see approach and I think we are going to revisit it very shortly.''
URL: http://www.nytimes.com
SUBJECT: GOURMET FOOD STORES (78%); RESTAURANTS (74%); WEALTHY PEOPLE (68%); ENZYMES (63%)
ORGANIZATION: EUROPEAN UNION (57%)
PERSON: MICHAEL MCMAHON (55%)
GEOGRAPHIC: NEW YORK, USA (76%) MAURITANIA (89%); SPAIN (79%); FRANCE (77%); UNITED STATES (76%); EUROPEAN UNION (72%); EUROPE (72%)
LOAD-DATE: March 19, 2008
LANGUAGE: ENGLISH
GRAPHIC: PHOTO: $30 A POUND: Caravane, a camel's milk cheese, is from Mauritania.
PUBLICATION-TYPE: Newspaper

Copyright 2008 The New York Times Company

962 of 1231 DOCUMENTS

The New York Times
March 19, 2008 Wednesday

Late Edition - Final

A Meet-Up, Brought to You by Huggies
BYLINE: By STUART ELLIOTT
SECTION: Section C; Column 0; Business/Financial Desk; ADVERTISING; Pg. 6
LENGTH: 1047 words
THE company whose tissue brand ''pops up one at a time,'' as the old ad slogan proclaimed, is popping up on a leading social networking site.

The Kimberly-Clark Corporation, the maker of Kleenex tissues, is joining forces with Meetup for an initiative sponsored by the company's baby brands, like Huggies and Pull-Ups. The effort, aimed at mothers of young children, represents Meetup's first foray into sponsorship. The site is known as a facilitator of offline meetings of computer users who share interests like politics or parenthood.

Kimberly-Clark is one of two marketers that have signed sponsorship agreements with Meetup, on undisclosed financial terms. The other is the American Express Company, whose Open division is collaborating on an initiative aimed at entrepreneurs and owners of small businesses.

The sponsorships are indicative of the increasing interest on Madison Avenue in a wide variety of online tactics that include social networking, blogs, virtual worlds, community Web sites, social media and word-of-mouth marketing.

All are part of what is known as Web 2.0, the efforts to encourage two-way conversations between brands and consumers rather than the traditional top-down method of corporations talking at -- or down to -- potential customers.

''Brands can network like people network,'' said Kirk Cheyfitz, chief executive at Story Worldwide in New York, an agency that has worked for marketers like A&E Networks, Nestle, Toyota Motor and Unilever.

There is, however, a danger for advertisers who turn up on a Web site like meetup.com or at the meetings that Meetup helps people arrange. If consumers perceive that Web 2.0 activities are being overly commercialized, they will decry the involvement of the marketers and mark down the value of the efforts to a big fat 0.

Kimberly-Clark executives say they are aware of those risks.

''We started with feedback from Meetup members and organizers as to whether they would want a sponsor and what they would find of value from a sponsor,'' said Brad Santeler, director for media and relationship marketing at the Neenah, Wis., office of Kimberly-Clark.

''It's very transparent,'' he added. ''We asked them what they wanted, and we're providing that.'' For instance, Kimberly-Clark is paying the monthly fees that organizers of affinity groups usually pay to Meetup.

Likewise, at American Express, said Marcy Shinder, vice president for brand strategy and marketing at the Open division in New York, ''we don't impose'' anything on the Meetup members.

Rather, she added, ''we generate something together that's meaningful to them.''

''This group is honest,'' Ms. Shinder said of entrepreneurs. ''They'll tell you what they think.'' And so far, she added, the feedback from the 30 Meetup organizers with whom the company is working has been encouraging.

In its foray into Meetup, Ms. Shinder said, the Open division is using as a template its ''authentic relationships'' with other organizations like Count Me In for Women's Economic Independence, which helps female entrepreneurs. Open is a founding sponsor of an online program called Make Mine a Million-Dollar Business (makemineamillion.org), introduced by Count Me In, which offers money, mentors and marketing assistance to fledgling firms run by women.

Meetup has more than 37,000 groups with more than five million regular users, said Dominic Preuss, vice president for marketplace at Meetup in New York, and helps arrange about 80,000 physical get-togethers each month.

''If the organizers of groups feel 'sold to,' it would not be in our interest'' to make deals with marketers, Mr. Preuss said.

''It's not just about throwing money at them,'' he added. ''They have to see value in the sponsorship.''

''With any new program, there are things that work and things that don't work,'' Mr. Preuss said. What seems to work best so far, he added, are ''offers that are specific to groups, targeted and customized, that increase the value of their meet-ups.''

For example, Kimberly-Clark is offering expectant mothers a ''Huggies Baby Countdown'' widget, which calculates how much longer their pregnancies will last based on their due dates. The widget can be downloaded from more than 20 Web sites like Facebook, Freewebs, iGoogle and MySpace.

''It's about creating opportunities for consumers who want to engage with our brands and giving them the tools to do that,'' Mr. Santeler of Kimberly-Clark said.

His colleague, Kate Johnson, consumer relationship marketing manager, praised the Meetup sponsorship as a way for Kimberly-Clark to influence ''that over-the-fence decision'' made after one neighbor tells another about a product she likes -- or dislikes.

''When you have one mom talking to another, it's powerful,'' Ms. Johnson said. ''So we're offering them information and tools and activities; we're not in their face with advertising.''

Similarly, said Ms. Shinder at American Express Open, the deal with Meetup would provide ''access and support.'' The access is to experts who can help with tasks like developing business plans and managing cash flow, she added, and the support is for ''Meetup organizers on how to put together great events.''

''If you look at entrepreneurs, they've been doing social networking before it had a name,'' Ms. Shinder said. ''We've learned that you reach them where they are.''

The American Express Open sponsorship is scheduled to continue with the 30 Meetup groups through the end of the year, Ms. Shinder said, at which time ''we'll see how we can scale it out even more broadly.''

''Before we take it from 30 to 500,'' she added, ''we want to make the model as strong as possible.''

The Kimberly-Clark sponsorship is a six-month pilot program with 100 Meetup groups, Mr. Santeler said, and is planned to run through June.

Both companies also have extensive online presences. American Express Open has a Web site called openforum.com.

Kimberly-Clark Web sites include huggiesbabynetwork.com, happyhealthypregnancy.com and huggieshappybaby.com.

Kimberly-Clark intends to devote about 35 percent of its overall marketing spending this year to nontraditional media like the Internet, said a spokesman, Joey Mooring, compared with about 25 percent in 2007 and 10 percent in 2004.

URL: http://www.nytimes.com
SUBJECT: PAPER & PACKAGING PRODUCTS (90%); ADVERTISING SLOGANS (90%); SPONSORSHIP (90%); INTERNET SOCIAL NETWORKING (90%); WEB 2 (89%); ENTREPRENEURSHIP (89%); COMPANY STRATEGY (79%); BRAND EQUITY (78%); BRANDING (78%); SMALL BUSINESS (78%); SANITARY PAPER PRODUCT MFG (77%); MARKETING STRATEGY (76%); FOOD INDUSTRY (73%); BLOGS & MESSAGE BOARDS (72%); CHILDREN (71%); CUSTOMER RELATIONSHIP MANAGEMENT (68%); VIRTUAL REALITY (53%)
COMPANY: KIMBERLY-CLARK CORP (96%); AMERICAN EXPRESS CO (83%); TOYOTA MOTOR CORP (54%); NESTLE SA (54%); UNILEVER PLC/NV (54%)
TICKER: KMB (NYSE) (96%); AXP (NYSE) (83%); AMEXP (PAR) (83%); TYT (LSE) (54%); TM (NYSE) (54%); 7203 (TSE) (54%); NSTR (LSE) (54%); UNIA (AMS) (54%); UNA (AMS) (54%); UN (NYSE) (54%); ULVR (LSE) (54%); UL (NYSE) (54%); NESN (SWX) (54%); UN (LSE) (54%)
INDUSTRY: NAICS339113 SURGICAL APPLIANCE & SUPPLIES MANUFACTURING (96%); NAICS322291 SANITARY PAPER PRODUCT MANUFACTURING (96%); SIC3842 ORTHOPEDIC, PROSTHETIC, & SURGICAL APPLIANCES & SUPPLIES (96%); SIC2676 SANITARY PAPER PRODUCTS (96%); NAICS522210 CREDIT CARD ISSUING (83%); SIC6141 PERSONAL CREDIT INSTITUTIONS (83%); NAICS336112 LIGHT TRUCK & UTILITY VEHICLE MANUFACTURING (54%); NAICS336111 AUTOMOBILE MANUFACTURING (54%); NAICS312112 BOTTLED WATER MANUFACTURING (54%); NAICS311920 COFFEE AND TEA MANUFACTURING (54%); NAICS311514 DRY, CONDENSED, AND EVAPORATED DAIRY PRODUCT MANUFACTURING (54%); SIC2095 ROASTED COFFEE (54%); SIC2086 BOTTLED & CANNED SOFT DRINKS & CARBONATED WATER (54%); SIC2023 DRY CONDENSED & EVAPORATED DAIRY PRODUCTS (54%); NAICS325620 TOILET PREPARATION MANUFACTURING (54%); NAICS325611 SOAP & OTHER DETERGENT MANUFACTURING (54%); NAICS311412 FROZEN SPECIALTY FOOD MANUFACTURING (54%); NAICS311411 FROZEN FRUIT, JUICE & VEGETABLE MANUFACTURING (54%); NAICS311225 FATS & OILS REFINING & BLENDING (54%); SIC2844 PERFUMES, COSMETICS, & OTHER TOILET PREPARATIONS (54%); SIC2841 SOAPS & OTHER DETERGENTS, EXCEPT SPECIALTY CLEANERS (54%); SIC2079 SHORTENING, TABLE OILS, MARGARINE & OTHER EDIBLE FATS & OILS, NEC (54%); SIC2037 FROZEN FRUITS, FRUIT JUICES, & VEGETABLES (54%); NAICS311920 COFFEE & TEA MANUFACTURING (54%); NAICS311514 DRY, CONDENSED & EVAPORATED DAIRY PRODUCT MANUFACTURING (54%); NAICS311320 CHOCOLATE & CONFECTIONERY MANUFACTURING FROM CACAO BEANS (54%)
PERSON: ANN LIVERMORE (51%); MICHAEL MCMAHON (51%)
GEOGRAPHIC: NEW YORK, USA (90%) UNITED STATES (92%)
LOAD-DATE: March 19, 2008
LANGUAGE: ENGLISH
PUBLICATION-TYPE: Newspaper

Copyright 2008 The New York Times Company

963 of 1231 DOCUMENTS

The New York Times
March 18, 2008 Tuesday

Late Edition - Final

Breaking The Silence
BYLINE: By JOHN LELAND.

Fred Bierman contributed reporting for this article.

SECTION: Section H; Column 0; Wealth&PersonalFinance; Pg. 1
LENGTH: 1962 words
WHEN Dal LaMagna, founder of the Tweezerman company, considered how to leave his wealth to his two children, he thought back to his early 30s, just before he achieved success. At the time, said Mr. LaMagna, 61, ''I thought if I could get 600 bucks a week, I could retire on that, and I would be very happy.''

So Mr. LaMagna, who built a $30 million company -- which makes beauty tools like tweezers -- before selling it in 2004, set up charitable lead trusts for his son and daughter to provide them weekly incomes of about $600, starting when they turn 30 years old. (They are now 19 and 27.)

''If you give them more, it's counterproductive to their motivation,'' said Mr. LaMagna, who has spent some of his children's potential inheritance on antiwar causes, including his own campaigns for Congress and president. ''I didn't want to take away from them the drive to do things for themselves.''

With the largest intergenerational transfer of wealth in American history now under way -- the Boston College Center on Wealth and Philanthropy has estimated that $41 trillion will change hands by 2052 -- Mr. LaMagna and others are reconsidering the meaning of inheritance, thinking not just about the money but about the values they want to pass with it.

Families have often avoided the discussion of inheritance, which involves both death and money. But as the nature of wealth in America changes, many people are beginning to talk more openly about their money and the purpose it has for them.

These discussions are taking place against a backdrop of changing estate tax laws, innovative trust instruments, armies of newly minted wealth advisers, a troubled economy with markets in upheaval and family ties that are complicated by divorce, remarriage, adoption and domestic partnership. Not to mention the public spectacles of Anna Nicole Smith and Paris Hilton.

Among the parents' considerations are whether to give now or later; how to provide for the companies or foundations they started; whom they want to manage their children's trusts; and how to protect themselves from catastrophic health care costs. Add to the mix new financial services like children's wealth camps, family mission statements, ''ethical wills'' and, above all, the question: What sort of lives do they want their children to lead?

Patricia Angus, principal of wealth advisory services at Shelterwood Financial Services in New York, said that many of her clients were changing how they define wealth.

''The definition is broadening to include not just financial capital but human, social and intellectual capital,'' Ms. Angus said. ''Professionals used to think it was just, How do I transfer my financial assets at the lowest tax costs? Now people are asking, What is the purpose and meaning of what I'm doing here, and how do I pass those down? It's not about death. It's about an experience in life, an opportunity to talk as a family about purpose and values that might not otherwise come up. For people who just write a document and put it in a drawer to be opened on their death, I don't see that opportunity coming up.''

Many still want to pass down as much wealth as possible. But for others, the change in philosophy reflects the fact that there are more millionaires who have earned their wealth rather than inherited it. A 2007 U.S. Trust survey of people with $5 million in investable assets found that only 20 percent of their wealth was inherited. Other surveys put the figure lower.

In the U.S. Trust survey, half the respondents said they did not fully discuss their estate plan with their children.

But once you get them talking, the conversation is often more about values and meaning than about tax strategies. An entrepreneur might see a dollar in his or her pocket as an incitement to work harder or think more creatively, but in an heir's wallet it can be an invitation to slough off. As more Americans hire advisers to manage the financial content of their wealth, they say they are busy managing its philosophical or ethical legacy themselves.

For Gary Williams, 57, the question of how much is too much has changed from year to year. When his son was 18, he said, ''I wouldn't have handed him a dime. He wasn't responsible. I've seen it happen. If you do, it's just money to them.''

Mr. Williams, who runs a debt collection service in Rock Hill, S.C., said that money was not the biggest consideration in his children's legacy. He and his wife have had detailed conversations about their finances and charitable giving with their son and daughter, who are now 31 and 27, and have asked them to help direct their gifts.

''They understand that they're not going to receive our entire wealth,'' Mr. Williams said. ''They may inherit the company and some of our wealth, but the things we believe in -- the church, scouting, serving youth -- we hope to sustain those when we pass on.''

He said he had not fixed a number for their inheritance, and that the final distribution may not be equal -- maybe his son, who is now more involved in the family business, will get a greater share of the company, and his daughter, who wants to stay at home after she has children, will get the beach house.

In the meantime, he gave them a total of $48,000 to invest, with the profits going toward an annual family retreat. ''The long-term result is them learning to work together,'' he said. At least once a year, the family sits down together to discuss investments, charities and other issues.

''Our goal is not to give them all of our assets as much as give them the knowledge to manage the assets they have, and give them the ability to do what they want in life,'' Mr. Williams said. ''Your self worth comes from how you get where you're going. If it's given to them in a limousine, they're not going to get there very well.''

Charitable foundations and trusts have multiplied in the last decade, to the point that ''now everyone and his mother can set up a foundation,'' said Mina Sirkin, a lawyer who specializes in estate planning in Woodland Hills, Calif.

In a 2007 survey of people with assets above $500,000, by PNC Financial Services Group, 30 percent said that their heirs had to meet certain conditions to receive their inheritance. Fourteen percent said they put restrictions on how the heirs could use the money.

Like other Americans, the PNC sample expressed contradictory positions about inheritance: only 17 percent said it was more important to give to charities than to family members, but the majority, 62 percent, said that every generation should be responsible for creating its own wealth.

Ms. Sirkin said that among her clients, ''no one thinks there's too much to give to the children. Your view of money is usually relative. The other day a couple came in, they're worth $15 million; in a little while they'll be worth $30 million, and if you ask them, Is this too much for your 21-year-old, they don't believe it, because they're accustomed to it.''

Frank and Ruth Butler disagreed about how much was enough. Mr. Butler, 78, a retired chief executive of Eastman Gelatine, a subsidiary of Eastman Kodak, wanted to give his fortune to charity. Mrs. Butler, 76, wanted to subsidize the education of their three grandchildren. So they divided their resources in half, creating an educational trust from Mrs. Butler's side and a charitable foundation from Mr. Butler's, to be administered with their children. The grandchildren have all finished college now, and there is still money in the education fund.

''My feeling is that our children have already benefited greatly from being in our family,'' Mr. Butler said. Mrs. Butler said her view was: ''I felt our children would not be able to help their children as we helped them. I wanted it to be clear that they didn't have to limit their choice of colleges.''

The idea of not handing down one's wealth -- and of making that decision in the name of class values -- fits a society in which wealth is increasingly entrepreneurial. In more aristocratic societies, benefactors expect heirs to assume their class values along with their estates. By contrast, many self-made millionaires say that too much inheritance might work against their values -- specifically the values that enabled them to make the fortune in the first place.

Martin Rothenberg, 74, who started a company that makes voice-recognition software, said he hoped not to leave his children anything. ''My goal is to have my bank account run out on the day that I die,'' he said.

After Mr. Rothenberg received $10 million in the sale of his company, Syracuse Language Systems, he set up a charitable foundation and a community foundation for his three children to run, with assets of just under $5 million. With some of the remainder, he started a company called Glottal Enterprises, which makes speech aids for people with impaired hearing -- ''a small company that loses money,'' he called it.

''I think they all probably would like more money,'' he said of his children. ''In one case that was communicated directly, as money for grandchildren for schooling, but not strongly. But by giving out the money early, that settled it. They can't think of my money as their money because there isn't any money.''

Mr. Rothenberg's daughter Sandra, 39, said that it was she and her siblings who pressed to settle the inheritance early.

''The kids wanted it earlier, not after he died, so we didn't have to spend the rest of our lives wondering, if we did this, would he cut us out of his will?'' said Ms. Rothenberg, who teaches corporate social responsibility at the Rochester Institute of Technology. ''We didn't want money to be a factor in our relationship. I think part of him wanted it over with, too.''

Mr. Rothenberg said that he gave his children some money for basic needs, but that for large sums, ''giving them money that they can give away is more valuable than giving them money that they can spend. And as a practical matter, there are times when they might make a donation to a local charity, say $10,000, and it would be hard for them to take their own money to do that. That's been very freeing for them.''

Even in close families, inheritance often gets messy, especially when children have different needs and abilities to manage money, said Beth Kaufman, an estate planning lawyer at Caplin & Drysdale in Washington.

''There's a tension,'' she said. ''Do you give the responsible children money outright and put the others' money in a trust? Do you make the responsible kid trustee for the irresponsible one? That can really damage a sibling relationship.''

A sure recipe for disaster is leaving a vacation property jointly to the children, she said. ''All of us as parents want to believe our children will be friendly when we're gone,'' Ms. Kaufman said. ''The reality is you're leaving them a white elephant.''

In the end, the parents are gone, and the heirs must deal with what remains -- a statement of purpose, a foundation they may or may not support, a trust they may not feel they need. David Wallechinsky, the son of the writer Irving Wallace, said he managed his mother's finances for the last seven years of her life. Now, at 60, having his inheritance meted out by trustees feels like an indignity, he said. ''It was as if we had entered a looking-glass world in which, instead of gaining an inheritance, we lost control of the family trust.''

But recently he received copies of his parents' papers, which are archived at the Claremont Colleges in California. He said this was his real inheritance.

''I suppose I should be concerned about the money, but I want to leave my kids a family history and a family intellectual history, because we're fortunate enough to have one.''