Trustee Responsibilities
What makes someone effective in the trustee role, and what responsibilities come with it?
Trustee Responsibilities (formerly Trustee Basics Module 2) explores the qualities, duties, and challenges involved in serving as a trustee. It connects personal characteristics such as integrity, judgment, objectivity, communication, discretion, empathy, and accountability with the trustee’s core fiduciary responsibilities: administration, investment oversight, distributions, and beneficiary education. Learners examine both positive trustee behaviors and red flags, while considering how expectations, family dynamics, and legal duties shape the trustee-beneficiary relationship.
What You’ll Be Able to Do on the Other Side
- Evaluate trustee behaviors against key characteristics such as integrity, objectivity, communication, and accountability.
- Identify red flags that may indicate a trustee is not meeting fiduciary expectations.
- Understand the trustee’s four core duties: administration, investment, distribution, and education.
- Ask clearer questions about trust distributions, investment oversight, reporting, and communication.
- Prepare for trustee-beneficiary conversations with greater awareness of role expectations and boundaries.
The Experience
This module uses examples, matching exercises, reflection prompts, case studies, and practical worksheets to connect trustee traits with real-world conduct. Learners review scenarios involving communication, conflicts of interest, distribution decisions, documentation, and beneficiary engagement.
The experience asks both trustees and beneficiaries to reflect on their expectations, assumptions, and communication patterns. Through readings, prompts, and cautionary examples, learners build a more grounded understanding of what fiduciary responsibility entails and how trust can be strengthened or damaged by trustee behavior.
Program Outline
Trustee Basics
Trustee Basics is a continuation of the learning established in Beneficiary Fundamentals and puts the learner in the shoes of a trustee. The course starts by establishing the main parties to a trust and defines the role of a trustee. The subsequent modules provide an overview of the responsibilities and duties of a trustee and reviews the beneficiary’s duties in the trust relationship. This course includes worksheets and resources that help an individual work through if they are ready to take on the responsibility and duty of becoming a trustee. Additionally, Trustee Basics covers institutional trustees, the purpose of a private trust company, and how to evaluate trustee candidates and monitor their performance over time.
Pricing
- Access your courses anytime, anywhere, with a computer, tablet or smartphone
- Videos, quizzes and interactive content designed for a proven learning experience
- Real-Life Examples & Practical Tools Explore relatable case studies, media moments, and conversation starters that help you apply what you’re learning to your own relationship.
- This course is designed to take 1-3 weeks. Most learners move through the material at a gentle pace, allowing time for reflection, journaling, and meaningful conversations. If you put in more hours per week, you will finish sooner.
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