Earlier this month I had the opportunity to address an important group of CFP Board’s stakeholders. Directors of CFP Board-Registered Programs from around the country gathered in Washington, DC, just a short walk from CFP Board’s new headquarters, to take part in the 2008 Program Directors’ Conference. In addition to insightful presentations from keynote speaker Michael Kitces, CFP® and others, the Conference allowed CFP Board to highlight our initiatives related to financial planning education and to introduce new staff members to the Registered Program community. Perhaps most importantly, the event initiated dialogue on best practices in financial planning education, as well as conversation on ways CFP Board can support the work of Registered Programs. As was mentioned more than once during the Conference, the success of Registered Programs contributes directly to the success of CFP Board and the CFP® certificant community.

The work of Registered Programs is truly essential to the financial planning profession. Not only do they help pass the body of knowledge of personal financial planning to new generations of financial planners. Many of these programs also have developed projects designed to bring the benefits of competent and ethical financial planning to their campuses and communities. And many of these projects benefit from the interaction of CFP® professionals, whether in activities that reach the public or activities that contribute to the professional development of students who will soon join the CFP® certificant community. I encourage all CFP® professionals to stay in contact with the faculty and institutions that helped them take the first steps toward CFP® certification and get involved in programs that increase awareness of the CFP® marks and the financial planning profession.

In only a couple weeks, CFP Board will hold an event to increase public awareness of financial planning and the CFP® certification. Our third Financial Planning Clinic will be held in Washington, DC on September 13. We expect the event to be our most successful to date, due in large part to the abundance of CFP® professionals who have volunteered to provide one-on-one consultations during the event. I offer my personal thanks to the more than 150 CFP® certificants who will demonstrate to consumers in our nation’s capital the tangible benefits of working with professionals who hold the right to use the CFP® marks.

David G. Strege, CFP®
2008 Chair, Board of Directors
CFP Board

Contact CFP Board’s Board of Directors at BOD@CFPBoard.org.

It feels good to report progress on promises made. At the 2008 Program Directors’ Conference, in addition to the pleasure of meeting with leaders of the Registered Program community, I had the pleasure of sharing details about the completion of three goals I’d announced in my message to attendees of the 2007 Program Directors’ Conference. Those goals included hiring a Managing Director of Education and Examinations, providing additional staff to support the work of CFP Board-Registered Programs, and establishing a Council on Education to advise staff on key issues that affect the education requirements for CFP® certification. The Conference provided an opportunity for Program Directors to meet CFP Board’s new Education department, members of our Communications & Marketing and Professional Review & Legal staff who are involved in supporting the work of financial planning education programs, and members of CFP Board’s Council on Examinations and inaugural Council on Education.

Education is a vital component of the CFP® certification. CFP Board’s strategic plan includes a core objective focused on education: Establish and enforce educational standards for enhancing the knowledge, skills and abilities of current and potential CFP® certificants. Our work toward that objective continues, and there are a few key areas related to CFP Board-Registered Programs in which we expect to make progress during the next year:

• Establishing additional venues for Registered Programs to share and discuss best practices;
• Supporting the marketing initiatives of Registered Programs; and
• Improving CFP Board’s support of the “pipeline” of potential CFP® certificants.

As the American public increasingly becomes aware of the benefits of working with CFP® professionals, it is important that the CFP® certificant community grow to a size sufficient to meet that demand. Registered Programs are situated at a pivotal place in that process. CFP Board is committed to working with Registered Programs to maintain and strengthen the high standards of the education requirements for CFP® certification. We are committed to finding ways to help Registered Programs identify and retain the students who will become the next generation of CFP® professionals.

I suspect that many who have completed the requirements for CFP® certification may not have ongoing contact with CFP Board-Registered Programs. If you fall in that group, you are missing out. The Registered Program community is a dedicated and talented group of professionals who have a great impact on the quality of the current and future CFP® professional community. I am grateful for their support of the CFP® certification and look forward to dynamic results from CFP Board’s partnerships with CFP Board-Registered Programs.

Kevin R. Keller, CAE
CEO, CFP Board
CFP Board

About a year after starting his own practice, Louis Barajas, CFP® closed his office door in the barrio of East Los Angeles and went home in tears. He had been scratching and clawing to make a living from financial planning in a community that, in his words, “didn’t even know what financial planning was.”

It’s not hard to see why he was discouraged. According to 2000 figures from the U.S. Census Bureau, a third of U.S.-born Hispanics — and over half of all Mexican immigrants — lack bank accounts. It’s hard to talk about savings plans and long-term goals against that background. Barajas felt like he was getting nowhere. He just couldn’t do it anymore.

When he got home and walked into the kitchen, he saw a note he had recently stuck to the refrigerator door — “Do it anyway.” So, the next day, and for every day after that, he did it anyway. Now his firm, Louis Barajas Wealth & Business Planning, manages some $50 million in assets. Along the way, he and a handful of planners like him have proven that it is possible to build a business serving ethnic minority markets.

The ethnic minority markets are certainly there. A 2007 survey for the National Foundation for Credit Counseling (NFCC) found that around 30% of respondents said they were interested in learning more about financial issues or seeking professional advice in the next year. This was particularly true, the survey reported, of African-Americans and Latinos, along with young adults between the ages of 18 and 29 and those from the South. The source these people said they were most likely to turn to for low-cost help? Financial advisors, planners, banks and brokers.

Yet minorities groups are often overlooked by the financial services industry, whether because they are regarded as too hard to reach or as not having sufficient assets to make them attractive prospects. But as minority populations continue to grow, so does their wealth. The purchasing power of the Hispanic population alone is expected to rise to $1.2 trillion by 2012, according to The University of Georgia’s Selig Center for Economic Growth.

“Historically, immigrants have been on the low end of the economic spectrum,” says Brian Pon, CFP®, of Financial Connections Group, Inc. in San Francisco. “But as the ethnic mix of the country changes, the ethnic mix of the professions changes, too. The children and grandchildren of immigrants are entering the professions and earning higher incomes. So ethnic minorities will be the new clients.”

Still, it can be difficult to make the case for financial planning. Pon cites the example of Asian-Americans who will go to see their tax preparer every year but who wouldn’t dream of asking for financial advice. “The Asian community is not accustomed to delegating financial matters,” Pon says. “Tax preparation is intimate and personal, yet it remains transactional. It is the beginning of the delegation of the financial planning process, but clients still don’t want to talk about retirement or their 401(k).” The solution, in Pon’s view, is outreach — to local Asian organizations, family associations, chambers of commerce: “We need to explain what financial planning means. It doesn’t mean, ‘Come and buy my investment.’ It means creating a road map to figure out where you are and where you want to go financially.”

Subtle cultural factors are at work in all ethnic communities. According to Latino Immigrant Financial Challenges and Solutions, a 2006 white paper produced by the National Endowment for Financial Education, “Latino immigrants prefer a customized, one-on-one approach that emphasizes process; instead, they often receive a one-size-fits-all approach that emphasizes product.”

So building a practice in a low-income minority community, working with what Barajas calls “underserved and overlooked populations,” is not easy — especially when there is a built-in cultural resistance to the whole idea of financial planning. “There is a lot of machismo,” says Barajas. “Guys have the attitude, ‘It’s my way or the highway.’ There is resistance to the idea of insurance, for example, because some men think, ‘If I die, the guy who ends up with my wife is going to end up with my money.’ You have to explain why they need life insurance. You have to bring up the issues they don’t want to talk about. You have to make clear that you’re there to help them figure out where they want to go, and to get them there quicker.”

Barajas’ own path to success was anything but quick. It took years to build his practice, not least because he had to simultaneously build an awareness of and appreciation for financial planning in the process. “People didn’t believe they had enough money to do financial planning,” Barajas recalls. “They said, ‘Once I’m rich, I’ll come see you.’ That’s like saying, ‘Once I’m healthy, I’ll see a doctor.’ I spent a lot of time explaining that this is a way to build wealth and security. It helped that I knew what it’s like to need every dollar. So I could say to them that they needed financial planning more than a rich person to whom every dollar didn’t matter.”

Barajas initially got people through the door by offering tax preparation, the one financial service residents of East Los Angeles knew they needed. Then he started talking about financial planning, introducing topics like saving for college, retirement, insurance, and investing. About five years ago, he went fee-only. He now has a minimum fee of $500, which includes tax prep. But the main focus is on planning. He has about 300 clients, most of whom are blue-collar immigrants in their 60s.

“A lot of business is informal, done with a handshake,” Barajas says. “People don’t have the educations to understand the more complex stuff. To reach them, you just have to be a member of the community, connecting through friends and family. There is a lot of handholding and education. But when clients get it, they understand what financial planning can do for them and they are not reluctant to pay.”

Like Barajas, Steven L. Sanders, CEO and chairman of First Genesis Financial Group in Newtown Square, PA, has built his business the old-fashioned way: community outreach and networking. He and his staff of eight typically have three or four speaking engagements a week, and Sanders himself co-hosts Financial Voices on WURD in Philadelphia, a weekly two-and-a-half-hour call-in radio show focused on economic issues relevant to the African-American community.

While First Genesis has targeted African-Americans as part of its marketing strategy, Sanders tailors his method but not his message to that community. Some 60% of the firm’s clients are African-Americans, a mix of higher net-worth individuals (business owners, retiring executives) and what Sanders calls “the emerging affluent.” “There are specific issues in talking to the African-American community, issues around style and culture,” he says, “but the content is exactly the same. If you lose 10% in your portfolio, that experience is the same for everyone, whether you’re African-American, Latino or white. How the message is delivered may be cultural, but the message itself is the same.”

Sanders has shown it’s possible to build a business on minority clients. Indeed, he considers the fact that so many others seem to think it’s impossible one of the industry’s biggest fallacies — and one of his biggest competitive advantages. “There is more wealth in the African-American community than the statistics show,” says Sanders. “ People just don’t know how to mine the gold inside the community. As a result, African-Americans have been ignored, allowing us to step in and become a first provider of services.”

Sanders is clear that if you’re going after a minority market — the African-American market, in particular — you can’t be out to make a quick buck. “We spend time in the community. We spend time on education. We spend time talking to people. We do work that we’re not necessarily compensated for, but we get referrals through that process. It’s a mistake to sell a product and then disappear. We sell a process. African-American consumers are very loyal. If you can provide a process that is repeatable, you win.”

This is the second in a series of two articles on diversity. Read Diversity and Financial Planning I: The Profession from the July 2008 CFP Board Report.

- James Geary

Download the FAQ on CFP Board's Revised Standards (PDF format)

Since CFP Board’s May 31, 2007 adoption of revised Standards of Professional Conduct, which has an effective date of July 1, 2008 and an enforcement date of January 1, 2009, CFP Board has worked to educate CFP® professionals and other stakeholders on the meaning and application of the new ethical standards. On July 1, 2008, CFP Board invited compliance professionals from firms around the country to participate in a live Webinar to discuss the application of the revised Standards in a firm environment.

The Webinar was presented by Marilyn Capelli Dimitroff, CFP®, 2008 Chair-Elect of CFP Board’s Board of Directors, whose long involvement with CFP Board’s ethical standards has included service as Chair of CFP Board’s Board of Practice Standards and Chair of the Ethics Task Force involved in the development of the revised Standards, and Nancy Johnson Jones, CFP®, a nationally-recognized expert on compliance issues who is also a member of CFP Board’s Board of Directors. Michael Shaw, Esq., CFP Board’s Managing Director of Professional Review and Legal, moderated the Webinar.

After a presentation on the revised Standards designed to address the specific needs of compliance officers and other employer representatives of firms that have CFP® certificants as employees or associates, the Webinar included time for participants to ask questions to the panel. Questions ranged from practical considerations related to the strengthened disclosure requirements of the revised Standards to clarification of the distinctions between the new baseline duty of care standard – “A certificant shall at all times place the interest of the client ahead of his or her own” – and the new fiduciary duty of care standard for financial planning services outlined in Rule 1.4 of the Rules of Conduct.

A recording of the Webinar is available online at: https://www2.gotomeeting.com/register/856799410. A transcript of the question and answer session is also available for review on CFP Board’s Web site at www.CFP.net/downloads/Webinar_QA_Transcript_2008_07.pdf.

For more about the revised Standards, read Frequently Asked Questions or send questions to CFP Board at standards@CFPBoard.org.

About the Revised Standards of Professional Conduct:
On May 31, 2007, CFP Board’s Board of Directors announced the adoption of a revised version of CFP Board’s Standards of Professional Conduct, which sets forth the ethical standards for CERTIFIED FINANCIAL PLANNER™ professionals. The revised Standards become effective July 1, 2008 and apply to the more than 58,000 financial planners in the U.S. who are authorized by CFP Board to use the CFP® certification marks.

Report from 2008 Program Directors’ Conference

CFP Board’s 2008 Program Directors’ Conference brought together representatives of more than 60 CFP Board-Registered Programs from across the country for an exchange of ideas and best practices for personal financial planning education programs. The Conference took place at the historic Mayflower Hotel in Washington, DC.

Attendees were welcomed by David G. Strege, CFP®, CFA®, 2008 Chair of CFP Board’s Board of Directors, and Kevin R. Keller, CAE, CFP Board’s CEO. Strege reviewed CFP Board’s mission and strategic plan, highlighting the importance of partnerships with financial planning educators. Keller reviewed some of the accomplishments made over the past year in support of the education component of CFP® certification – the hiring of Carol Lee Roberts, CFP® as Managing Director of Education and Examinations, the hiring of additional staff to support registered programs, including Frank Bergmeister, CFP®, Director of Education, and Christine Riggen, Registered Program Manager, and the establishment of a Council on Education – and highlighted key areas in which CFP Board expects to make progress over the coming year:

• Establishing additional venues for Registered Programs to share and discuss best practices;
• Supporting the marketing initiatives of Registered Programs; and
• Improving CFP Board’s support of the “pipeline” of potential CFP® certificants.

Additional sessions provided attendees with opportunities to engage in discussion with representatives of CFP Board’s Education, Legal, Marketing and Professional Review departments to share thoughts on reaching those objectives.

This year’s Conference featured keynote speaker Michael E. Kitces, MSFS, MTAX, CFP®, CLU, ChFC, RHU, REBC, CASL, CWPP™, Director of Financial Planning for Pinnacle Advisory Group and publisher of The Kitces Report. Kitces’ presentation focused on improving the path from the classroom to the practice of financial planning, highlighting the important role Registered Programs play in preparing students with accurate and reasonable expectations and awareness of the different workplaces and roles within the financial planning profession. In addition to a provocative forecast of the future of financial planning – including a prediction that commission-based financial planning will see a resurgence as practices add more clients from the “Generation Y” demographic – Kitces described a model career path that takes new financial planners from students to financial planning practitioners through an “apprentice” system and suggested that the new generation of financial planners could benefit from such practical training as writing classes, communications classes and mock client interviews.

A follow-up session led by Kacy Gott, CFP®, Mark Kordes, CFP® and Carolynn Tomin, CFP® continued the discussion of career paths for new financial planning professionals, suggesting that Kitces’ presentation be viewed as a “challenge” for Registered Programs to implement methods that better prepare students for the financial planning workplace. The session included an overview of existing resources and practices used by Registered Programs to prepare students to enter the financial planning workplace with confidence and reasonable expectations. It concluded with an insightful review of different business models in use within the profession, with special emphasis on the team structure that has begun to evolve from the sole practitioner organization of many financial planning businesses, and with attention to the different skill sets required for success in each business environment.

Other sessions focused on a wide range of topics related to financial planning education programs and the requirements and policies of the CFP® certification program. And sessions with members of CFP Board’s Council on Examinations and Council on Education provided opportunities for Program Directors to learn more about the work of the dedicated volunteers who contribute to the development of the examination and education requirements for CFP® certification and the direction each Council is taking to ensure those requirements continue to remain rigorous and relevant to the financial planning profession. Materials for many of the Conference sessions are available for review and download at www.CFP.net/conference.

CFP Board appreciates all the attendees, presenters, sponsors and exhibitors who contributed to the success of the 2008 Program Directors’ Conference.

CFP Board’s Financial Planning Clinic to Reach Citizens of our Nation’s Capital

On Saturday, September 13, Washington, DC-area residents will have an opportunity for a first-hand look at the benefits of financial planning and working with CFP® professionals at CFP Board’s Financial Planning Clinic. The free event, to be held from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. at the Grand Hyatt Washington Hotel is designed to give area residents an opportunity to ask financial questions to professional financial planners and increase public awareness of the value of CFP® certification, the recognized standard of excellence for personal financial planning.

The Clinics are designed to give consumers the chance to experience the benefits of competent, unbiased financial planning in a friendly, relaxed setting — free of charge. Attendees will be able to meet one-on-one with volunteer CERTIFIED FINANCIAL PLANNER™ professionals, attend 50-minute educational workshops on popular personal finance issues, and leave with experiences and materials designed to create an understanding of what financial planning and the CFP® certification are about. The Washington Clinic will have 12 workshops designed to appeal to a wide spectrum of consumer interests, and information about the workshop sessions and presenters is now available on the Clinic Web site. We are thankful to all of the CFP® professionals who have volunteered to contribute to the Clinic.

With the date of the Washington Clinic fast approaching, CFP Board has been working to extend the reach of the program to as many people as possible. Since early August, residents using Washington’s convenient and extensive metro system have been exposed to advertisements about the event, local public television stations have featured regular mentions of the event, and upcoming editions of the Sunday Washington Post Magazine will feature Clinic advertisements. CFP Board has also formed alliances with a number of community-based and military organizations that have agreed to promote the benefits of the Washington Clinic to their constituents.

We appreciate the efforts of CFP Board’s stakeholders to help spread the word about this exciting event. If you know individuals in the Washington area who could benefit from attending the Financial Planning Clinic, please encourage them to attend. Information about the Clinic can be obtained through CFP Board’s Web site at www.CFP.net/clinic or by contacting CFP Board at 800-487-1497 or clinic@CFPBoard.org.

CFP Board Grant Recipient Update: The California Institute of Finance at California Lutheran University

The tagline to BreakFreee.org says it all: “A Women’s Guide to Financial Empowerment.” Somnath Basu wanted to create a Web site that empowered low- and middle-income women by providing them with personal finance resources they could use to help themselves. And that is just what BreakFreee.org, built with funds from a CFP Board grant, is set to do. The new Web site is part of a project, involving both seasoned CFP® professionals and students in programs that meet the education coursework requirements for CFP® certification, that furthers CFP Board’s objective of increasing access for all to competent and ethical financial planning and helps promotes CFP Board’s mission to uphold the CFP® certification as the recognized standard of excellence for personal financial planning.

“It is often women with the least financial resources who need the most help,” says Basu, director of the California Institute of Finance (CIF) and director of two CFP Board-registered financial planning education programs at California Lutheran University in Thousand Oaks, CA. “BreakFreee.org will provide them with information on a wide range of financial issues, from budgeting and debt relief through to retirement and estate planning.”

Basu also hopes the free, unbiased financial information on BreakFreee.org will reach a wider audience through the participation of community organizations and agencies already working with this demographic. “Many of the women we want to help do not have access to a computer at home, or they may be computer illiterate,” Basu says. “They will be able to use computers in support centers or domestic shelters, where staff can help them log on and find the information they need.”

To make using the site easy, information is organized according to real life situations, such as Divorced Women, Single Mom, Teen Moms, and Widowed. Each section contains resources targeted to that specific topic. The Teen Moms section, for example, features tips on everything from basic budgeting to guardian arrangements to public benefits. Still in the works is a series of 20-minute educational videos on subjects like getting out of debt and saving for college, which women can watch on their own or in small groups.

The site, which is user-friendly and pleasantly designed, also features a database of Frequently Asked Questions, with the answers provided by professional financial planners, including CFP® professionals. The FAQ database is supported by links to other organizations, calculators, books, articles and other resources. Women who need more, or more specific, information can use the online "Ask A Question" function to submit their own queries. Students at the CFP Board-Registered Programs at California Lutheran University will field the questions and answer them under the supervision of CIF faculty and CFP® professionals. The answers will be e-mailed back to the person who originally asked the question and then added to the FAQ database.

Basu has been striking up alliances with churches, day-care facilities, domestic violence shelters, senior centers, YWCAs and other organizations around the country that work with underserved women. He is also publicizing the site in publications like SocialWorker.com, SocialWorkToday.com, and the Non-Profit Times, so the people working with this demographic know that the resources offered by BreakFreee.org are out there.

The site will also sport a community area, called MyBreakFreee. “We want to build a community of women helping each other through the site,” Basu explains. “Senior women, for example, can join the discussion board dedicated to that topic. Women can post messages to the group and hopefully learn from each other’s experiences. In this way, we hope that a group of kindred spirits, a sisterhood, will come to light.”

Anyone interested in learning more about BreakFreee.org and helping to publicize the site is welcome to contact Dr. Basu at basu@clunet.edu.

Read the original profile of the California Institute of Finance at California Lutheran University from the October 2007 issue of CFP Board Report.

CFP® Marks in the News

With the media’s seemingly relentless focus on negative financial news, many in the CFP® certificant community may have passed over an Associated Press article that has made its way into periodicals around the country over the past few weeks: “5 Signs That It’s Time to Fire Your Financial Planner.” But if you read past the five-alarm headline to the article’s conclusion, you’d find some good advice – “Choosing a planner or adviser wisely to start with can help head off the hassle of having to fire one” – and directions to CFP Board’s Web site for tips on selecting a qualified financial planner.

Prominent personal finance Web sites Kiplinger.com and TheStreet.com also recently cited CFP Board as a resource for vetting the qualifications of financial planners, with TheStreet.com suggesting that its readers look specifically for CERTIFIED FINANCIAL PLANNER™ professionals.

CFP Board continues its efforts to promote awareness of CFP® certification among media outlets and the audiences they serve. Those efforts are greatly enhanced by the many CFP® professionals who are engaged in their own efforts to reach national and local media with the message of the benefits of financial planning and working with a CFP® professional. We appreciate all of you who help further awareness of CFP® certification across the country through your media contacts and your involvement in your communities.

Read more notable media references to CFP® certification at www.CFP.net/certificants/marksinthenews.asp

Accomplishments of CFP® Certificants

CFP Board congratulates the following CFP® professionals on their professional activities and accomplishments:

Stephanie Adler Calliott, CFP®, ChFC for her appointment to the city of Norfolk, Virginia Retirement System Board, on which she will serve as Chair, and for her recent appointment as Sales Manager and Director for UBS Financial Services.

David Hollands, CFP® on his recent graduation from the US Army War College at Carlisle Barracks, PA with a Masters Degree in Strategic Studies. A Colonel in the Army Reserves and a financial planning practitioner in Plano, TX, he previously served as the chief interagency financial advisor to the US Ambassador in Afghanistan.

Richard Victor, CFP® for creating a 401(k) education program to be offered at the Jewell McFarland Lewis Fresh Start Women's Resource Center in Phoenix, AZ. His training program, called "Help for the 401(k)lueless"™, goes beyond employee enrollment meetings and is a step-by-step guide to long term planning and investing.

CFP Board welcomes information about the activities and accomplishments of CFP® professionals. If you have information you would like to share with CFP Board, please contact us at mail@CFPBoard.org.

Participate in CFP Board’s Financial Planning Clinic in Miami

CFP Board’s second Financial Planning Clinic of 2008 will reach consumers in the exciting city of Miami on November 15, 2008. To date, more than 50 Miami-based CFP® professionals have signed up to participate at the Financial Planning Clinic in Miami, and there is still a need for more volunteers.

The Financial Planning Clinic is a great experience that reaches the public that might not otherwise seek professional financial planning services with direct experience of the benefits of financial planning and the importance of working with a CFP® professional. CFP® certificants participating as one-on-one volunteers will not only be gratified by the appreciation of attendees and rewarded with the feeling of making an immediate impact on people’s lives, but will also receive CFP Board continuing education (CE) credit for the number of hours they spend meeting with consumers. The CE credits will be allocated to the financial planning topic that volunteers address at the Clinic.

If you are interested in participating at the Financial Planning Clinic in Miami, please fill out an application form or contact CFP Board by e-mail at clinic@CFPBoard.org or by phone at 800-487-1497 with the following information:

• Name
• Phone Number
• E-mail Address
• Mailing Address
• If you are multilingual, the languages you would like to use at the Financial Planning Clinic
• The general financial planning topics you are most interested in discussing with attendees

For more information on CFP Board’s Financial Planning Clinics, visit www.CFP.net/clinic.

Volunteer to Serve with CFP Board in 2009

CFP Board’s work to uphold the CFP® certification as the recognized standard of excellence for personal financial planning benefits greatly from the contributions of CFP® professionals and other stakeholders, and there are many opportunities for CFP® certificants and others to become involved with CFP Board in meaningful and rewarding ways. Opportunities range from several-day commitments to assist with CFP Board’s exam development activities and disciplinary hearing process to several-year commitments to the Council on Education, Council on Examinations and Disciplinary and Ethics Commission. As we approach the fourth quarter of 2008, now is the perfect time for CFP® certificants interested in contributing to CFP Board’s work in 2009 to indicate that interest.

Information about different volunteer opportunities and an online volunteer registration form are available on CFP Board’s Web site at www.CFP.net/volunteers.