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News Release

CFP Board Center for Financial Planning, Facet Wealth Announce Joint Scholarship to Benefit African American/Black Candidates for CFP® Certification

June 29, 2020

Scholarship to Support African American/Black Candidates Pursuing Financial Planning Future and CFP® Certification

The CFP Board Center for Financial Planning (the Center) announced today a new scholarship in partnership with Facet Wealth, Inc., to advance diversity and inclusion in the financial planning profession. The Facet Wealth Scholarship for Increased Diversity in Financial Planning will support African American/Black candidates seeking to become CERTIFIED FINANCIAL PLANNER™ professionals. The scholarship will provide recipients up to $5,000 to cover expenses associated with completing education requirements to obtain CFP® certification which includes completing college or university-level financial planning coursework through a program registered with CFP Board.

The scholarship, to be awarded in Fall 2020, is in partnership between the Center and Facet Wealth, a Baltimore-based financial services company, whose mission is to make high quality financial planning accessible to all American households, regardless of net worth. Up to 20 scholarships will be awarded over four years.

“Facet Wealth exists to serve clients from all different backgrounds,” said Anders Jones, co-founder and CEO of Facet Wealth. “It is a natural extension of our mission to advance the career path of financial planning and make it accessible to candidates from all backgrounds. We’re thrilled to partner with CFP Board, which shares our commitment to this goal, to make this program a success and to evolve the standard of excellence for the financial planning field.”

The Center launched in 2015 with a big vision – to ensure every American has access to competent and ethical financial planning advice. This vision can only become a reality with a more diverse and sustainable financial planning profession. In 2019, only 1.6% of all CFP® professionals indicated that they are African American/Black. The Center is working to increase this number through programs, education, services and initiatives in collaboration with stakeholders across and beyond the financial planning profession.

“We are grateful to Facet Wealth for supporting the educational goals of a new generation of CFP® professionals,” said D.A. Abrams, CAE, managing director of the Center. “Scholarships can help to ensure a pathway to CFP® certification for those from communities that are underrepresented in the financial planning profession, and they can provide an important incentive for candidates to realize their dreams,”

Recipients will be chosen by a committee with representation from the Center for Financial Planning and CFP® professionals from the Facet Wealth team. Coursework must be completed before sitting for the CFP® certification examination.

The first application window for the Facet Wealth Scholarship closes on August 31, 2020, and first round scholarship recipients will be announced in November 2020. The award will be provided in two installments. The first part will be issued upon initial receipt of the award, and the second after the education program is 50 percent completed. If the recipient is in the program, they will receive the second installment after they complete the program.

For more information, including application instructions, please visit the scholarship webpage.

ABOUT FACET WEALTH
Facet Wealth is a next-generation financial services company built to break the cost barrier of comprehensive, transparent financial planning services. Facet Wealth is an SEC-Registered Investment Advisor (RIA) that offers human-first, technology-enabled financial planning services through a fiduciary relationship with a dedicated CFP® Professional. Based in Baltimore, Maryland and operational nationwide, Facet Wealth also works with employers as a benefits provider to make financial wellness accessible to their entire employee base at an affordable price. Facet Wealth was recently named NerdWallet’s 2020 “Best Online Financial Planning Service” and Aite Group’s 2020 “Digital Startup of the Year”. For more information, please visit Facet Wealth and follow @FacetWealth

ABOUT CFP BOARD and THE CFP BOARD CENTER FOR FINANCIAL PLANNING

Certified Financial Planner Board of Standards, Inc. Certified Financial Planner Board of Standards, Inc. is the professional body for personal financial planners in the U.S. CFP Board sets standards for financial planning and administers the prestigious CFP® certification – one of the most respected certifications in financial services – so that the public has access to and benefits from competent and ethical financial planning. CFP Board, along with its Center for Financial Planning, is committed to increasing the public’s awareness of CFP® certification and access to a diverse, ethical and competent financial planning workforce. Widely recognized by the public, advisors and firms as the standard for financial planning, CFP® certification is held by more than 93,000 people in the United States.

The CFP Board Center for Financial Planning seeks to create a more diverse and sustainable financial planning profession so that every American has access to competent and ethical financial planning advice. The Center brings together CFP® professionals, firms, educators, researchers and experts to address profession-wide challenges in the areas of diversity and workforce development, and to build an academic home that offers opportunities for conducting and publishing new research that adds to the financial planning body of knowledge.

CONTACT

Joseph Feese
Director of Public Relations
202-379-2305
[email protected]