In this installment of “Conversations with the President,” I take a look back at where the profession and The College has been throughout our history and where I see the profession, and The College, going in an ever-changing landscape.

Some 1,300 miles southwest, Tulsa’s Greenwood District was built "for Black people, by Black people" just after the turn of the 20th century. Black entrepreneurs flocked to Greenwood Avenue, believing there was economic strength in numbers. By pooling resources, "Black Wall Street" flourished, even if its dwellers became increasingly isolated and segregated by a railroad, where standing on the wrong side of the tracks put a successful Black in the crosshairs of Jim Crow oppression.

Unlike Wall Street, where success brought greater access, opportunities, and the early formation of patriarchal dynasties, success on Black Wall Street brought suspicion, jealously, rage, racism, and eventually riots.

While the Greenwood District burned, the Financial District prospered. Fifty years after the Greenwood Massacre, growing up in the segregated South far from lower Manhattan, my eyes saw disparate Americas simply while tagging along as my father drove my mother to work. Now, post-segregation, and a century after Greenwood went up in flames, race still defines the individual perspectives of American exceptionalism.

Last June, following the death of George Floyd on my birthday, I shared my thoughts on America’s relationship with race – a complicated, imperfect journey of divergent interests, bouts of abject failure, but also real progress for some Blacks, who have risen to positions of power and prestige often through the guidance and advocacy of white mentors and sponsors.

Yet, success has still reached too few. Those stories are the exception.

Since then, these injustices have continued against Blacks, Asians, Hispanics, and others based on ethnicity, gender, economic standing, and sexual orientation. Despite weeks-long marches, sermons preaching peace, and corporate America’s resonance to this national issue, cruelty remains in vogue, and wealth disparities remain fixed in a system still benefitting the same glad-handing, access-selling, and multi-generational privilege. Wealth still begets wealth.

Wealth touches so many parts of equality – wages, homeownership, community policing, and access to quality healthcare, as well as long-term financial literacy and planning. It’s a big problem, but as evidenced by the above tale of two cities, it’s not new. Solutions always seem driven by a PR newswire, or a success story to share with shareholders, and they’re typically funded by fleeting capital and organized in silos.

In the months following the national awakening to these issues, I and our team at The American College of Financial Services did a lot of soul searching and a lot of conversing with each other, our colleagues, and our industry peers. We were intentionally deliberate and thoughtful in building a research-driven, applicable, and executable plan to drive sustainable, economic change in underserved and underrepresented communities. I thank our entire College community for their work, support, and encouragement, as well as The College’s Board of Trustees, President’s Roundtable, and President’s Advisory Council, which have not only offered strategic counsel, but have opened their networks to help us engage in productive dialogue across the financial services industry and given of their treasures.

As an accredited, non-profit institution serving an industry responsible for fostering the generational wealth-building of predominantly white families, it’s been fascinating, and heartening, to see the industry’s circuitous, complex reckoning with its role in the wealth gap, but also to hear leading voices share their voyages to effect lasting, economic change for the underserved and to uplift diverse perspectives in this profession.

Many of these leaders believe in our plan – a development that continues to yield reaffirmation and forward momentum just one year after our team’s first internal discussion. In that time, we’ve achieved so much, including:

• The creation of Four Steps Forward, a big, bold plan to promote upward mobility and wealth building, starting first with Black communities across America. It’ll define an approach that we’ll apply to other groups in need.
• The formation of The American College Center for Economic Empowerment and Equality, which is destined to become the flagship center for research, thought leadership, curriculum and course development, programming, and scholarships aimed at closing the wealth gap and cultivating lasting relationships between financial services and all underserved groups.
• The hiring of the Center’s inaugural Executive Director, Karim Hill, who brings decades of financial services and community-corporate partnership experience investing capital to uplift underrepresented and underserved populations.
• The development of a robust, engaging website, www.theamericancollege.edu/equality, to broadly articulate the Center’s path forward and engage partners who will assist us along the way.
• A partnership with The Society for Financial Education and Professional Development to amplify financial education and economic mobility programs with the next generation of Black leaders at Historically Black Colleges and Universities.
• The launch of a research project on trust between Black women and financial services, with a preliminary report expected later this summer.
• The beginning of our work on the curriculum for an executive leadership program. We plan to enroll our first cohort for a Q1 2022 start.

We’re just scratching the surface, but we aren’t in a rush. I’m as eager as anyone to narrow the gap, but I’m more interested in the long-term solutions that close it. Today’s disparities weren’t caused by a few bad apples or propagated by political whims; they’re so deeply embedded in our system, that Band-Aids are no more than concealer.

To follow the clarion call of former Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall, we must express the poised urgency that moves us forward with intention. To actually “do better,” we must embrace that there’s no other choice. That in America, we can’t allow some to traverse sidewalks as an avenue to success, while others of different cultures and creeds lay face down in their footprints.

We can’t be okay with unequal pay for equal work. We can’t shrug our shoulders at the real, lasting effects that wealth disparities have on educational disparities, longevity, generational divides, and public trust. And we can’t expect to fix all of this in a week, month, or year.

Sustainable change takes time. As I wrote last June, "As a nation, we start conversations on race I don’t think we ever intend on finishing. This time must be different."

One year later, I believe it is.

And that is just one cemetery. Dotting countrysides and hugging cityscapes sit the plots of military veterans, bonded by service and unique in their stories. Many were called to service, with high school dropouts linking arms with Rhodes scholars, those with generational linkages to servitude covering for their fellow cadets. Military members are truly all in this together.

We owe these military men and women such thanks and grace; both those who have returned home from war, and those who perished in service to something bigger than themselves. Memorial Day is a calendar reminder that we all need to put the small things in perspective of those who fought the battles for our freedom, safety, and security.

The American College Center for Veterans Affairs aims to do its part through educational support and career opportunities in the financial services industry. Last year, while restricted in our in-person fundraising by the COVID-19 pandemic, 249 donors—including 112 first-time donors—contributed to the Center and helped us award 250 scholarships, which was a 100% increase in scholarships from the previous year! Many of the Center’s donors were inspired by Campaign: Gratitude, a video storytelling series that told the captivating, heroic tales of military heroes who have returned home to earn rewarding careers in financial services, all thanks to the generosity and support of our donors, and the work of our Center and College family.

This year, the 7th annual Clambake and Soldier-Citizen Award returns with a virtual event on September 9, and a Veterans Symposium is being planned for November 10. We thank you in advance for helping transform the lives of our active-duty service members, veterans, and their spouses.

This weekend, as we celebrate America and all its beauty, remember those who stood, and still stand, on the front lines to forever cement the majesty that is America.

Happy Memorial Day.

The annual “40 Under 40” are chosen by a team of reporters and editors from nearly 1,000 online nominations. “The 2021 class of 40 Under 40 honorees stood out in a remarkable year,” said George B. Moriarty, Chief Content Officer of InvestmentNews. “This diverse group represents the great things the financial advice industry will accomplish in the future.” This year, The American College of Financial Services is proud to announce that Lindsey Lewis, Director and Chair of The College’s Center for Women in Financial Services, has been selected as one of the featured professionals!

In her current position, Lindsey oversees most of the Women’s Center’s day-to-day activities, including original research, social media activity, event coordination, podcast production, and more as she works to promote the advancement of women in the financial services profession through research, education, and awareness. Prior to joining The College, Lindsey worked as a CFP® practitioner for Soltis Investment Advisors and Vanguard. In these roles, she served clients as a CFP® professional to facilitate holistic financial planning for individual clients and meet institutional clients’ needs. Lindsey is also an active mentor to women pursuing degrees or careers in financial services, and helps operate Utah Valley University’s Women of the Woodbury Polished mini-conference—an event dedicated to women and girls pursuing careers in financial services.

Congratulations, Lindsey! We’re proud to have you as part of our team.

Instead of turning this note into a history lesson (here’s a great recitation), let me talk briefly about what the day signifies for us as The American College of Financial Services, and for our nation, moving forward.

First, it is a day to remember. As we frame our work through the Center for Economic Empowerment and Equality, we always reflect on the days of slavery and freedom from that enslavement, but also on the fleeting change in the time since.

Second, it is a day to re-engage. Take some time to listen to public figures and community leaders “…celebrate, educate, and agitate,” in the words of historian Mitch Kachun. Find a personal or professional thread that you can latch onto to help create lasting change in Black communities.

Third, it is a day to re-affirm. The College, through Four Steps Forward, must re-affirm our commitment to the cause. While many have called Juneteenth “America’s second Independence Day,” that independence has not yet equaled justice, opportunity, and equity. That must change, and our work, with partnerships across the financial services industry, will push us closer to those goals.

As Martin Luther King Jr. said, “Change does not roll in on the wheels of inevitability, but comes through continuous struggle.” So, we remember, re-engage, re-affirm, and move forward not with the belief that true equality is preordained, but that it comes through continuous struggle.

While we haven’t always lived up to those ideals, we’ve never walked away from them. The American College of Financial Services continues to do its part by providing financial knowledge and education to financial and nonprofit leaders, and through our Centers of Excellence, by promoting financial well-being and supporting initiatives that help uplift underrepresented and underserved communities.

As former President Harry S. Truman once said, “America was built on courage, on imagination, and on an unbeatable determination to do the job at hand.”

We, as Americans, have shown our resolve and collective might throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, and we demonstrate that same mettle and might each day to uplift all Americans.

We are a nation of dreamers and pragmatists, imperfect and yet still embarking on the never-ending pursuit of that perfect union.

Enjoy your holiday with freedom, family, and friends.

“I’ve always wanted to save people, one way or another, and I’m an idealist,” he says with a smile. “I wanted to be a doctor, but I studied chemical engineering in school and ran a startup business for quite a while. After that, I was looking for a career change.” Coincidentally, his wife was already working in financial services at the time. “She sold me my first insurance policy,” Nick remembers, “and it was she who recommended I try my hand at a career in insurance. She knew I was good at selling things to people and enjoyed caring for them. But she made me ask around at several different companies so I could make up my own mind about it.”

Since that time in 2004, when Nick got his first job as an insurance agent at Ethniki Asfalistiki of Athens, Greece, he has proved himself and his worth to those around him many times over. He was recognized as a distinguished agent, ranked among the “top 10 or 20” of nearly 2,500 employees at the company for his performance, and won productivity and sustainability awards for three consecutive years, earning the prestigious LIMRA Lifelong Membership. After moving up to a managerial position as Team Leader, his current office is first in production for the entire country-wide company. “I come from a family of high achievers, and I realized I could do more from the executive level by introducing new people to the profession and building the strongest team I could to better serve our clients,” he says.

Nick Papastergiou also has the distinction, as of July 2021, of being the only financial professional in Greece who holds a designation from The College.

Taking Knowledge to the Next Level

Even with his significant accomplishments, Nick still looked for ways to stand out in a crowded field. “I wanted to further differentiate myself and offer additional value for my customers,” he says. “I want to show them I have knowledge that no one else has.”

That was when he saw a post from a colleague on LinkedIn praising The American College of Financial Services and its programs, and he instantly wanted to know more. “All the designations sounded fascinating, but I chose the Retirement Income Certified Professional® (RICP®) program because I believe retirement planning and pensions will be the next big high-interest item in Greece for financial planning,” he says.

In The College, Nick found the lifelong learning partner he’d been waiting for. “With the RICP®, my education was in my own hands,” he says. “Thanks to the totally online coursework, the time difference wasn’t a problem, and all the sources were provided for me. The webinars especially were great, and the material was very well-written. I was also very pleased with the procedural aspects of the experience; whenever I had technical or credit card difficulties, the assistance I got from The College was excellent.”

The benefits from The College’s programs were so great, Nick says he’s put them into practice every day when working with clients and agents. “U.S. programs don’t often correlate with the Greek reality; however, even when the information I learned wasn’t strictly relevant, it was very interesting nonetheless,” he says. “It’s definitely made me a better asset to my customers and agents, and I always use the ‘18 Retirement Risk Factors’ I learned when presenting to clients.”

Even though not all the information in his RICP® courses is useful for his current reality, Nick says it’s still making a difference in his practice. “It’s like looking into the future,” he says. “What we’re living with Social Security, insurance, and retirement planning, you’ve lived 20 or 30 years ago, and eventually we’ll catch up to that. We have many programs that are similar to yours, but they’re often bound together to resemble the larger, more comprehensive plans the U.S. provides its citizens.” Nick says the long-term care element of his RICP® curriculum was especially eye-opening due to personal experience with the subject. “My mother had a stroke and needs daily nursing care, and she fortunately has my late father’s pension to support her, but if I hadn’t been in a position to help as well, she’d probably be broke,” he says. “I don’t want other people to have to live through something like that.”

Adapting to Overseas Realities

While not everything from his RICP® coursework directly applies to his work in Greece, Nick says there are many things Greeks could learn from The College’s education.

“We need to move things forward, reeducating our agents and customers to embrace diversity and risk in retirement planning,” he says. “We’re waking up to the dangers of poor retirement planning in Greece, because our equivalent of Social Security doesn’t give us as much of a benefit as we’d like, so we need to inform people about the obstacles and how they could derail their plans later in life.”

When asked where the knowledge gap in retirement planning exists in Greece, Nick laughs. “I don’t think there is a knowledge gap, because to have a gap you would have to have knowledge to begin with,” he says. “In my estimation, 99% of Greeks probably don’t have a retirement plan in place or know anything about it. I speak with probably 250 to 300 clients per year, and I believe less than 20 are aware of what’s going to happen to them later in life.” Nick says he used to try to raise retirement planning awareness by having people take The College’s Retirement Literacy Survey. “They all failed miserably, and it just embarrasses them,” he says, also noting that the concerns have even hit close to home. “I have a friend and coworker who’s 51 years old and wanted to talk to me about being overinsured. After several hours of discussion he finally broke down in tears because all nine of his insurance plans were ending and there would be nothing for him later in life. This is exactly the kind of situation we have to avoid.”

For his part, Nick says he’s trying to gently educate his fellow financial professionals and clients and steer them in ways that will increase their knowledge and forward-thinking. “My purpose and goal is to educate as many people as possible, and to let them know the well-documented dangers that can be avoided with planning. I hope my company and I will be able to offer a lot of them the solutions they need.”

Still, Nick says there are some struggles with business, social, and cultural differences between the two countries. “We’re in desperate need of long-term care plans, but we don’t really have them in Greece,” he says. “We jury-rig some products to look like long-term care, but they’re not as efficient. Greek citizens also don’t know much about financial planning. Hopefully my experience will shed some light on the dark corners of this knowledge.” He says he hopes these differences can be overcome with time. “As I said, looking at the financial situation in the U.S. through The College’s programs is like looking into the future of Greece, so I’m hopeful things will change soon with more and more knowledge transfer from the U.S. insurance industry to the Greek.”

Building a Stronger Future

On financial planning in general, Nick had this to say to his fellow Greeks: “You need to take matters into your own hands. Most companies and the state often give people the bare minimum in terms of assistance, so individual advisors must give clients as much knowledge as they can.”

Because of this, Nick says the next step in his journey will be to enhance his knowledge and expertise further with The College’s Wealth Management Certified Professional® (WMCP®) designation. “Along with pensions and Social Security, I think people will soon start asking us about bonds and investing more often, and I don’t want to be unsure of what to tell them if they do,” he says. “I want to let as many people as I can know about The College and its programs, and maybe persuade some of my agents to try them as well. It’s truly been a life-changing experience for me.”

Baby Boomers are retiring at an unprecedented rate, meaning that more and more Americans are facing the challenge of using their investments to maintain their quality of life. For them, the usual investment advice no longer applies. They need the unique strategies you can learn through the three-course Retirement Income Certified Professional® (RICP®) designation program. Help your clients thrive while growing your career. Learn More.

The Beach Jumper’s Mission

Cubeta was chosen to head the CAP® program by its funders, Bill and Sallie Wallace. A first-generation college student, Bill attended Columbia University on a football scholarship and became an All-American player. Wallace’s altruism and courage led him to become a “Beach Jumper” during the Korean War. Organized during World War II by Naval officer and Hollywood star Douglas Fairbanks, Jr., the Beach Jumpers were U.S. Navy Special Forces officers who performed among the most dangerous jobs in the war. If you’ve not heard of the Beach Jumpers, that’s no surprise, for their missions were considered even more classified than those of Navy SEALs—the organization the Beach Jumpers would eventually inspire.

After the war, Wallace chose a new challenge that drew, in a different way, on his tenacity and concern for others’ well-being: he became an insurance agent. His gifts and strength of character led to his rise through the profession to become the head of Home Life, and to his winning every award the insurance world has to offer. A pioneer in what we’d now call “values-based planning,” Wallace became one of the most admired and revered professionals in the industry.

Wallace also became a leader in the philanthropic world. He knew that financial advisors touch expanding circles of many, many lives, influencing people at inflection points at which they make their most important decisions about life, loved ones, and legacy. If advisors were more open to discussing philanthropy with their clients, he reasoned, they could do enormous good. Wallace also recognized a systemic problem in the philanthropic world: that the nonprofits who sought Bill and Sallie’s help understood their hearts, but knew nothing about their money. Meanwhile, financial advisors knew everything about their money, but were cold as ice when it came to discussing philanthropy. How, Bill wondered, might these two siloed, sometimes even adversarial, worlds be brought together to maximize the good that might be done?

The Mission 

The solution Wallace devised was a sophisticated program that would teach financial advisors and nonprofit gift planners how to work together for a common purpose. They wanted nonprofit professionals to be able to play a key role in a donor’s financial discussions—to be as much a part of an estate-planning team as trust officers are—and financial professionals to be comfortable helping their clients not only accumulate wealth, but also make use of it in a manner the client finds most rewarding. No such program had ever existed. But who better than a Beach Jumper-turned-insurance professional to calibrate risks and develop and execute a winning strategy?

The most important factor in the success of Wallace’s plan was to find a head for the program who shared Wallace’s vision: an expert in finance with a nonprofit sensibility. He found that leader in Phil Cubeta, an insurance executive with strong liberal arts sensibilities and a profound commitment to uniting communities to alleviate human suffering. “CAP® is exactly what they’d planned to do,” Phil observes, “and it’s exactly what I wanted to do.”

Now in their 90s, the Wallaces remain active and in good health and continue to follow the program closely. They respond to the quarterly reports they receive with expressions of their gratitude for a program which has not only realized, but far exceeded, their dreams.

“They have created almost a mini-distribution system for philanthropy, built around financial advisors and fundraisers, and that was their dream,” Cubeta says.

Mission Accomplished 

Early on, Cubeta realized the program would enhance its reach and success by organizing study groups of students taking CAP® courses, but was unsure how best to make this happen. Then, in Dallas in 2010, with leadership from Todd Healy, MSW®, CLU®, ChFC®, AEP®, CAP®, Founder of C3 Financial, Jackie Franey, CAP®, now Director of Gift Planning with The Nature Conservancy, and Jayne Grimes, now Senior Director of Gift Planning at Buckner International, a local study group began to form. Cubeta went to Dallas to address 40 prospective students convened by Healy, Franey, and Grimes at Communities Foundation of Texas.

At first, the meeting didn’t go well. Despite Cubeta’s eloquent description of the program and how their participation in it would benefit their practices and their clients, the audience of wealth advisors remained polite but unpersuaded. Then, Jayne Grimes took the microphone. “Everything Phil said is true, but that’s not why we’re doing it,” he said. “We are doing this for Dallas. We want Dallas to be the most generous city in America!” The result was electric. Eager to become a part of this effort, every person in the room waited patiently in line to sign up.

It was then that Cubeta realized the advisors drawn to the CAP® program aren’t persuaded by the prospect of greater wealth accumulation—which is, after all, already their area of expertise. What draws the subset of wealth advisors to CAP® is an altruistic desire to use their skills to help their communities.

The success of the Dallas group inspired the creation of several dozen other city-based CAP® study groups across the U.S. These groups have significantly enhanced the amount and impact of local giving. Over a five-year period, for example, $1.4 billion of philanthropic efforts can be traced to the 43 advisors in the CAP® Omaha Study Group alone. At any given time, 15-20 study groups are active or in formation. Most are local, some are national, and some are based on groups of affinity.

Recently, George Nichols III, President and CEO of The American College of Financial Services, joined the Philadelphia Study Group. Dien Yuen, JD, LLM, CAP®, AEP®, Assistant Professor of Philanthropy and Blunt-Nickel Professor in Philanthropy at The College, also organized a national study group for Advisors of Color, with 100 slated to complete CAP® over the next year or so.

Mission Forward

The College was originally founded as “the insurance college,” whose mission was to professionalize life insurance sales and thereby serve the public, but that mission has now expanded beyond the insurance industry—and indeed, beyond even financial services. The College continues to flourish by helping our students make a very real difference in the lives of those they serve and to the larger communities of which they are a part. The CAP® program is leading the way.

One of the keys to philanthropic success is proper financial planning. Through the three-course Chartered Advisor in Philanthropy® (CAP®) designation program, you will learn how to help philanthropies maximize their donations and resources. The CAP® is designed for experienced professionals in both the financial services and nonprofit sector, and gives you the power to do more with your career.

How does an advisor add value? What makes an individual investor turn to their financial planning professional for guidance? What leads a client to act on that guidance? Ask an experienced advisor, and they will tell you that the ultimate answer to all of these questions boils down to just one word: trust.

It’s no secret that trust is at the core of the financial services industry. Clients need to trust their advisor is acting in their best interest, offering sound advice, and is there even in the most tumultuous of times, helping to navigate through cataclysm as steadfastly as the calm.

But it hasn’t always been this way. While trust has forever been a component, historically, the expectation and often most revered benchmark was an advisor’s ability to deliver the highest performance, building their reputation on edging out an extra half  percentage point in total returns. The returns, it was thought, spoke for themselves, but it was a pursuit that would too often backfire as advisors were steered into chasing overvalued securities. As a result of this and other factors, Wealth Management Certified Professional® (WMCP®) Program Director Michael Finke, PhD, CFP®, says that financial advice’s standards have evolved in recent years, and education has been changing with it.

Since joining The College in 2016, Finke has led the effort to reinforce the WMCP® program with the latest in industry thought leadership, as advisors across the industry are moving toward a more holistic approach to serving their clientele. He says the public is starting to understand that a relationship with a financial planning professional is not just about picking a lineup of stocks and bonds. Especially with the rise of investment vehicles like target-date funds, Finke says advisors are competing in an environment where they are expected to do more than deliver marginally higher returns.

This new mindset has led to a more goals-oriented approach, one where the advisor acts more like a trusted partner than a delegated agent. This mindset requires an  understanding of the entire lifecycle for a client investment journey.

“The traditional way of teaching investments is that you construct an investment portfolio, and then when you have a spending goal, you just grab some money from the investment portfolio to fund that need,” Finke says. “Nowadays, we try to begin with the client’s goals and then develop investment strategies to meet each one of those specific goals. And then we construct the portfolio so that it is most efficient at meeting that goal,” Finke explains .

Oftentimes, that means advisors first need to build a fundamental understanding of a client’s aspirations and their reservations. For example, the urge to pull investments in a down market can be an elusive and enduring impulse among investors, one that advisors must work to overcome with their knowledge of behavioral finance. Educating WMCP® students to do just that has become a central tenet of the program.

“When we were developing the WMCP®, we knew that behavioral finance touches every single topic in the program. So when we're developing an investment strategy, if you introduce the behavioral finance aspects, that'll help the advisor do a better job of constructing a portfolio their client can live with,” Finke says.

As with all things, there’s a healthy dose of human psychology at play, particularly when the market is not working in an investor’s favor.

“Behavioral finance is all about recognizing the way the human brain responds to a stimulus, and often in investments, the stimulus that we care the most about is loss,” Finke explains. “We can educate advisors to help people cope with the inevitable short-term losses they will  experience in their investments.”

That approach is part of a long-coming paradigm shift across the financial services industry, one that has taken root across The College’s programs, but is particularly evident for those training for the WMCP® designation.

“By helping contextualize loss in the context of a long-term investment strategy, you create a deeper engagement, a mutual understanding, and a more trusting relationship between the client and their advisor, because they understand each other better,” Finke notes.

At the end of the day, it’s all about the trust advisors have in the education they receive from The College and, in turn, the trust they build with their clients. Their customer base comes to understand that their goals are their advisor’s goals.

“When you think about building a goal-based investment process and starting with a client's goals, it requires you to understand the client more deeply,” Finke says. “It also requires that the client reflect on what's important to them in the long run, and having those types of deeper conversations helps establish a stronger bond between the advisor and the client.

It's a different orientation than what some advisors entering the program have grown used to throughout their careers. The learning experience covers not just how to talk to clients, but also fosters an understanding of where they and their families may be coming from. The goal is to introduce their clients to a new way of thinking about how to save and plan for retirement.

“It’s not just about teaching advisors what questions to ask. It’s about helping them to recognize a client’s goals and then building a plan that will put them on track to achieve those goals, all while keeping in mind their client’s unique circumstances,” Finke says. “We have also introduced case studies to help advisors become more comfortable with some of these more complex planning situations that they're likely to face in their career. It's really all about educating them to provide the professional service that clients aren't looking for.”

The College’s alumni are already on the vanguard of this evolving school of thought through applied knowledge across designation programs. Joshua Gonzalez, CFP®, ChFC®, CLU®, says The College’s focus on financial plan building, investment advice, estate planning, beneficiary concerns, death benefits, and other features of life insurance policies allows him to speak confidently to many different people.

“My usual clients are 40 to 60 years old, high-paid professionals or small to medium business owners with kids at home, who want to pay off their house, pay for college, or get out of working for a living. Others may need to handle complex life insurance needs and business concerns,” he says. “The College’s training lets me holistically tie all these things together and help people in almost every major financial consideration of their life.”

In his experience, Gonzalez says understanding the behavioral finance underpinnings of his client’s behavior helps him be a more effective advisor, adding, “Some days I feel like a psychologist as well, because if you’re doing your job right, you’ve become a friend and confidant to clients rather than just a tool.”

Finke’s studies on the convergence of behavioral science and financial well-being extend past investors’ earning years. As defined-benefit pensions have disappeared for most workers, some of his most recent research suggests that the long-running shift changes spending habits in retirement.

“In the defined-contribution age, many retirees get to retirement and have this big lump sum of money in their 401(k). They roll it over into an IRA, but they don't feel comfortable spending it. They don't feel comfortable seeing that number get smaller,” Finke says. “But of course, that's irrational, because that's why they saved it in the first place, especially in a low interest rate environment.”

Cash flow, he says, can be more comforting than a lump sum, leading retirees to live more freely without as much anxiety about outliving their savings.

“If you have your wealth in some form of pension income or annuitized income, then you're more likely to spend it and live better than if you simply have investments alone, and that's the kind of behavioral science that we help advisors understand for when they are creating a retirement strategy for a client,” Finke says. “How much of their money should be in investable assets? How much of their money should be annuitized for meeting lifestyle goals? Because, it may make sense to actually annuitize a portion of their savings.”

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In 2016, Amanda asked her peers at Wells Fargo Private Bank if they’d like to start a philanthropy book club. Immediately, 20 fellow advisors agreed to read a book a month together for 11 months. As word about the book club spread, friends of members asked to join, and then friends of friends, including from beyond Wells Fargo. The 60 current members include CPAs, attorneys, members of private foundations, and nonprofit professionals.

Choosing books that will appeal to this diverse membership—that will provide cohesion and inspiration—is no easy task. Initially, Amanda chose the books herself, balancing instructive works (like Give Smart by Joel Lawrence Fleishman and Thomas J. Tierney) with inspirational, real-life stories (like The Blue Sweater by Jacqueline Novogratz). As the group grew larger, she solicited suggestions from club members, with books chosen by votes from their recommendations.

The book club also provides an excellent opportunity for building trust and networking with professionals outside one’s own field. The club’s cross-disciplinary approach enables its members to establish meaningful connections rooted in philanthropy with professionals they might not otherwise have met, or met only superficially, and makes interdisciplinary discussions about philanthropy not merely comfortable, but enjoyable.

The Book Club Turned Philanthropic Organization

Although she values book-learning about philanthropy, Amanda also values experiential learning. Most members had not, for example, been a nonprofit leader responsible for working with a board to raise funds. “I wanted our book club members to get that philanthropy-induced panic in the pits of their stomach,” she said. “So I threw out a suggestion that the club should actually raise money for something. We’d just finished reading Adam Braun’s The Promise of a Pencil: How an Ordinary Person Can Create Extraordinary Change [the best-selling account of the founding of Pencils of Promise, a nonprofit that builds grammar schools in developing countries]. And so I said, ‘I think we should raise $30,000 and build a school for Pencils of Promise.’”

Amanda anticipated some pushback: book club members were, after all, typically working long hours and preoccupied with their own lives. But the entire club enthusiastically agreed. They created a fundraising page and raised over $30,000 in about six months. Today, somewhere in Ghana, stands a school bearing a plaque that identifies it as a gift from the Wells Fargo Book Club.

The club then began looking for another project to continue the real-world application of their knowledge of philanthropy, identifying their top three priorities as youth development, education, and hunger. Even before choosing a new charity, they began raising money by contributing dollars-per-minute for “spin” riding. While pedaling away, a friend spinning next to Amanda told her about Project Avary, a nonprofit that provides a 10-year mentorship program and summer camp for children whose parents are incarcerated. This seemed like a perfect fit to Amanda, and the club agreed. Soon, Amanda and the other club members were spin-riding for inmates’ children.

Partway through that ride, however, the instructor of the class took Amanda aside and asked if she could share something with her: “My mom was one of those little kids waiting outside of the prison to go in and see her dad. My grandfather was in San Quentin.” It was a sign of things to come. A few weeks later, the same instructor asked Amanda for help with an unusual fundraising project: San Quentin inmates wanted to raise money for Project Avary by holding a walk-a-thon behind bars, and they needed someone to help on the outside. Amanda agreed, and the dual event was such a great success the walkathon was held again the following year. Amanda was especially impressed by the prisoners’ efforts: most earn only 13 to 90 cents per hour, yet they raised $800: a substantial sacrifice of the small luxuries that make their lives more bearable.

As plans for a third walkathon were discussed, Amanda contacted the leadership of Project Avary. “I said, ‘Wouldn’t it be great if we could go in and talk with the group of men who are putting on the walkathon?’” she recalls. “‘We could teach them about values and philanthropy and fundraising, so that they could do even better at raising money.’” With Project Avary’s help, Amanda obtained permission to conduct a philanthropy workshop inside San Quentin itself.

The Philanthropists on the Inside 

Built in 1852, San Quentin is a high-security facility, with multiple checkpoints before one emerges into an exercise yard where armed guards keep constant watch from a runway above. The workshop was housed in the prison’s educational center, with Amanda sitting at a large table, around which sat men of all ages, each with more distinctive tattoos than the last. Amanda had decided to open this workshop using an exercise she’d found helpful with her wealth advising clients. She divided the men into groups of four and played a card game designed to help people identify their core values and test them against others’ perceptions of them. Like her clients, the prisoners enjoyed the game.

When that session ended, Amanda remembers one participant told her, “‘I never even thought I HAD core values.’” Another observed that he’d never realized how much he valued compassion, which he could now use to refine his approach to fundraising. “‘We go from cell to cell asking for money for the walkathon,’” the man said. “‘Instead of coercing people, I can now use compassion, because I know it's one of my core values.’”

In the next session, Amanda asked the inmates what it meant to be a “philanthropist.” They offered the usual answer: “‘They’re people who give lots of money.’” Amanda helped the men extend that definition beyond the giving of treasure to include gifts of time and of talent. One point especially hit home with the men. “Look,” she said, “you’re putting on a walkathon to raise money for charity, giving your time to do this. You put together a public service announcement to get people involved. So you’ve given your money, you’ve spent time collecting donations, and you used your talent to market the event. You know what that makes you?”

There was silence.

“You’re philanthropists.”

Of the many terms these men had heard applied to them, “philanthropist” was a new one. No one had ever accused them of being generous and altruistic before. It was, Amanda observes, a moment of redefinition. As they were passing back to their cells, one man came up to Amanda, smiling and proud. “‘I’m putting up a sign in my cell,” she remembers him saying. “‘It will say I AM A PHILANTHROPIST.’”

Later, another workshop participant—a prisoner who was editor-in-chief of the San Quentin News—asked Amanda to repeat the program with the newspaper staff. Produced and run entirely by incarcerated men, the San Quentin News covers restorative justice and other issues and is, in many ways, a typical community newspaper. Amanda obtained permission from the Lilly Family School of Philanthropy at Indiana University to help the paper with their fundraising efforts as the basis for the internship required for her Masters Degree in Philanthropy, which she was awarded in December 2020. She continues to volunteer with the San Quentin News to this day.