Jon Dauphiné, Foundation for Financial Planning

Meet our members!  AFN’s greatest asset is our members—a diverse network of national, regional, and community-based foundations, financial institutions, and grantmakers—investing in advancing equitable wealth building and economic mobility. Check back each month and meet your peers!   

1: What is the mission of your organization and how is advancing equitable wealth building and economic mobility incorporated into the work?

The Foundation for Financial Planning has provided more than $9 million in grants to support national and community-based pro bono financial advice programs; worked with partners to activate more than 24,000 financial planners to volunteer their time and talents; reached over 700,000 people in crisis or need; and acted as a leader and catalyst to foster a rich tradition of pro bono service across the financial planning profession. 

Communities of color have historically been underserved by the financial advice sector, so we have a focus on bringing service to these communities — approximately 65% of the clients of our grant-funded programs are Black, Latinx, or AAPI individuals. Advisors work with these clients to help them address immediate money concerns and develop lifelong knowledge and skills to enhance their ability to accumulate wealth and achieve their financial goals.

2: How does your organization currently or plan to explicitly and intentionally include and empower people of color in the design of your policies and strategies to close the racial wealth gap?

In 2021, FFP launched our Communities of Color Initiative to be even more intentional about investing in empowering people of color. As part of the initiative, we earmark grants specifically to community-based organizations with missions to close the racial wealth gap and strong track records strengthening the financial wellness of families of color. Currently, we partner with four such grantees, and to date, we have brought services to more than 5,300 individuals.

3: Where are we lacking investments as a sector that will result in greater economic equity, and how can we address the gap?

We at FFP are especially interested in fostering more racial and ethnic diversity among the ranks of financial advisors and we work closely with our partner, the Certified Financial Planner Board of Standards, to help advance this goal. 

4: Share a question you would like to raise to your funder colleagues.

FFP maintains a volunteer matching platform called ProBonoPlannerMatch.org. We encourage the nation’s 95,000 Certified Financial Planner professionals to sign up while encouraging our nonprofit partners to post opportunities for advisors to help their constituents. We’d like to ask if other AFN members would help us promote ProBonoPlannerMatch.org as a free resource for the nonprofits they work with or fund to recruit expert volunteers to offer pro bono advice and planning.

Yes, I encourage AFN members to check out www.ProBonoPlannerMatch.org and to contact us for more information on how nonprofits can use the platform to recruit Certified Financial Planner volunteers to assist their constituents.

6: What is the last book you read?

Demon Copperhead by Barbara Kingsolver.

About Jon Dauphiné, CEO, Foundation for Financial Planning

Jon Dauphiné leads the Foundation for Financial Planning’s (FFP) efforts to develop and grow pro bono financial planning programs for people in need. Under Jon’s leadership, FFP has created signature national programs to serve people with cancer, at-risk seniors and other vulnerable groups; developed ProBonoPlannerMatch.org to link CFP® professionals to volunteer opportunities; spearheaded initiatives to leverage technology for pro bono engagements and address compliance issues; and engaged a broad array of planners, RIAs and companies to join the pro bono movement. Jon has authored a range of articles on pro bono published by outlets including InvestmentNews, ThinkAdvisor and WealthManagement and is frequently quoted in the financial advisory trade media.