Utah Financial Planning Week

Financial Planning Week

Financial Planning Week®, October 3–9, 2011, brings together those who provide, support and benefit from professional financial planning.

During this week, FPA strives to build public awareness of the financial planning process, enabling individuals to make prudent financial decisions to achieve their life goals and dreams. Last year 36 Chapters obtained local and state governmental proclamations. We need your help! Please submit your ideas on your Pro Bono Interest Survey.

There is also support for individual and chapter Pro Bono activities through the Foundation for Financial Planning, through grants and publications if we avail ourselves of them.

The Chapter should also be involved in its own Pro Bono Activities. The Chapter Pro Bono Interest Survey is your way to indicate to chapter leadership what activities you would like us to be involved in. I would like to submit a couple of ideas for your consideration.

The Financial Planning Association already has in place a “Memorandum of Understanding” with the American Red Cross concerning providing financial planning services to the victims of natural disasters. I would solicit your support on a local and statewide basis as well. This may involve your being trained as “Caseworkers” which is basically fact finding, assessment, and providing support to those impacted by fire, flood, or other natural or man-made disasters. After training and local experience, and upon your expressing a desire, you could become part of the Disaster Services Human Resource (DSHR) system and be dispatched to national disasters. My wife is part of the National Mental Health Team and has served at various national disasters including three week at the Pentagon after 9/11. We served together at the Atlanta, GA floods in 2009 and at the New Harmony Fire in Southern Utah in 2010. Those are fulfilling experiences.

I would also like your support in providing Pro Bono Financial Planning Services to the families of public servants (firemen, policemen, etc.) and service members who have been injured in the line of duty. There would be no product selling or solicitation of any kind. You could not later take them on as clients, or refer them to an associate within your office. This would be pure Pro Bono advice using the Money 101 Basics platform provided by the FPA. If you would support the chapter in making this service available, please indicate so on they survey form.

Finally, I would like to talk about the President’s Volunteer Service Award. As a parent, grandparent, and now great grandparent, it has always been important to me to teach my children the importance of service. I remember visiting nursing homes, participating in walk-a-thons, participating in clean-up projects, welfare farm assignments, and various service activities with my children. Children learn the importance of service by doing service, and I actively looked for opportunities to provide them with real experiences.

I also understand the importance of positive reinforcement and, recognizing the need for personal development, have supported my children and grandchildren in Citizenship Merit Badges and Young Women’s Recognitions service projects. I also remember President Bush’s “Points of Light” Inauguration Speech and the encouragement for all citizens to become involved in civic activities.

I refer you to the Handout on the President’s Volunteer Service Award that explains the criteria for the award, and ask if you as chapter members would support the Utah Chapter of the FPA in becoming a “Certifying Organization.” There is a cost of $4.75 per recipient which would include: A personalized certificate, a lapel pin, and a letter from the President of the United States. Whether the Chapter would incur the expense or the individual member would be billed is a matter for discussion at a board meeting, but you can make your wishes known by indicating your thoughts on the survey. Upon approval by the chapter members and the board, I will provide the link so that you may enter your service hours.

I thank you for the opportunity to speak with you today. I look forward to working with you and the chapter to make our communities and the state of Utah more aware of the need for financial planning, and make it available to all those who need it.

Sincerely,
Lester M. Halstead, Jr.

Utah Chapter Pro Bono Director