LeCount R. Davis, the first Black certified financial planner, said many doors in his long, successful career have been opened by the CFP credential. A scholarship program launched by the CFP Board on Tuesday aims to open many more in the future.
The CFP Board Center for Financial Planning has created the LeCount R. Davis CFP Scholarship, a $5,000 award to help Black and African American students who are seeking to complete an undergraduate-level or certificate-level CFP program. Following the coursework, students can take the CFP exam and continue toward certification.
In an event Monday night at the CFP Board headquarters in Washington, D.C., Davis recalled pivotal moments as an adviser that were directly linked to the mark he held.
“I would never have gotten anywhere near that meeting if it hadn’t been for the CFP,” Davis told the audience gathered to celebrate fundraising achievements of the Center for Financial Planning.
Now Davis wants to help young Black people attain a CFP designation.
“My task for the rest of my days: I’m going to prepare the next generation of financial advisers,” said Davis, the inaugural recipient of the InvestmentNews lifetime achievement award for excellence in diversity and inclusion. “That’s what I’ve dedicated my life to because I believe that there’s a lot of promise out there. It could be a 'win, win, win situation' for financial firms looking for talent and future advisers of color looking to break into the business.
The Center promotes diversity in the profession through an annual summit and other initiatives. The Davis award is its first endowed scholarship. The endowment is currently about $195,000, and the organization's goal is to reach $250,000.
CFP Board CEO Kevin Keller launched what looked like an impromptu bidding process at the reception, collecting several pledges of $25,000 to support the scholarship.
“If we’re going to serve the entire country, we need to look more like the clients that CFP professionals serve,” Keller said in a statement Tuesday. “This scholarship in honor of LeCount Davis supports both his mission and ours -- creating a more diverse and sustainable financial planning profession.”
The CFP Board sets and enforces the competency and ethical standards related to the designation. Last year, there were 92,055 CFPs in the United States. That community included a record number of women and significantly higher numbers of Black and Hispanic CFPs, although the latter two categories represent a small fraction of CFPs.
Kamila Elliott is serving this year as the first Black CFP Board chair. As she travels around the country speaking at conferences, she said she is receiving positive feedback from Black and Hispanic CFPs about the organization’s diversity efforts.
“I cannot tell you the line of diverse CFP professionals -- Black men, Black women, Hispanic men, Hispanic women -- who come up to me and say, ‘Thank you,’” Elliott said at the reception. “They say, ‘I received a scholarship from the Center for Financial Planning. I’m a CFP professional because of the work that you’re doing. I love the imagery in all of your handouts, your online resources. I can see myself in this profession. I never saw myself before.’”
She also told of meeting a Black woman CFP candidate who said she loved seeing Elliott as a Black woman working with a diverse clientele. She said she wants to do the same.
“I cannot be more elated with the progress that we’re making,” said Elliott, who founded Collective Wealth Partners, an RIA in Atlanta comprised of four Black CFPs, three of whom are women.
Davis wasn’t aware he was making history in 1978 when he became the first Black CFP. Over his 50-year career, he has done accounting, tax planning, financial planning, financial management and investment consulting.
“I didn’t know I was the first anything,” Davis said in a video shown at the reception. “I just did what was necessary -- go to school, learn, pass the exams. The CFP has propelled me into areas that I would never have gotten into if I had not done a CFP.”
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