The Foundation for Financial Planning is supporting non-profit organizations who are utilizing financial planners to help people in need take financial control by donating their time to help adult Americans in financial quandaries, as in:

• First Responders from 9/11, now dying, needing help planning for their family's life without them.
• Survivors of devastating hurricanes on the Gulf Coast – needing financial guidance to put their lives and businesses back together.
• Veterans from Iraq and Afghanistan, and the widows and widowers of Iraq and Afghanistan combatants who have left grieving families with little but government life insurance, helped by financial planners.
• Battered women fleeing from abusive spouses, intellectually incapable of managing their own affairs, being helped by financial planners.

Some other individual successes include:

• A low-income participant from a financial literacy/management course reported she was able to identify a predatory lending "flipping" scheme and avoid a possible foreclosure.
• A single mother persuaded her children to make use of the free school lunch program (which they were eligible, but preferred not to take) and gave up her own weekly "night out" in order to afford a monthly IDA deposit.
• The director of the National Financial Planning Support Center said, “Thanks to the Foundation’s support, we are able to present a series of workshops and one-on-one counseling to wounded service members returning from Iraq and Afghanistan at Walter Reed Army Medical Center and participate in the "Wounded Warrior Program".
• The Executive Director of the American Red Cross 9-11 Recovery Program said in a study of the program's effectiveness, "The fact that more than half of the clients responding said that they had sought goal-setting advice from a volunteer financial planner is a solid indicator that they had started to become actively engaged in healing, following the extreme emotional distress that they suffered".
• A Postal Service employee, who was also a Sergeant in the Army Reserves, was deployed to Iraq in March and killed on April 26 during a raid on a chemical warehouse. He left behind his wife, a 14-year-old step-daughter and a 2-year-old son. Thanks to the FPA's Northern New England Chapter sharing the story, a financial planner was in contact with the widow offering his services, pro bono. This planner also recruited an accountant and estate planning lawyer and as a team they are helping this family plan their future.
• The “M” Family had come to the Mission Economic Development Association after their landlord unexpectedly gave the family an ultimatum to either purchase their home of eight years or move out. At that time, they had a large outstanding credit balance and no savings. Through the program's credit counseling, financial planning and on-going support, they were able to improve their credit rating and save $25,000 for a down payment. Said Mr. M, “ We have saved more in the last nine months than in the past 20 years! ” In June of 2002, the family closed on their first home, the home that they had rented for almost a decade.

The Foundation for Financial Planning helps people take control of their financial lives by connecting the financial planning community with people in need. We achieve this by supporting pro bono advice and outreach activities.

“Thanks to the Foundation’s support, we are able to present a series of workshops and one-on-one counseling to wounded service members returning from Iraq and Afghanistan at Walter Reed Army Medical Center and participate in the Wounded Warrior Program".

Director of the National Financial Planning Support Center