All right. Well, good morning, everyone. Thanks for coming in. This morning's topic's going to be DEI-focused. But hopefully, with a relatively small group, we can make it more interactive. That's certainly our intention, is to get feedback from you so we can learn from you as much as you're learning from us, if not maybe even more so. We'll make the introductions quick and brief so we can get right to the topic. My name is Mike Walther. I'm on the NAPFA DEI committee, and I'm also the head of the NAPFA Special Needs Mixed Group, where we share information with other advisors who do work in the area of special needs planning. Hey, my name is Mahaka Navram. I'm the DEI chair for this year. NAPFA? Hi, I'm Michelle Wilson. I've been on the DEI committee. I helped start NAPFA PRIDE, and I do socially responsible investments exclusively in my practice. And I'm a solo RIA. So as you might have seen in the materials coming up to this presentation, these are our three learning objectives. They're being captured on the video as well. But we're going to try to impart to you that you can do well by doing good, and that DEI shouldn't be something you either feel good about or bad about, but rather something that can be a part of what you're doing and be incorporated into everything you do in your business practices. And at the end of the session, we'll share with you all some resources. And if you would, spend the next hour thinking about resources you're using now that you can share with the rest of the community, because our goal is to really have everybody coming out of here with more resources to utilize when you go back home to your practices. So with that, we're going to take these in question order. So the first question we're going to address is, what's your background, and how does it shape your interest in DEI? Michelle, why don't you go ahead and start? So there's a lot, actually. So I grew up in a really conservative evangelical, I'm going to call it, occult. And it took me a while to get out of that. And there were a lot of people that helped me along the way to get from where I was to where I am. And so I feel a great sense of responsibility to do that for other people. Also, I am LGBT, and being taught that that was bad was really like, I'm still going to therapy. So I want other people to have workplaces that are really inclusive. And if I can help people who maybe don't get it to make more inclusive policies and things like that, then I can make other people's lives better. So huge, huge influence on the way I grew up and how I ended up where I'm at. Hi, as you all see me, I'm an immigrant from India. Came to this country 31, 32 years ago. And even before that, to give you guys how much you know, brief grasp of India. India has multiple states, like 30, whatever, because they keep growing. And each state is like a country, which means each state has its own religion, culture, language, food, everything. So I was born in one state, raised in the other state. So when I was deemed, oh, you're not a local from here. So it's kind of happened right there, right? So when I came to this country after my education and everything, I see that it's very important to me that we have to be very inclusive of everybody, include everybody. And I come from a technology background. After 20 years of being in technology, I moved on to financial advisory. And I managed people, and I felt there is a global need that we need to encourage diversity because it improves our thinking. Our profitability is the last resort. It improves personal relationships. And I got more out of my teams by supporting inclusivity and diversity. Great, and for me, it was a matter of just growing up. Similar to Michelle, I came from a background where it informed what I wanted to do going forward. I've got a younger brother on the autism spectrum. Wasn't diagnosed officially at that until he was 32 because back in the early 70s when we were kids, autism wasn't even a title. So we knew we had significant developmental delays, and I saw the challenges he had in becoming an adult, the challenges my parents had in finding resources, and the discrimination he faced both at school and in the workplace to be an equal. So through that, I was looking around for an opportunity to give back, and I was doing it through nonprofit work. But my wife challenged me about 17 years ago, what would you do if you quit? And I said, well, I'm not gonna quit. I'm doing really well helping high-net-worth families buy bigger boats. And she said, yeah, but you're not really happy. And she was right. And so I looked around to find a firm doing what Oak Wealth Advisors now does, which is helps families with loved ones with special needs find and get resources and utilize their own resources as best they can to support their loved ones. So it was really just a matter of I fell into it, and then when I saw the DEI movement starting, I realized, hey, you know what? People with disabilities are often disadvantaged in ways that society's not recognizing, and they don't have a really good voice. So I took an opportunity through NAPFA to try to be a spokesperson for that community. Next one, what do the DEI principles mean to you? And we all apologized in advance that the workshop for DEI got canceled for Wednesday. So those of you who wanted to come and do that earlier in this week didn't have the opportunity, so hopefully we'll cover a lot of the principles in our discussion today so that you'll walk away with at least some of the knowledge you would have gotten had you attended the workshop. And we encourage you to attend the workshop in the future if you've not gotten your NAPFA DEI certification. Maha, why don't you start with this one? For me, diversity means diversity in thought, diversity in action, and equity, equal opportunity for everybody included. And that's my fundamental goals I want to achieve, have been before, and want to practice in my practice right now. So who's been to the DEI certification program at NAPFA? Nice, what'd you think of it? There was too much focus on employees and not on clients. Why don't you repeat that? It's relevant to me to say that. Yeah. So that comment was that there was too much focus in the training on employees, and as many of us were small practices or solo practice, that wasn't really relevant. Thank you for sharing that. Other thoughts? I can see that I'm building out the team. I have to learn nothing, so that's more applicable to me. Okay, well great. There was one other person that took it. Any thoughts? Okay. Okay. I was just curious. I helped facilitate one. So DEI principles. I think it's extremely important. Before I started my firm, I went to a company specifically because of their DEI policies, and I'll probably talk about this again during the presentation, because they had fantastic DEI policies, and their thought was bring your whole self to work, and no matter what you are born with or what you choose, you need to be able to bring your whole self to work, and I loved working for that company. They had me working there for quite a while, and I feel like if more companies had policies like that, it would be great. And it's just, I mean, what does it mean? I mean, it's just the way everybody should be, and if we can make it, if we can write policies and do things in a way where everybody with all different belief systems can be inclusive, then I think that the world will be a better place, and people will be able to say what they think, which I think is really important, because hiding it just makes the world not as good of a place. Those are great. I'll just add one final thought to that, and I think if we think about the DEI work we're all trying to do as a continuum, I often think I'm pretty awful at doing DEI things, but I'm probably further ahead than some other people, and the idea is if you're trying to make progress every day, and you're thinking about how you can do better, that's where I think the DEI principles really come in, is what can I do today to make a difference? What can I do to build a business so that in the future I'll be in a better place to serve more people in a better, more comprehensive way? And if we're all taking that approach, then I think we're doing DEI the right way. Okay, so what are some of the things that we've done with our practices that you all might be able to incorporate in your practices to let prospective clients know that we understand them, and that their concerns are important to us? And I'll start with this one. So for us, we're trying to get information out to the community for free. I disagree with our presenter this morning who thinks you're supposed to just find their pain points and charge them for it. Our thought process is that there are so many people who need information and services. We can't serve them all. We're gonna do our best. But if we can make information that's objective, publicly available in whatever medium of learning they wanna follow, then that's part of what our firm's mission is. So we created a podcast. We have a YouTube learning channel where people can go and watch 60 to 90 minute snippets on special needs planning advice. Those are all things you can do in your practice to share your expertise and whatever your area of passion is in the DEI space or client service. We also have a website that's got a robust set of resources that allow people to dive deeper and find other third party information that's best in class. So we try to aggregate that information and make it a place people can be comfortable finding and sourcing information. So those are some of the things that we do to let people know that we care about them and we wanna be available to them as a resource. Ours is a small firm. We do the same thing. We have a website which has tons of resources. And if the client sign up for, not even a client, if a prospect sign up for an email, they get a weekly newsletter about every economic progress and trends in the industry and stuff. Recently we had a prospect requesting a meeting and he said, I'm a Latino. Do you accept us? Like absolutely, we said. It doesn't matter who you are. It's like, please come to our office. Like we provide them initially a 15 minute chat discovery meeting and then one hour or two hours of free meeting so that we can talk to them and see what is the real need. Sometimes they don't know what they don't know and then they just, and we tell them, you don't need the full blown financial planning or the entire thing. Just come for, read the resources. That's good enough. Things like that is what our main focus is. So I said at the beginning I focus exclusively on socially responsible investments. So the people I'm trying to reach come in. It's literally in the name of my business, socially responsible investments. So the biggest thing that I think people are confused about sometimes though is like what does that mean? Just like the speaker said this morning, what does it mean to, what does a financial advisor do? I think those questions are so common. So just explaining that I want people to be able to invest with what they think is important and not invest in things they don't believe in. And then I just, I go over examples of what I mean when I say that in every initial client appointment. So I say 90% of my clients come to me because they're concerned about climate change and they don't want to invest in fossil fuels or they do want to invest in renewable energy. And I talk about my passion which is LGBT rights. So I want to invest in companies that are gonna have good policies around LGBT rights. And then the portfolios I do are customized. But I talk about that at the beginning of every client appointment. I don't care who walks in, we're gonna have that conversation. And I think that helps me get the clients in front of me that I want and make sure that I'm not working with people I don't want which is I think important, right? So also we'll probably minimize complaints. Anything anyone in the audience wants to share about things you're doing that we should add to the conversation? Yes. One of the very simple things is going through all of our initial data forms and stuff. And this was when you couldn't have same-sex marriage in North Carolina, you can now. But that was changing client-spouse and those kind of things. Just the wording to say that we get it. That was great. Just that paperwork was one first step. Let me make sure we get that recorded. The comment was that you look at all your paperwork, especially things like intake forms for a new client so they can see right off the bat when they start working with you that you get them because the language you're using reflects something that's more open. That's great, non-gendered. We just say name one and name two for a household like that. Great, anything else on that topic? Go ahead in the back. I'm sure everyone here is doing this, but what we found is that to be the exact thing in all the content that we put out, we have to put in a lot of things in the videos. We are using a wide range of stock photos and probably many people are all up, but we are trying to do a bunch of things that we don't want to put on social media. That's a good point. That has really helped us have a different content. I like the idea of the stock photos, too. Talking to the microphone. Sorry, I like the idea of stock photos. Correct. Right, so the idea there is if you're making your website and all of your media presence look more inclusive, people are gonna feel more comfortable coming to you because they figure you understand them because people look like them or have backgrounds like theirs that are representative of your company. That's great. It's good for also the new clients as well, too. So I'm a faculty member at the University of Georgia and my students will come to me and they're like, Dr. Watkins, I look at the site and I will see myself and reflect the fact as well, too, or the ideas that they have as well. So if you have a leadership team and they identify as a woman and they can see what is my career project or production for this company as well, that's really important for both sides of it as well. That's great, thanks, Dr. Watkins. So again, for the recording, making sure that your website reflects the kind of people you wanna be hiring, that folks wanna come with your practice, realize they'll fit in well. I think that's a really good point. Can I throw one more thing in? Sure. I think the other thing is being consistent with, especially in a smaller practice, with who you are in the community. So the activism work that I do, I go do speaking engagements and I do LGBT presentations and things like that for multiple groups. But when I do that, I put it on the website. I say, this is something that I'm doing. And I'm also out and open about all the different areas of my life. And I think that it just helps people kinda relax and be able to say whatever, anything about their life in my office and they know it's okay to say that and they're not gonna be judged. I think that's really important. I'll give you one more idea that we actually implemented at our firm, which kinda plays off the idea of having a diverse set of visual images. And it's a free way to enhance your website and it can actually play really well. Instead of buying stock photos, get photos of your clients. We actually took some professional photos of our clients and gave it to them as a holiday gift. They could use it as their holiday card to send out. We put it on our website, so that was the trade. They got a free, high-quality photograph. We got to put it on the website. And then if their friends were to come and Google us, they'd see their friend on our website right there. And given the fact that our focus is on special needs, we've got a plethora of families to choose from and we can get lots of diversification just within that space. So it's an easy way to enhance your website. It doesn't cost you a whole lot and creates a lot of goodwill among your clients. All right, the next one, question four. Maha's ready to go on this one. So some concrete examples of things we've done. We just talked about some of them, but what other concrete things has your firm done to reinforce the message about the fact that you're open and inclusive? I'll let you take this. Let me take mine, yeah. So I have a pansexual flag sitting behind me in every Zoom call. Anybody who knows what that is would know what that is. Anytime that there's any sort of an issue coming up, I always, even like Pride Month, I have a thing out that says love is love. I do issue-based signs out front. So I'll do like Black Lives Matter, but I will not say go vote for this candidate. We have something about gerrymandering in our state. That's the closest thing I'm getting to being on either side because everybody should support not having gerrymandered things. But yeah, I mean, I feel like it's important. I mean, there's signs. You're gonna be hit with signs when you walk in my office. So if you really disagree with the types of ideals that I have, I want you to be uncomfortable walking in my office. And I think part of it is, and I experienced this when I was in corporate, trying to like hide all that and let everybody feel comfortable. You don't have to. You can have your clients that you're comfortable with and they need to be comfortable in your space. And that might make other people uncomfortable. But I feel like that's, for me, that's what draws clients to me. That's why my business is successful. People will look me up online. Just because of how open I am in my profiles. That's the other thing. I write about all the communities I'm in in my profile. And I'll just, I'll tell you what they are. So I say I'm part of the LGBT community. I'm also part of the kink community. I advertise in that space. And I'm polyamorous. I put that on my bio and on directories. And I get calls. I get calls from other states and people are like, hey, I'm part of a poly family and I knew I could talk to you about that. So I think being out, if you're trying to get a diverse clientele, that's one way to do it. So ours is a small solo firm. And our niche is families with children. As simple as that. So what we do is not only putting on our website, we have a holiday party every year. A small holiday party where we invite all the clients. So they see, we don't have to, like it's only for the clients and their families. So they just come and they see the diverse clientele. But it's niches, families, and children. So we have diverse clientele from every walk of life. So I think that's the first thing we do. And yeah, main thing I should say. All right, with local health advisors, it would be hard to walk into our office and not quickly figure out that we embrace special needs. All the artwork across all of our walls was all sourced from different individuals with disabilities. We go out and we have art competitions at different places. And the winning artist gets an award. The charity gets an award. And we keep working with those agencies to source our birthday cards and our holiday cards. So all the art on the cover of all of our cards for the last 15 years has all been made through different competitions that came with awards. On the inside of the card, it's obviously a greeting to the individual we're sending it to. But on the opposite side of the inside, it mentions who the artist is and the agency is taking a little bit of a promotional opportunity out of it. So that's one way we can give back and again reinforce the message that this is our target audience. These are the families we're here to serve. And even for our clients who don't have special needs, they're with us because they believe in that same approach that we appreciate Oak Wealth Advisors is doing, and we like seeing that. And then for our holiday gifts, we always send something around Thanksgiving. Not the typical year-end gift around the end of the year holidays, but rather Thanksgiving because it's really a thank you gift. And again, those are also sourced from different companies that are either founded by someone with a disability or uses predominantly disabled employees to achieve their products. So those are ways we just keep reinforcing it. And I think different ways you can think about your practice and ways you can reinforce your messaging with the other anecdotal things you're doing that aren't directly client service related. Anything else any of you all are doing in your practices we should be sharing with each other? I do solstice cards. Talk into the microphone so they can hear you. I do solstice cards. I don't do Christmas cards. And I have not had any negative responses from that. Every year I send out solstice cards. Yes? I started my company through a lot of sponsorships. So I was a matching donor at the Women's Fund in Central Ohio. We give every year to the Ohio Environmental Council. Now we're doing the Martin Luther King Jr. Breakfast, which is huge in Columbus. And then we spread that across social media and newsletters to our work line so they know what we're doing. I also have a DEI certificate from NAPFA that I have on something on our website. That's awesome. So again, just make sure we've heard that. Sponsorship of events that are meaningful to the practice and also to show the open inclusivity of your practice. That's awesome. And then letting people know you've got the NAPFA DEI certification. Sometimes we don't do a good enough job of announcing we've got that. So good job on your part for doing that. So not to make this political, but there was a lot going on in Ohio with Springfield, Ohio. And they were making a donation to a nonprofit in support of the patient. And then communicating to the team, making it clear, like, we do not stand for that kind of violence. And so that just kind of helps spread the message. That's super. So that was really donating for a cause and then publicizing why you're donating to the cause and for the greater good. That's awesome. That's awesome. And it's a great idea to also remember that when you're doing those kinds of things, not a bad way to get some free publicity for your company. If you're doing good, let people know about it. Well done. Right. There's often success that follows doing good works. Absolutely. Absolutely. Great. Anything else on this topic you guys want to share? I want to piggyback on what she said. I actually got a client one time because I manage rental properties for my ex-husband. And she heard me talking to a renter and saying, can we change your due date? Like, what can we do to make it easier? And we don't think about how the stuff we do in everyday life affects us. But she walked into my office and she said, I want you to know why I'm here. So we'll also touch a little bit on hiring practices. I know that for some of you, if you've got a solo practice, it may not be so relevant. But for those of you who are in bigger firms or listening later on, hopefully this is relevant. So you guys want to touch on that, what you're thinking about with respect to hiring and how you would look at a candidate and find the best candidates? Yeah, I can speak about my prior experience where I had a team of 20 people across the country. Basically, our goals were like, first requirement is talent. They have to be capable of what they're supposed to be doing. That's the first requirement. And that's the only requirement. Never thought about who they are, what type of person they are, or what gender they were. It didn't matter to me because they are here for a purpose. We are in the business for a purpose. We need to hire them, first of all. And second of all, I realized in my experience, having a team of diverse candidates improved in teams' performance because they all came with different backgrounds and they have different experiences, which helped the team grow stronger and look at other perspectives of solving a problem because they could share, we could share in our team meetings what a person can do to solve a problem and it's an aha moment for many times. So I strongly advertise hiring diverse candidates. I had candidates from all walks of life, different countries, speaking different languages. And a good example is because of that, and we all know we all work on opportunities, projects, around the year, around the clock. So having people with, let's say, different religions who celebrate, let's say, Christmas during holidays, my team members could take off when there is other folks who can support during that time frame. So it was a win-win for all of us. So I think it brings and adds value. So before I started my practice, I was a manager and I hired a lot of people. And I think the biggest thing to remember is that we're all biased and we're going to be more likely to pick somebody who looks like us, who is from our background, people that we can relate to. And so for me, the big thing was remembering in interviews that I'm going to like somebody more that I feel comfortable with. And if there's two people who kind of have the same experience, I need to back up from that. And if anything, the person who's not like me needs to have a bump because I'm probably not going to be as likely to pick them. Just because of internal bias. So that was one thing I did. I was in a mastermind group recently and there was a firm and they were looking for different types of... It was interesting because it was women entrepreneurs and she was like, is it left-brained? And she was looking for some people who weren't left-brained because everybody was like really numbers people at her firm. And so she passed her job application around and had other people look at it and help rewrite it. And I think that's important. And then knowing where you're looking for the jobs. Like where are you searching? And if you can't find diverse candidates, which I live in a very white area. Or at least I did when I worked at the bank. It was a town up. It's like one of the whitest towns in America. So finding diverse candidates can be challenging. But maybe go to places where diverse people are and say, hey, I have a job. Here's the job. Join groups. I can tell you something not to do. So my boss at the bank went to the one African-American in our entire region who worked at the bank and said, hey, can you get your friends to come work here? And he said, first of all, real white area, right? He said, I was adopted. My friends are white. Like don't make assumptions. Don't go walk up to a person and expect them to do the work for you. I mean, if you're the business owner, you go do the work. But, yeah, don't do that. I'll never forget that because I was just like that's horrible because he told me about it later. What else? Diverse hiring. I feel like that's so important, and I feel like it's an area we can all just fall down flat. And having somebody else help rewrite your applications. Your posting things I think is the biggest thing because we're writing them from our perspective with our language. I would like to add one more thing. During my tenure, what we did was approach universities and STEM students, and it was a great opportunity. We met a lot of university kids, and not only I mentored the kids, but they got the opportunity to work with us, which was helpful. So I would say, just to echo what was said previously, think about where you're looking. There are newer opportunities now to get access to a broader group of young people than there ever was in the industry before. In the past, you'd look at certain people with an MBA or coming out with a finance or accounting degree. In my experience, I'd much rather hire someone with a psychology degree who likes numbers and teach them the financial planning as opposed to having a financial planner and have to teach them how to deal with people. And so I think we can really think about a much broader pool of candidates for the majority of the kind of work we do. And in our office, we've actually got an employee who we jokingly say she's not allowed to touch a number. She's a licensed clinical social worker, and she's fantastic at helping families find public benefits and access the system most efficiently. So if a client were on the phone with her asking a question about what should they invest in in their ABLE account, she would quickly defer the question to someone with a CFP in the room. But having people like that as part of your firm as you grow, even if they're not doing specific financial work, can still be a huge benefit to your firm. And one of the things that we found more recently is the BLX Internship Program. I don't know if you're familiar with that, but that's a wonderful resource where individuals, be it career changers or current college students, reach out through them. And it's kind of a matchmaking service where they bring in lots of financial services firms who are looking for more diverse talent. And the individuals who are seeking to get in the industry go there and get some additional support in finding firms that will be more open and accepting and hopefully create greater success for them in the future. So the BLX Internship Program I really wish was here presenting. They do a great job. All right, so Luis Rosa. All right, so apparently one of the founders of the BLX Internship Program is at the conference for some reason not in this session with us. But now that we've outed Mr. Rosa, you're going to go find him over the next day and a half you're here. Wonderful resource. We've actually not hired anybody through the program. We've got two candidates who are still in school who we're looking at for the future. It's a wonderful way to meet more people. And the way I look at it is the old person in the room, I know technology is going to keep evolving our industry rapidly. And if it's old people like me trying to run a firm, not utilizing the newest technology tools and the ways to reach people, my firm is going to fail. If I can bring in more young people with more diverse perspectives and better understanding of what the future looks like with technology and how the world is going to evolve, we'll be a better firm. So just selfishly having a more diverse talent pool and more younger people with different opinions is going to help the firm grow, even though sometimes it's difficult as a leader to think of it that way. Yeah, I think the CFP board and their ads were a really good example of how if you're going to market to a group, you should go to that group and ask them what they think is funny or good. Like young financial advisors instead of, you know, yeah. I think the DEI training and one of the things my background and my client focus is in older adults. And I think we forget that diversity, equity, and inclusion should also be including not just the new young people we want to attract to the business, but not pushing out the people who have really started this profession, not discounting them. Now, I agree, technology does, not my thing. But, you know, there's a lot of value across the age spectrum. That's a really good point, too, on the age spectrum being an issue. If you think about DEI more broadly, it's not just about race and religion. That's where people typically take their thought process. But it's ageism. And one of things I got from the DEI certification training program, which made me laugh because it was so on point for me, it's just geographical bias. I grew up a Midwest kid. I came to school in the South, but I had preconceptions about Southerners, Californians, New Yorkers, right? You have these thoughts, right? And so is that fair? And there are videos out there, you can watch it, where you have a person with a slow Southern drawl speaking, and then a person with a distinguished British accent speaking. And you're asked, well, who's the most intelligent presenter? And people are going to glom on to the British speaking person. Why? Right? So the biases are inherent in all of us and how we see things and how we perceive things. And so keeping that open mind is really an important part of DEI. I have to remind myself every day when I wake up, like, what's out there that I'm missing? Because I'm closing my mind off to things. So, again, I think it's an incremental process where thinking about ageism, are we disrespecting a certain part of the population? Is there a group we're neglecting in the way we're approaching things? Can we be better with our language in the way we present our firm? So I think there's tons of opportunities here. I think one of the challenges I see is I've actually had other advisors reach out and go, that DEI stuff's a waste of time. And that really offends me. Because I'm thinking there's got to be some person in your life who is disadvantaged because of some aspect of their background. And if that's relevant, then focus on that. You don't have to be perfect for everybody. None of us will be. And I think you ought to take that away from all the discussions about DEIs. There's no way to get to the finish line quickly. And we'll probably never get there individually. But if we all make progress towards that, you create a much better inclusive community for planning. I got it. I'm sorry. I talked at the beginning about policies. So that's the important thing about policies is I feel like you have to have a policy that makes it where everybody can be inclusive. And one of the things I was so impressed with that company about is by having the policy that whether you're born with it or whether you choose it, you need to be able to bring your whole self to work. And training managers around that, it means it doesn't matter what the manager believes. Because it doesn't matter whether the manager believes you're born a certain way or you choose it. You need to be able to bring your whole self to work. If one person can have a religious symbol, everybody can have a religious symbol. If it's a Wiccan religious symbol, that's fine. It's just like the cross. It's a religious symbol. If you can have a picture of your family, everybody can have a picture of your family. And so the training was really consistent and it allowed, it doesn't matter what your belief system is, this is what we expect at this workplace. And so I think really thinking about policies, because I don't think DEI, while they are pushing it to say it's a progressive thing, I don't think it is. I think it can be applied across the board in every kind of company. I just think you have to be really thoughtful about how would the Baptist preacher feel if he works here? What can you do to make it where he can also be inclusive and you can also be inclusive of him? And I think that's where you end up with truly diverse workplaces, is when those policies are really well thought out. And when the expectation is thought out, like what are you trying to accomplish? So if you're trying to accomplish everybody being comfortable or everybody being accepted and being able to be themselves, how do you do that? All right, to pivot towards how DEI can make you more financially successful, what are some of the economic benefits you've found from having a more inclusive practice? So in our practice, we have a policy. We donate 25% of our revenues to charities with two main causes. One is children and handicapped children and their families, and one is cancer, towards cancer research. So we not only do that, and we also sponsor walk-a-thons in our township, and we also pay for our clients to participate. We pay for them. So last year it was this year, actually, in September, it was a big hit. 30 members of our clients who came for the walk-a-thon that supported a cancer, a child, a family in the town, and they were all, like, impressed. I mean, it was nice to see them. And they went back. They donated to that particular cause separately in addition to what we did, and it was awesome. And I think that's how we spread the word. And once we do it, if not today, I'm sure it will take into effect slowly. Yeah, mine's really obvious. I do socially responsible investments. The people come to me for that reason. So that's where all of the profit of my business comes from. Yeah, I think, in summary, you can do really well by doing good for others. I think the messaging gets out, and people want to work with people they think are doing good work. And so we've had a great opportunity to have people come to us because they've seen us presenting publicly and sharing information. They want to work with that. And for me, it's been a blessing in that I've never had to spend a nickel on hiring. We've got six people across three offices. They all found us. They all reached out saying, hey, I like your mission. I want to do that. I can't find a firm like yours where I am. Would you be open to working with me in Madison, Wisconsin or Salt Lake City, Utah? So just by letting people know what you do and why you're passionate about it, no matter what that niche might be or why you're doing what you're doing, the messaging can find those people for you and maybe reduce some of your costs in hiring or other parts of your business that you never would have expected. So again, doing good leads to good things. All right, number seven. This is a tricky one. I'm probably going to step on a hot wire myself so that these guys do most of the talking with this one. So how do you communicate effectively with others who have different backgrounds than yours? I'll start with this. Please. Because, again, I have exposure to talking to various different people starting from my childhood. Initially, it was difficult. I couldn't understand what or why they are saying what they are saying and subsequently realized, like, the way I have biases, everybody has biases. By understanding that the background they come from or knowing a little bit more about that person or their background helped me open a whole new world. So I would suggest, whether it is a client or a prospect or any member of your team, be very open. Try to understand where they are coming from, and that's an eye-opener. Before we say, why do you want to do this, just say what's going on, and that helped me a lot. I talked about this earlier, don't make assumptions. It's really easy to look at people and make assumptions. So most people look at me and they think, you know, I live in Ohio. I probably grew up in the Midwest. I grew up in South Korea. When I was younger, I was discriminated against, and I also had a huge amount of privilege at the same time. But people would never know that about me because of the way I look, and I feel like it's so easy to make assumptions about people just by looking at them and just don't. Just don't. Just ask. So we were talking about earlier holidays. I feel like don't even assume they celebrate any holidays or what holidays they celebrate. Just say, like, when would you like time off work? What things are important to you? And so thinking about how you even word questions because your questions, you know, questions can be leading. They make assumptions and they can be leading. It's so easy because we all have these biases. So I think that's the big thing, like open questions, like what's important to you, right? Because we were talking about as we were preparing, like asking people what holidays they they celebrate, and and and she could, she might be able to do that and and people would be like, oh yeah, that's cool. And if I did that or if he did that, I think they'd be like, oh is that a microaggression? Are you asking me what holidays I celebrate because I am not white, right? I don't celebrate traditional holidays. I celebrate pagan holidays. So just, you know, broad. What's important to you? What days do you want to get off work? I think that's huge. I would even argue, having thought a lot about this question coming to the presentation, ask fewer direct questions. Just engage in conversation. You'll learn about the person. Oh, they're telling you they're taking a vacation with their family a certain time of the year. Oh, where are you gonna go? What's the reason for the celebration? Is it a birthday? Oh, no, it's this special event in our tradition. We're gonna go celebrate that. And as you guys may be aware, if you're in other groups, this group got in trouble for scheduling this event this year and next year on Halloween. People weren't so thrilled about that. XYPN had their session. They just announced their next dates were gonna be right at the start of Rosh Hashanah. So all their Jewish membership was like, are you blind? Why are you not paying attention to one of our major holidays? So they had to move theirs a little bit. And so I think even things like scheduling around your office can be challenging. Clearly major groups like XYPN and NAPFA are challenged with finding dates that don't conflict with anybody. NAPFA has done a neat thing though. Through the DEI committee, we created a calendar which we believe covers the vast majority of all holidays and celebrations of pretty much the entire population. We know we miss stuff. When we first started doing it, I think we uncovered north of a thousand events. And so we went to different groups and said, okay, of this laundry list, which ones are truly significant that we should be identifying so that planners will know if they've got a client of a certain religion, these dates are gonna be important to them. Maybe don't call them then. Or other things like that. So you can be a little bit more aware. And hopefully that can be something you can use as a resource for your firm, for yourself. You're talking to clients from different backgrounds and you're not sure when that event is. Some of them move based on lunar calendars. Some are a specific day. Some are a certain time of the month. So it's all different. But hopefully that calendar becomes a good resource you can go to and utilize that. Yes. My business partner next year, she's Mormon. And I made the mistake of assuming different things about how she might feel or believe about different things. I was concerned about what organizations I was giving money to and what she thought about it. And I was wrong on every level. You know, her feedback to me was, what, like, you're doing the right thing, like, you're supporting different people, you're supporting your rights, you're supporting your values. But I assumed that she would be upset about those things when I first met her. So that has just taught me, like, you might hear something about someone and think certain things about them, but you never really know until you get to know them and how important it is not to pre-judge people. Thank you for sharing that. I just want to let you all know that the calendar we talked about, it's on Facebook, NAPFA Facebook. We're trying to get it on NAPFA website, too, so stay tuned. We'll let you know. That's a great point, too, that you said, simply just that we all have internal biases. Whether you think you do or you're not, take some of those inventory tests. You'll find them. And it can be unnerving. Harvard's got a wonderful one online. You can figure out what level of bias you have in different areas. That's a nice resource. Was there a comment in the back? Yes. On my team, we put a lot of value in if someone, we make an assumption as far as biases. If we make a comment based on lack of knowledge and someone corrects us, someone clarifies, the first thing we do is thank the person who was gracious enough to educate us. Or to say, I have a hurt. If there's a hurt, absolutely apologize. And what we always want to make clear is how grateful we are for people who are willing to share with us something about their community, their life, all of that, where we made an assumption that happens. Or just we didn't know, and we're, I mean, we talk about this in most of our meetings, how grateful we are to our clients for continuing to educate us on their lives, which, you know, some of our clients look like us and some don't. And how wonderful for them to trust us. I'll repeat that. All right, let me try to repeat that for the recording, because I'm not sure it all got picked up. But again, just having a policy or at least a process in your office. So if someone needs to be corrected on a topic based on a bias or a misunderstanding, that person needs to be thanked for stepping in to do that. And that becomes the norm. So it encourages that kind of work. And our firm, it's similar. We'll say this is a teaching opportunity or a teaching moment, whether it's with a staff person or whether it's, you know, just someone in the community that we come across. I think it's a wonderful way of approaching it, that you want to encourage that and you want someone to correct it and not just kind of eat it and hold it internally, because then it regrows from that process. So thank you for sharing that. Thank you. I just went to a communication workshop. And one of the – well, I learned a communication tool at a workshop, let's say it that way. And the communication tool is brilliant. It was you walk up to a person that you have some sort of a misunderstanding with or you kind of can't talk to each other right now because it's weird, and you can say, do you have a minute? You know, is now a good time? So I have a story in my head about you. And then you say what the story is, and then it opens up communication. And then no matter what the story is, the other person is going to say thank you for telling me and then respond. And so I feel like, you know, she was talking about the policy in her office, saying thank you. I feel like going over communication techniques like that could be really helpful and normalizing it. In this organization where I learned it, that's a normalized thing. And so this is how you approach it, and this is how you respond. And I just think that's – it's brilliant. And I have tried that a few times, and it's been a wonderful tool. Because usually when we have those stories, they're wrong. Yeah, so. All right, so the next one's really going to be dependent on you. So we'll try to repeat the question – or at least repeat the answers back so we get them all recorded. But the next topic is what are you all doing in your offices? And you shared many of those things, whether it's a policy or giving to community organizations. What are some other things you all are doing in your organization to really put DEI principles to work on a daily basis? What can you guys share with the folks who listen to this in future days and weeks? Anything else? Yes. Go ahead. Promoting DEI as a part of our definition within our values. Wonderful. So that was actually hiring an outside expert to assist with developing value statements and other parts for the mission of the firm. Do I have that correct? Yes. Wonderful. Other things. It can be minor, because you never know what a little thing does to create a big opportunity in the future. Anything else? It's also a difference, because I'm at a state institution, so we can't do everything we always want to do. But one of the things that we've been very intentional about in terms of making sure that our students reflect our country's representation as well, too. And so when I sit down thinking about, how do we get students to understand what a financial plan is? Because I'm still talking to a lot of planners who still need to know that a financial plan is a major. Now, I get it, because when I was an undergrad, it wasn't a major for me either. So I was still new there. And so the exposure points and pieces that we put out there now really revolves around our financial education piece. And that's something that y'all mentioned earlier in terms of your own efforts. And so we have this as a financial literacy whole community. And our director, our alumni center back in Medford created a financial literacy day blog. And so I had a love for this event when I was a student at UGA. It was so cool having the little Lucy one-day stand for financial advice. And so I was like, hey, how about we take this, move into an area that had more students in it, and have this carnival-like feel and effect to it. But really what we're doing is tripping people into financial education. As well as other well-being resources on our campus as well, too. And it also helps us to be able to get students to know that financial planning is a major. Because so many of our students come to us as juniors, and they stumble into it. They have no idea that we exist here. And so while being at that event, doing this outreach work is essentially what it is. I have students from all over campus, the psychology students in particular. I'm like, I'm going down that mountain. And gathering them all up. Because they were so interested in our work. And I just love that because UGA is a PWI, which is a family-wide institution. But at this event, we had students from all over, all different backgrounds, both in a major and aligned with our own. And it was like the way that we're able to actually reach out and get people to know more. And in order to do more of our outreach work was just that, the outreach itself. So putting up on the camp a bulldog in a bouncy house was amazing. It was a really cool event. So that was the thing. It's just actually getting out there and doing the work. But if you're going into a community that's different from the identity that you have, and having someone who's a trusted partner as well to kind of help facilitate your entry into it as well. Because, you know, you're coming in as an outsider. You're a part of doing this work. But the people we want to serve don't know that already. So, you know, I need someone to kind of help me get into that process. So I think just being involved and doing that good work, at least when you've gotten financial help to begin with, is so instrumental in helping people who want to come to our program or to your firm as well. Well, thank you, Dr. Watkins. And again, for those of you who don't know, the University of Georgia is one of the best financial planning programs in the country. And that's tough for a Vanderbilt dual grad to say about Georgia. But it is a truly... But truly, Georgia is a wonderful place. And that's a great example of just doing something creative in the community. So whether it's on campus, if you're an academic, to reach more people and let them know what a financial planning career looks like and give students financial education. I remember when I was in school, I look back and I think how awful it was that every bag we got from the bookstore had three or four credit card applications in it. And they're hitting kids when they're 18 to 20 years old to start building up a huge debt before they ever have any idea what that means and what compound interest does to that level of debt by the time they graduate. So to create opportunities for students to educate students and have faculty educating students about the opportunities, I think that's wonderful. You actually reminded me of something we do. So I live in a really poor area. And I haven't really talked about socioeconomic diversity, but it's a big deal. And often, often in the rooms we sit in, people make really dumb assumptions when they're trying to help people about who are poor. So you're not even supposed to use that language now, right? You're supposed to say people who are disadvantaged. But we do a lot. We work with nonprofits to do financial education. My office manager's trained as a coach. She works with nonprofits and also with Meigs County Job and Family Services to help people transition off of benefits and into the workforce. And so basically, we found this need. And I can't charge people my rates to do that. That doesn't make any sense. But how can we make this work? How can we fit this into our business? We have a little free financial library out by the road that we have books in for all different ages. And that's kind of fun to do. So just getting creative about thinking about what can we do, even if it doesn't really fit within our business. I also don't have minimums. If someone wants to walk in and save $25 a month, I figured out a way to use, like I use Betterment for advisors because that doesn't require a lot of work from me, but I'm able to give them free financial advice as they first come in. If they're trying to buy a house or trying to buy a car or something, we can help them get started saving. If they need coaching, we can do coaching to help them build credit or write a budget to get to the place where they can save $25 a month. And I think doing that kind of work is so important, for me anyway. As a socially responsible firm, I cannot imagine having somebody come in, wanting to get started and having me say, oh, I'm sorry, I can't help you because you don't have enough money. Like it just gets me. So yeah, I feel like there's so many ways to do it, so many ways to do DEI in your firm. Anybody else? I know I'm not supposed to run up and step out now, but I read all the forms to ask about pronouns and to get rid of most of the language, and how to do that in my emails and phone calls too. I'll repeat that. But the other thing, as a business owner, is as a business owner, we make a lot of services, and I live in an area that has a lot of racial disparity in the city and the suburbs. So I go out of my way to try to support businesses in the city, and particularly minority-owned businesses, or whatever. So I need a printer, or I need a shredding company, or I need a cleaning company, or whatever. Yeah, just reiterate for the recording, to change all the paperwork, which includes pronouns, and then go to the businesses where it is supported. Thank you. And she also mentioned in meetings, being careful with pronouns, which I think is hugely important. Again, not to make assumptions. Sometimes you know that people are going to go by the pronoun they look like, and sometimes you might want to ask. I always have it. That's another thing. On the Zoom thing, I always have my pronouns. Just little things like that I think are important. And you don't have to be good at it. It's okay. I think the effort is important. All right, so we're about to wrap up time-wise, but the last one is one of the things we promised we'd give you, which is resources. So, Maha, you want to go first with some of the DEI things that the committee has done? Yes. We have DEI mentorship programs. The application process starts in March of every year and goes through November. So we ask for DEI mentors and mentees, and we offer scholarships, two in spring and two in fall, basically covering the cost of these seminar conferences and sometimes the travel expenses and also some money distribution towards education. So it's a great opportunity. And even for you, each one of you, to serve in the mentorship board, it's a great opportunity. And we have had about 15 last year, and this year also we have 15. We are wrapping up the mentee program in November. We had a great participation, and the mentees are really thankful to us for giving them the opportunity. A lot of them were partnered with greater firms, and they were able to identify a purpose which matches them. So it's a great program. NAPFA PRIDE. Join NAPFA PRIDE. Any questions around LGBT issues that come up in planning, you'll be in a room of people who probably have dealt with that and probably have resources for you. And if you want to know more about that, the next workshop here in this room is working with LGBT clients. And wherever you fall on your experience with that, I have something in the workshop that will work. There's one more thing I want to add. There's a couple things going on. Sorry. There's a DEI training, too, and it happens in spring. The fall one is canceled, but in spring there is going to be a DEI certificate training. And there is also a DEI toolkit on the website available for folks to take more sessions and stuff. Right. So on the website you can go to the DEI toolkit, and there's six different case studies of different ways people are applying DEI to their practices. There's also a committee. If you want to serve on this, if this is something that becomes a bigger passion for you in your career, join the DEI committee and share your experiences and learn from others. I've learned a lot from my committee members. And then also in the handouts, there's a document you can pull that's about 15 pages long that has lots of other DEI resources within NAPFA. So if you forget everything we've said today, use the handout as a reminder. And I'll make a plug for a future speaker. I hope we can get to come. Her name is Dolly Chu. So if you're wondering where you should be on the DEI spectrum and you feel bad about your own progress, Dolly Chu has written two New York Times bestselling books. One is called The Person You Mean to Be, and the other is called A More Just Future. And she's amazing. She's got a PhD in this area. She teaches at New York University, and she writes from her own failings. She talks about her own family experiences and where she's trying to get better, despite the fact she's an industry leader in DEI, which made me feel much more comfortable on my journey that as many times I think I'm doing things wrong, I realize there's others who are much better than I am who still feel like they're not getting to the finish line. So she's a wonderful advocate for doing this kind of work and making you feel good about the efforts you're making to get towards the goals you have. Any other resources you all have found that have been really beneficial to your practice from outside sources that we should share? You want to get to the break? Well, fair enough. It's 11 o'clock. We appreciate you guys coming. All of our contact information is in the slides. It's up on the screen as well. Feel free to reach out to Maha, to Michelle, or to me. We'd be happy to answer your questions and be a resource for you guys in the future. We appreciate you coming out, and thanks for coming to Nashville. Thank you.

DEI

inclusive environments

business practices

financial advisors

diverse candidates

community engagement

corporate sponsorship

financial literacy

mentorship program