All right, we're going to go ahead and get started. Good morning and good afternoon, wherever you may be. My name is Jeff Jones. I am NAPFA's current chair of the Board of Directors, and I want to welcome you to the 2023 Spring Look Ahead. You will have an update on NAPFA's strategies and where we are and where we're going. And for those of you who attended these sessions before, you're going to notice a little bit of a change in our format. We're inviting a number of other speakers into this session to talk about what's going on, and we hope that you enjoy spending your time with us today. We have a number of topics we're going to cover today. Before we get to that, a little bit of housekeeping. All participants are going to be muted during the briefing. I would ask that you use the Q&A function to submit your questions and we'll be monitoring that at all times, and we'll inject those as necessary. There will also be a Q&A session at the end for you to submit questions. So for our topics today, we're going to be covering a number of things. Our financials, David Penamber will be giving us an update on where we are financially. We will be discussing our recent membership status and our numbers, our diversity, equity, and inclusion status. We will be talking about some advocacy that NAPFA is doing on your behalf, and the professional excellence, which is also one of our pillars in what we do as an association. And again, Q&A would come at the end. I want to welcome a number of individuals who are going to be joining us today. Again, I'm your chair, David Penamber is currently our Secretary of Treasury for the Board of Directors. Kelsey Brennan from the Membership Committee will be joining us as well as Dan Danford, who chairs our Public Policy Committee. We're also joined by a number of staffers. Catherine Dutomo is our new CEO. We will also be joined by Kristen Keith, Nikki Paluzzi, and Emily Harris. Nikki leads our membership services. She's our Senior Director. Emily is our Manager of Marketing and Communications, and Kristen is our Director of Professional Development and Education. It's with great pleasure that I want to introduce our newest CEO, Catherine Dutomo. Thank you, Jeff. I'm thrilled to join you as NAPFA's new CEO, and I want to thank NAPFA's Board, volunteers, members, and staff for the very warm welcome you have given me to the NAPFA community. And today is a great opportunity for you to come together, hear about where NAPFA is focused, and look ahead at some of our key initiatives, how you can participate, get engaged with NAPFA's network, and take advantage of all that your NAPFA membership has to offer. And we're very happy to have some of our staff members that you've probably received emails from or talked to virtually, and we're looking forward to seeing many of you in person in just a couple of weeks at our Spring Conference. So without further ado, I'd like to turn it over to Deva to give you a financial update. Thank you, Catherine. Hello, everybody. It's a pleasure to give you an update on NAPFA's finances. So broadly speaking, the income statement and balance sheet of NAPFA look good year to date because of the progress we made in our membership and the conferences we host for our members. Going into the details, and all these numbers are as of the end of February, which is also the end of the second quarter for NAPFA, total revenue year to date was about $2.5 million, which is 65% of the annual budgeted revenue of $3.9 million. And for the same period last year, the revenues were $2.1 million. Now the total expenses year to date were about $1.9, almost $2 million, and that is 51% of what was budgeted for the entire year, and that was $3.9 million. For the same period last year, expenses were $1.7 million. So that leaves us with an year to date net gain of about $575,000, and this does not include the gain or losses, and this year it's a gain on investments. Now I do want to point out that this year to date gain is seasonal because of the spring conference we are hosting next month. And as you all know, for the entire year, NAPFA usually budgets a close to zero profit or loss. Now at the end of each quarter, we also forecast what we expect for the entire year as compared to the budget. And as of now, the revenues for NAPFA are more or less tracking the budget, whereas on the expenses side, we are slightly over, about 2.5%, and that's because of certain one-time expenses related to the CEO search and the 40th year celebrations for NAPFA. Now moving on to the balance sheet, NAPFA ended the quarter with about $4.6 million in assets and about $1.35 million in liabilities, and that is leading to a fund balance of about $3.3 million. And this compares to a previous year fund balance around the same time of about $3.4 million. And as all of you know, a significant portion of this fund balance is maintained in our investment account. And with that, I'm going to hand it over to Kelsey to discuss membership. Thank you. All right. So just a membership update, so we'll start with some statistics. So in terms of the amount of members that we have and our membership goals, we are trying to hit a total membership number of 4,554 members by August of this year. And that number is composed of kind of two pieces. So we've got our new members that we're bringing in and our, you know, our retention percentage for our existing members. So our total is actually already at, you know, beyond the goal. We've got about 4,563 members as of March of this year. So in total, we're above that, and that is primarily because we have very high retention right now. We're actually at almost 97% over the goal of 90%. And we have 303 new members year to date. And then I'll kind of talk also about where our members are coming from in the next slide. So our NAPFA's new members come from three primary sources, about half of them are coming from new members at existing NAPFA firms, so firms where there are already other members that are in NAPFA, they're joining. The other quarter are coming from our XYPN partnership. So people that are in XYPN get a NAPFA membership through them. And then the other quarter of our new members are primarily just coming from new, you know, new members from new NAPFA firms. So people that have heard about NAPFA through word of mouth or conferences or, you know, other local groups that have talked about NAPFA. So we've got kind of a couple different places that our new growth is coming from. And then I will also talk about kind of what our goals are for 2023, what we're going to be looking to do. So of course, we're trying to, we're trying to maintain, you know, the membership experience that we have and continue to foster the high retention rates that we have. So, you know, the 97% that we have right now. And so right now we're kind of looking at CFP board, excuse me, CSO, CFP members get a free year of NAPFA membership after they become, excuse me, after they become NAPFA, they get a free year of NAPFA membership. And then they, most of them tend to convert to, excuse me, I'm just about to have a coughing fit, sorry. And we're also looking for younger, basically adding younger employees from existing. Sorry, Nikki, I have to like get a drink of water if you could. I'll jump in. Sorry. No problem. No worries. It happens. Okay. So a couple of things that we're looking at to focus on in 2023, as Kelsey mentioned, we're still looking to drive that member experience so that it's largely positive and that we have high retention rates, new CFP members. So folks who get their CFP receive an email from the CFP board, letting them know that they are entitled to a free year of membership with NAPFA if they qualify. So we're getting a lot of folks in that way, which is great because historically we haven't gotten people who are new to the profession to join NAPFA right away. So as Kelsey mentioned, the conversion rate is really good here. So people who join NAPFA with that free membership generally renew at the regular price and become NAPFA members earlier in their career, which is great for us. We've looked at adding younger employees at existing firms. So growing their member rosters, and we've had some success with that over the past couple of years. We'll be running that campaign again in the summer. And then we also look to partner with XYPN, the CFP board, and Quad A and Onyx to drive new memberships. So Quad A, for those of you who are not familiar, is an association of African American advisors. We have a membership deal with them so that they can become associate members if they qualify as NAPFA members and become part of the organization. Onyx, for anyone who doesn't know about that, it's fairly new still. It's like an XYPN, so it's a network, but it's for underserved folks in the financial planning space. So we've also worked out a discount for that group as well, so they can become members of the organization. So lots of good ways for us to continue to grow our membership at NAPFA in 2023. I am back. Thank you for that. No problem. My apologies. Yeah, so I'll kind of touch briefly on the membership experience programs, just because I myself have participated in those. So we've kind of got our mixed groups as a good way to get involved. Typically those are just a group of, you know, a couple advisors, maybe like six to 10 people. They meet monthly, virtually, and it can be, you know, people from all over the country. And those are primarily driven by NAPFA members themselves. So there are a lot of existing groups out there that you can join every now and then. You know, we'll send out emails saying that these are the groups looking for new members. But of course, if there is a topic, you know, a group that you want to start yourself, you can reach out and we will help you get that started. We also have over 50 local groups, which is, you know, the purpose of that is to try to get you connected with other NAPFA members that are in your area. And they meet both virtually and they try to meet in person. And then kind of another good way to get involved is conversation circles. We always have, you know, a couple of those every month, and they can be based on a specific topic or kind of a specific firm type. And, you know, they're usually about an hour and they're designed to be a conversation, you know, amongst the people that are joining. And you can kind of look at the calendar. We usually post them in advance on the calendar on the NAPFA Education Center. So you can kind of see all the ones that we have coming up and there'll be emails that we send out, you know, just to remind people of what we have upcoming. And then I'll touch on one last thing on the next slide, which is just to talk about our upcoming volunteer opportunities. So for people that are looking to get more involved, June 6 through July 7, we will be sending out an email for people to submit applications to volunteer. There are a lot of different types of volunteer opportunities that you can do. I've done different ones myself, you know, some of them are quick things, maybe like an hour-long project or more ongoing projects. So me, myself, I volunteered to be on the membership committee, and, you know, we meet monthly. So there's a lot of different opportunities, and we're really trying to encourage people of all, you know, ages and people that have been in NAPFA, you know, new members, people that have been involved in NAPFA for a while, you know, really anybody can apply to be a volunteer. So keep an eye out for that email coming out in the next couple months. And then I will turn it over to the DEI initiative. Great. One quick thing, someone had a question about what percentage of total advisors in the U.S. do NAPFA members comprise. I don't have a good answer to that. I don't know if anyone on this call has a great answer to that. One of the things that we have heard is that we believe that there are around 12 to 14,000 fee-only professionals, fee-only advisors in the United States, and so that's usually the number that we use when we're talking about what percentage of folks who are fee-only are part of NAPFA. So I'm going to talk a little bit just about the DEI work that NAPFA has been doing. So DEI is one of the pillars in NAPFA's strategic framework, which just came out in 2022. So it's a newer framework. We wanted to organize this member briefing in that way today so that you could see the work that's ongoing. So just a few quick things to start out. DEI, as I said, is a strategic initiative of NAPFA. It encompasses several areas of diversity, equity, and inclusion. So we believe that that means more than just race and ethnicity. It means more than gender. So I would say that when you're looking at programs that NAPFA currently offers right now through the initiative, our focuses are really gender, race and ethnicity, accessibility, and age. But we are working to get to all of those different areas of diversity. So if you have ideas or thoughts or places where we could plug in, the initiative would be happy to hear from you about that so that we could start some work in some other areas. NAPFA Genesis, our women's initiative, and the DEI initiative are currently NAPFA's communities of interest in these areas. So if you're looking for organized bodies where NAPFA is doing that work and you're looking to volunteer, those are the three places that I would tell you to reach out to or to express an interest in. And then the last point here really is that NAPFA believes that DEI is the business of the entire association. So it's not just the work of the initiative to make sure that NAPFA is a diverse and inclusive place that welcomes everyone. It's everyone's job. So you'll see that work ongoing through any volunteer body that you work with at any conference that you attend, any event or programming, it's always something that's top of mind for NAPFA. So next we're gonna talk just a little bit about some of the current DEI programming because often I hear from NAPFA members who say, well, how can I get involved or how can I participate? So we have a few different things. One conversation circle. So Kelsey touched on these from an overall membership perspective just a few moments ago, but they're really just one hour interactive Zoom meetings of 10 to 25 NAPFA members generally facilitated by another NAPFA member that are meant to be a safe space for people to talk about whatever the topic may be. So currently we have these facilitated on a quarterly basis by NAPFA Genesis, the Women's Initiative and the DEI Initiative. So if you're looking to sort of dip your toe in, get a sense of what NAPFA has been up to in the DEI space, I would recommend going out and taking a look at the calendar and seeing if there's one upcoming and just joining it. You don't even have to speak or participate. If you wanna just come to listen, we would love to have you there. And it's a good way to learn about what's going on at NAPFA. Webinar programming. NAPFA Genesis does almost a monthly webinar for its audience of advisors. So for us, our Young Planners Association, our group is 33 and under. So you can find webinars that will talk about career pathing and some other things that are important to that group. We also have Women's Initiative webinars that we do twice a year and DEI webinars that we do twice a year as well. You'll see those kinds of offerings also at the conference. So if you're coming to San Diego, you'll see some things that are sponsored by the initiative, both DEI and Women's Initiative. You'll also see some Genesis events. So we encourage you to participate in those. And then the last thing here I just wanna talk about quickly that we are working on before we move on to our big project right now is the DEI Toolkit 2.0. So in the winter of 2020, we released a toolkit that was comprised of two things. One, a guidebook with some actionable steps and definitions of what firms could do in the DEI space to move forward. And then also a series of video clips that were about five minutes long done by some subject matter experts in the field to talk about diversity and what it meant to them and what it meant to NAPFA. We have decided to go back and kind of expand on that project with a project that's really about case studies. So we are in the execution phase of this right now. NAPFA worked with six firms of varying sizes and diversity focuses to get a sense of what it is that they're doing in their DEI journeys, what they think that other NAPFA firms could be doing and how we can all be more actionable about our DEI work. We are compiling those right now into case studies that we will release out to the community in the May timeframe. I think it's really exciting. It was great to talk to NAPFA members about some of the work that their firms have done. They all have sort of a different flavor, but threads that kind of run consistently throughout all of them. So we'll be releasing those soon. You'll see lots of information about it from us, but wanted to let you know that that's coming. I have a lot of NAPFA members who reach out and say, you know, how can I participate? What can my firm do? We're a small firm. Is there anything that we can be doing to participate? And I think that a lot of the answers to these questions are in this case study project and they're coming from other NAPFA members. So super valuable, very excited about that and look for that in the May timeframe. And then the next thing I'm gonna talk about just a little bit here on the next slide is some other things that we have going on from a programming standpoint. So mentor programs. I know many of you are probably involved in these. So we have one for the Women's Initiative and then a new one this year for the DEI Initiative. Those mentor programs for applications are actually closed right now. Although if you are interested in being a mentor in the DEI space and you wanna reach out to us here at NAPFA, we would love to have you. We're looking for a couple more people. These were really meant as ways to pair up advisors with folks who are looking for a little bit of mentoring on some specific issues, specific to women and DEI. So we are very excited to launch those. The Women's Initiative did one last year. It was very successful, which is why you see it expanded here. And we probably will look to expand it again next year. And then the Women's Initiative is doing a scholarship program. So this is the second year that they've done it. They're awarding 2,500 scholarships to some students. They're going through the process right now of evaluating all 45 of their applications that they received. It is a really robust process for them. They've gotten a lot of good applications, but the folks who actually won this last year are now starting to get involved in NAPFA as an association. So it's really great to see them get some scholarship recognition for the work they're doing in their colleges, and then to translate that to being either NAPFA volunteers or NAPFA members as they move into their career. And then the last thing that I wanna talk a little bit about here, before we talk about how you specifically can participate, is our DEI training and certificate program. So we created this and launched it last May. I can't believe it's been a year already. It was created by financial advisors, for financial advisors. The DEI initiative worked really hard on launching this program. We offer it twice per fiscal year. So for NAPFA, that is September 1st to August 31st. We do it in a hybrid format in the spring and an all virtual format in the fall. So it includes four on-demand modules that are focused on the topics of people, culture, inclusion, and hiring practices. And then we do a live workshop that's facilitated by NAPFA volunteers. So what it looks like in May is that it will, the live workshop happens at the pre-con. So if you're interested, you can see the QR code there. We're still looking for a few more registrants for that. We have a little bit of space, but it's a small group. So if you're interested, I would say go ahead and register soon. And then the one that's in the fall, we do that actually the live workshop in two parts over a Zoom. So still you get that live experience of talking to other advisors and sharing experiences with each other, but it's not something you have to travel for. So we recognize that that's not always doable for everyone. And part of being diverse and welcoming and inclusive is making sure that it's accessible. So we've had 40 participants through the program so far. We're hoping to get more folks registered this spring and also in the fall. If it's something you're interested in and you need more information, please feel free to reach out to me. And then lastly, just how to participate. So if you are a member of Genesis or the Women's Initiative, we would love for you to join our Facebook group or attend an upcoming webinar or conversation circle. Although that really goes for anyone. If you want to be part of any of those spaces, we welcome you. If you have not yet taken the DEI training and certificate program, and you think that it's something you might be interested in, I would say, go ahead and sign up for that. We've gotten great feedback from it. People love that session and I think it's really valuable. And then the last thing I would say, I know that Kelsey already plugged it, but I am the membership director. So I have to say that if you want to participate, I would say you should participate in that call for volunteers that's coming up in June. It doesn't matter how much time you have or how long you've been a member of NAPFA. We would love to have you and your perspective and your experience to share and move forward in our DEI initiative. So if you have questions about that, feel free to reach out to us here at NAPFA. We're really excited about all the work that we're doing and we want to continually evolve and make it better. So always looking for member feedback on that. So that's everything for me. And with that, I will turn it over to Dan Danford for an advocacy update. Hello, everybody. Welcome. Thank you for allowing me the opportunity to spend a few minutes with you talking about some of the public policy stuff that we've been doing. But yeah, the policy issues, these are the big policy issues. I want to touch on that real quickly. Number one issue is the fiduciary standard of care. Number two is investment advisor oversight. And number three is recognition and regulation of financial planning. Those are kind of the big picture ideas of what we are doing. There are also a number of policy initiatives, which is the next slide. And I'm not going to go into those in great detail, although I'm glad to talk to you about them if you want. What I thought I'd do is tell you a little bit more about how the group works. And the reason for that is because we tend to be kind of invisible. There is a whole lot that goes on, but it's not all obvious to everybody who just picks up the magazine or the newsletter or reads the things, simply because so much of it is actually taking place in Washington or other places. So I just want to tell you a little bit about the group. First of all, there are 10 advisors, NAPFA advisors who are on this group along with the chair of the board and also the director of the association. And what one of my friends described and I'm kind of proud of in a way, is they say NAPFA punches beyond its weight class. And what that means, I guess, is that if you look at the number of people in our organization at 4,500 or whatever, we're a relatively small group compared to say the CFP board, which has, I think, 80,000. And yet we have a lot of clout. And there are reasons for that. Part of it's purposeful, but part of it is because we're a special organization. Number one, our brand is very respected nationally and especially in Washington, DC. And the other thing that I think makes us a little unique is that our advisors are unified through principle. And what I mean by that is that FPA and CFP board have large groups of people, but those people come from diverse practices. Some are brokers, some of them are at RIAs, some of them are independent solo. It's very hard for them to take a strong position sometimes because it does not appeal to some segment of their group. Well, NAPFA is different than that. We're all more alike than we are different. And so it's really easy for us to take a position as long as it aligns with kind of what our principles are and what we'd like to do. The thing that complicates that a little bit is that none of it is as simple as it looks. I mean, when I got involved with this group, I kind of thought, well, you know, lobbying, big deal. We got these things we want. But that was because I wasn't very familiar with it and I've become more familiar. First of all, nothing that we do happens in a straight line. And there's a reason for that. And that's because there are 535 elected representatives in Congress, plus their various committees. There's also the White House, which occasionally does executive orders and takes administrative actions that affect us and our clients. And then there are the various regulatory agencies. There's the SEC, the DOL, the GAO. All of those people are, you know, in some ways doing things that affect us and our clients. And we have to keep track of those things and if necessary, get involved. You don't think about it, but the GAO, that's the Government Accounting Group, you know, a year ago, they started working on a white paper about retirement security in America and the advice that people receive. Now, this isn't the GAO, this isn't the SEC. We actually participated in some, you know, sit down discussions with them, which were actually recorded so that they could use that in crafting what they came out with. Well, multiply that times, you know, the Securities and Exchange Commission and the Department of Labor and the various other things. Those are the kinds of things that are happening all the time. They just don't bubble to the top necessarily right away. I mean, that's been a year ago and I still haven't seen the report on that yet. So we'll see. Part of the way we do this is we hire professional help. And so I'm sitting here talking to you. I facilitate the meetings. We meet monthly. I review the information. If necessary, I'll offer an opinion on something. But in truth, we have Michael Watkins as a consultant who deals completely in this area. He crafts a 12 or 15 page report for our committee each month, updating us on these various segments and what's going on there and where we might be needed or what we might need to do. Very important position. We also hire lobbyists. We use a group called Holland and Knight. They're a law firm in Washington, DC. Again, this is something that doesn't necessarily seem obvious, but I learned that there are places in the Capitol building that only allow congressional representatives into this place and former congressional representatives into this place. So I think it's called the coat room or something like that. Well, what that means is that if you want to lobby those people at the Capitol or talk to them, you really need a former representative or somebody to be able to sit in those places and talk to them. That's why so many law firms in Washington, DC hire people who have left Congress. Okay, that's why we have Holland and Knight. They help us craft the message and they help us present the message to the people who actually can affect the message. And that's really important. Another real important part of what we do are our affiliations with other groups. I already mentioned the CFP board. I mentioned FPA. We have a lot in common with those people. And lots of times we speak together on issues. Sometimes we don't. I mean, sometimes NAPFA has a different position than they do, and that's fine. But where we can work together, we do work together. We belong to an organization called Friends of Fiduciary. It's a broad group of people that are interested in us having a fiduciary standard for everybody in the industry. We speak together sometimes. We belong to a group that visits with the state regulators. Many people in NAPFA, many people in the investment business are actually regulated by their states rather than the SEC. So we have an interest in what's going on Now, we don't get really involved in all that, but we can step in or we can make comment if it's necessary. There's also a group on professional certifications where we belong as a member with another 200 groups. I mean, you don't think about it necessarily, but we belong with nurses and with barbers and all these other regulated entities to protect the various things that we have. The fact that we're a NAPFA registered advisor that has certain obligations and responsibilities. If a state wanted to pass something that might affect that, then this group would address that along with other people who are interested. Anyway, it's just when we sing with the choir, we're louder than when we sing by ourselves. So working with these other groups is really key to what we do as part of your public policy committee. So last, the work that we do is fun, but it can be frustrating. For one thing, things take a very long time in Washington. Michael Watkins told us last week he has a rule of seven years, any dramatic change to the laws or policies often take seven years to happen in Washington. Well, obviously, we chomp at the bits to get things done quicker if we can, but I think it's really good to recognize that it takes a long time to accomplish that. The other thing is we can work really long and hard on a bill or a regulation, and they can just change overnight. I mean, this is what we're trying to do. And we get up tomorrow morning and somebody made a change in that bill that's going to appear before Congress tomorrow. That can just upset the apple cart. I mean, you just have to respond when that happens. So I guess what I'd say last is that it is fun and it is an adventure. It's an ongoing thing. And we'd welcome your help if you want. We are blessed to have really good advisors on our team. We have great professionals that we work with. And maybe the best thing we have is we have an easy group to advocate for. NAPFA is very intuitively friendly. So consumers like us, the press likes us. Most of the people on Congress like us, unless maybe they're tied to the brokerage industry in some fashion or something. But generally speaking, it's a really good group to work with. And we've had some pretty significant successes over the years. So I just welcome your input any time that you have. We'd welcome you on the committee if you want to participate on a monthly basis. I will stop, come up for air. I'll pass it along to Emily Harris. And if there are any questions, we'll be glad to answer them at the Q&A at the end. Thanks, Dan. Hi, everyone, I'm Emily. I'm going to touch on our consumer outreach, including some programs that we've worked on, such as the Google Search ad campaign, our annual consumer survey that we conduct each year, and then our new marketing and communications advisory group. So I'll first touch on our Google Search ad campaign. This is a project that we've worked on with a media company known as Vox Media each year. And the campaign specifically revolves around encouraging consumers to utilize our find an advisor tool. So we have a strategy set up within this campaign to target people who are showing through their Google searches that their online behavior is showing that they are in market for a financial advisor or financial planning services. On the next slide, I'll touch on just the specifics about this campaign. So it has run it has been running from October and it will run through May. And some of the keywords that these individuals are utilizing is includes financial advisors, financial planner or find advisors. So the campaign centers around these keywords that individuals are using, and it's been successful so far. We have been in more than 64,000 Google searches related to financial planning and our find an advisor tool has received over or nearly 3000 searches in this time frame. On the right, you'll just see some examples of what these advertisements look like. So this is what consumers are seeing when they are searching these keywords such as financial advisors. On the next slide, I will touch on our consumer surveys. So this is another project that we work on with Vox Global. Each year we conduct a survey where we ask consumers what is important to them. And in this past year, they specified that they are looking to their employers for financial wellness benefits in particular. So we take this data from this survey and we generate an infographic as well as a press release with this information to provide to the members and to have on our website for consumers in case they're interested in this information. And the infographic and the press release and the other information that we release on this survey kind of drives people back to the find an advisor tool as well on our website. So you'll see from year to year, we've done this for several years, but just in the last year, we have increased our audience significantly. We've significantly increased our placements as well. These surveys are showing up on Yahoo Finance, MarketWatch and other areas. And again, they're just all directing consumers back to the find an advisor tool. The next project I'll talk about touches a little bit on the survey and it is related to our marketing and communications advisory group. So this is a new group that was started in the last year with five NAPFA members. They are subject matter experts, as you all are, on consumer resources that are available. So we have a consumers tab on our website. And if you have visited that in the past, you might have noticed there's a lot of information that really needed to be refined and organized. So this group has been going for the last few months, going through this content, really refining it, removing anything that might be outdated and adding new resources to it. So this is the area where you'll find our past consumer surveys. You'll find really helpful infographics, PDFs, articles and other information that consumers can find from coming to our website, but that we also encourage you to share with your clients and potential clients as well. So how can you take advantage of these benefits? Something that we really encourage is to go on to the find an advisor tool and test using it as a consumer. Try to find your profile and take a look at it from the consumer side and see how you can best update it. As you know from the Google search campaign, we're really getting a lot of searches through that campaign to the find an advisor site. So we want you to make sure that your profile is as up to date as possible. And then, as I mentioned, just utilizing those consumer resources. We encourage you to utilize these infographics, these PDFs, these resources. If you have potential clients who want to know more about fee only, about being a fiduciary, things like that, you're welcome to share those on your website, on social media and more. And with that, I will pass it over to Kristen. Emily, one thing quickly, can you go back and just show us where the link to the consumer survey results are? Yeah, so it is under the state of financial planning in America. So that second to last item under the consumers tab, you'll find the current one as well as the last, I believe, three years. Thank you. Okay, thanks, Emily. My name is Kristen. Hi, everyone. I'm going to give you some updates on the professional development and education. We launched, we actually distributed a survey in January. It's just a brief educational survey to our members to help the education committee identify where to focus their efforts. And these are the results of the member feedback. The most preferred method of learning isn't necessarily a surprise. While Zoom fatigue was an issue, the convenience of affordability and accessing high-quality education from the comfort of your home just continues to be appealing for the large population, which is why we continue to offer the virtual experience in tandem with our in-person national conferences. As we looked at our portfolio of educational offerings, we wanted to ensure a well-rounded experience for our members. One-day topical virtual events on topics like estate planning or tax planning are a great way to continue to accomplish this. So the committee was excited to see interest in this particular opportunity. And then last, advanced level content just continues to be a top consideration when determining where to invest professional development spending. So we just continue to use that to leverage our webinars and our in-person conference content. Last June, we actually launched, hopefully everybody's aware of this. Last June, we launched our new learning system, the NAPL Learning Center. Nearly 65% of our membership has accessed the platform and taken advantage of the enhanced learning experience. The Learning Center is where you can access all upcoming virtual events, as well as past educational offerings on demand. This is where you can also self-report your CEs. So if you're wondering where you can do that, you're going to do that in the Learning Center. And you can also track your CE progress. And just a reminder, we are in the second year of the CE cycle, so take advantage of that. Don't delay. Go ahead and get into the Learning Center. If you don't know where to find that, you can go to education.napfa.org. You can also find it on our website under the education dropdown. We also have a robust library of tutorial videos. So if you're not really sure how to navigate, it's okay. We have lots of videos. They're very short, very brief. They kind of touch on the topics that are top of mind for people. But you can always contact us with questions. NAPFA partners with numerous educational partners to offer free and discounted pricing on educational programs. Brand new this year is our partnership with Enlight, which is an organization that focuses on the psychology of financial planning. They offer a course on managing conflict for advisors. And they also offer a course on love and money that you can share with your clients. Medicare Interactive Pro and NARSA both offer multi-module deep dive training. But if you want additional information on all of these different partnerships, go ahead and head over to our website. We have lots of information as well as how to access these offerings. So our playbook webinar series, the 2023 playbook webinar series, continues to focus on taking theory to practice. There are three topics in the series focused on marketing and practice management. And each series has three sequential sessions within them. Playbook session number one has already passed, but you can still access all of that content on demand in the Learning Center for free. And you can also find the upcoming playbook webinars, playbook webinar series that you can register for for the rest of the year. So at this point, our events are contracted through 2025. Unless you've unsubscribed from our emails, you're probably aware that we do have a spring conference coming up in San Diego, May 10th through the 13th. We have a really great pre-conference webinar with Jeff Levine on May 10th. And then we also have two and a half days of really great educational content, opportunities to network. We're also celebrating our 40th anniversary all year long. So you'll find celebrations at the spring conference as well as the fall conference. We also have these two new tracks this year. It's really an opportunity for you to bring your team. We have an operations track on Thursday as well as an investments track on Friday. If you have team members, coworkers, friends that you think could benefit from this, we have day passes available. So they don't have to attend the full conference. As we know, most of the sessions are focused towards the advisor. But these are two great opportunities to just have a really great team experience at the conference. Our fall conference will be held at the Omni Louisville, October 18th through 21. The committee is currently in the process of working to build out a great program for that. So keep your eyes open for your email for a save the date when we'll announce our keynotes as well as our pre-conference workshops. In 2024, we're going to host our national conferences in Fort Worth, Texas and Nashville, Tennessee. And the large firm forum will be taking place at the JW Marriott Scottsdale, February 19th through the 21st. So go ahead and mark your calendars. These are also already listed on the website. So if you don't take notes right now, you can go to the website, check those out, mark your calendar so that you're saving those dates. And then last but not least, the 2025 national conferences will be held in Phoenix and Washington, D.C. So lots of exciting places going on. And at this point, I'll turn it back over to Nikki to manage Q&A. Thank you. So just a couple of questions so far. So if you have them, go ahead and ask now. One question, Kristen, is when will registration for the fall conference open? Yeah, that's a great question. So at this point in time, we're planning to open registration for fall conference in the second week of July. We like to wait until just after the 4th of July. But, you know, like I said, just keep an eye on your email when we announce it then. Thank you. And then another question I got that I guess is actually for me is where can I find the Conversation Circle program? So Kelsey mentioned that it's out on the learning in the Learning Center. So you can find it there. Also, if you're on the NAPA website and you navigate under community, you'll see conversation circles there and you'll see the full list of all the upcoming ones that we have and registration links. And then I'll just give it a few more seconds to see if anything else comes in. But those are the two questions that we have as of now. So I will add that one of the core values of our firm is transparency. And so we've had a few things come in on the Q&A that are not necessarily questions, but I do want to address. So we have one comment. I'm all for supporting women and underserved folks, but it seems as if DEI has taken over NAPA and taken the place of promotion of fiduciary planning to the public. I want to address that comment. I assure you that NAPA has not focused solely on diversity, equity, inclusion. I made a comment on Engage recently that said that there are a lot of things behind the scenes that the members don't see. I had the opportunity this year to speak to both of my senators offices. That would not have been something that I could have done without NAPA. To Dan's comments and presentation, we have representation on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C. We have their ear. Advocacy is something that we push and is a part of our core value at NAPA. It's one of our initiatives. I also had the benefit to some of Emily's presentation to speak to dozens of radio stations across the country. We were certainly in cities like Chicago and L.A. and New York, but also talked to small and areas that were, you know, they're not large metropolitan areas. We're not just focused on large cities. Advocacy to the consumer is something that we take very seriously and that we do. There was some email correspondence that talked about how many millions of potential listeners we have addressed. To that point, that is certainly not something that has taken over NAPFA. We continue as part of our core values and commitment to the consumer to reach out and educate them. If there are any additional questions of that, I would certainly ask you to put them in the Q&A. We have another comment that says it's been about five years since I have a prospective client reach out because they heard of NAPFA through Find an Advisor. I would encourage you to log into your NAPFA.org website. On there, you're going to find the FAA Find an Advisor activity. I just want to share year to date for my firm. This is purely personal and directed at our firm. I've had 2,500 appearances in searches. I've had 247 that have viewed my profile. 82 of those have clicked through to our website. If you do not use Google Analytics, I would certainly encourage you to consider that. We monitor that on a regular basis at our firm. We see how many people click through our websites. Year to date, of those 82, about 10% of those have reached out. I would encourage you to ask the question to your prospective clients as to how they found you and encourage you to look at Google Analytics as well. I have one that's just a thanks from James Lee, so thank you James for participating today and then another one that says I submitted a question via email. And if you have chosen not to respond to it in this session will someone on the leadership team be responding yes we did receive a couple emails that we felt were really specific to people so we'll be taking a look at those and routing them to the right person to answer them. Matt Elliot asks where can we find the number of profile hits on the Napa find an advisor page. And I don't, I'm nervous to do this live like a live demo because we don't have someone signed in but Matt I will follow up with you to show you where that is. Matt, I will, Nicky may have been hesitant to answer this live, but I will say from my aspect, once I log into NAPFA, there is a welcome Jeff Jones along the top of the bar. And when I click under that, I see a session that says members, it gives me member portal, excuse me, portal, FAA activity report along with some other items. And so that's where I go and find it, and I monitor that on about a monthly basis. That's perfect. I just didn't want to mess around with my screens at the moment, but that is where you can find it, Matt. If you have any trouble, please feel free to reach out and we will help you with that. You're welcome. Any, any other questions that you have for our, our board members, our volunteers, our staff members our CEO. Looks like that's it. I would just encourage everyone, if you think of something after this, you can always reach out to us directly at info at Napa.org, membership at Napa.org. We will find you the right person or volunteer or staff person to talk to. We always welcome member feedback and we're here to answer any questions that you may have. All right, I will wrap this up. I love this association. I have volunteered for about eight years, and this is one common thread that anytime I have an opportunity to speak to you, I speak about volunteerism. I would ask that you just get involved, find somewhere to plug in. This has been the most rewarding volunteer work that I've ever done in my professional career. So thank you today for joining us. I want to thank our panelists. I want to thank our staff. I want to thank our brand new CEO. They pour their hearts into this as well. And they're the boots on the ground that are getting this work done. And we have our core values. We are committed to that. Personally, as a chair and as a I think I can speak for the board of directors. So again, thank you for joining us today. Looks like there are no further questions. And so we will give you back a few minutes of your time. You have a wonderful, wonderful day.

2023 Spring Look Ahead

NAPFA

virtual event

updates

membership status

diversity

professional development

advocacy efforts

resources