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Practice Management > Diversity and Inclusion

CFP Board Rolls Out Scholarship to Support Next-Gen Women

By Jeff Berman

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The CFP Board Center for Financial Planning has launched an endowed scholarship program to mark the 10th anniversary of CFP Board’s Women’s Initiative (WIN).

The new WIN Endowed Scholarship program was designed to support the “next generation” of female certified financial planners, CFP Board Center says. The scholarship will assist qualified female students and professionals looking to complete the coursework required for CFP certification.

The new program will award up to $5,000 per qualified student seeking to complete an undergraduate-level or a certificate-level CFP Board registered program. After completing the required education coursework, scholarship recipients will be eligible to take the CFP exam and take the next steps to attain CFP certification, according to CFP Board Center.

WIN launched in 2013 to address the challenge of the underrepresentation of women in the financial planner workforce. The WIN Endowed Scholarship program is the second endowed scholarship offered by CFP Board, after last year’s introduction of the LeCount R. Davis CFP Scholarship, which honored the first Black CFP professional.

“By becoming financial planners, women can empower themselves and other women to take control of their finances and achieve financial independence,” said Kevin R. Keller, CFP Board CEO, in a statement.

“They can help educate women about financial literacy, investment strategies and retirement planning, which can be particularly valuable in a society where women often face financial challenges and inequalities,” Keller added.

The new WIN Endowed Scholarship program “will help to ensure that talented and motivated women have the support they need to pursue a career in financial planning and earn their CFP certification,” he explained.

CFP Board says it is “seeing some improvement” in the number of female CFP professionals, with women making up almost 30% of new CFP professionals last year. But the group concedes there is “still much work to be done.”

While women make up more than 50% of the U.S. population, only 23.6% of all CFP certificants are women, it notes. CFP Board’s 2022 class of new CFP certificants represented its most diverse class ever, reaching an all-time high of 1,519 new female CFP professionals.

The Certified Financial Planner Board of Standards recently said it was setting up a separate nonprofit organization to promote careers in financial planning and improve the public image of financial planners.

The new 501(c)(6) organization is called CFP Board of Standards, while the existing 501(c)(3) organization was renamed the CFP Board Center for Financial Planning — a program the group set up in 2015.

(Image: Shutterstock)

Jeff Berman

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