Despite slumping revenue and flat membership ranks, leaders of the Financial Planning Association can still deliver on their mission to advocate for a growing profession, the group's leadership said Sunday at its annual conference in Seattle.
“Even though the dollars might not be there, we think there's strength in numbers,” said the FPA's executive director, Lauren M. Schadle, referring to members. “We've got a grassroots action across the country.”
Grassroots action may have taken on increased relevance for the group's advocacy in light of its declining revenues and flat membership, now at about 23,150, down 17% from about seven years ago. The association took in $10.5 million last year, down nearly 36% from 2008, according to their audited financial statements.
“Our membership numbers have been stable for a couple of years,” Ms. Schadle said. “We made the necessary adjustments in the recent past to make sure that we're in a position to not only remain stable but ultimately to start [growing].”
She said the association's retention of members has increased by 5% in the last two years, a credit to what Ms. Schadle described as the FPA's “refocus of our brand."
Yet as the association's revenues have dipped, so have their expenditures on advocacy. The FPA spent nearly $1 million on those activities in 2008. In 2013, they spent a third less, according FPA financial statements.
Their spending on lobbying totaled $40,000 as of July 28, compared to $432,000 in all of 2012, according to data from the Senate Office of Public Records, furnished by The Center for Responsive Politics, a transparency-in-government advocacy group.
The association also closed a Washington, D.C. office with “four or five” employees in that period, according to FPA president Janet A. Stanzak.
Organization leaders say the amount they spend doesn't fully reflect their advocacy because much of their efforts are done by chapters, individual members and through a coalition with the Certified Financial Planner Board of Standards Inc. and the National Association of Personal Financial Advisors.
LEADING ON FIDUCIARY QUESTION
The firm's staff and volunteer leaders spoke during a round table with reporters on the sidelines of the FPA's conference.
The FPA, which represents a wide variety of advisers — particularly those with the certified financial planner credential — has been among the groups leading the charge for both investment advisers and brokers to be required to put their clients' needs ahead of their own interests when dispensing financial advice. Brokers are not held to the “fiduciary” standard in the U.S. currently, but a less-strict suitability standard.
(Related: Looking for middle ground in a fiduciary solution)
Mary Jo White, chair of the Securities and Exchange Commission, has indicated it is her goal to decide this year whether to alter those standards.
The FPA organized meetings between a coalition of 65 members and federal lawmakers on June 24, according to FPA board of directors chair Michael A. Branham, in what was billed as the first event of its kind for the organization.
And the association has been an active voice on a number of legislative issues — including deploying “user fees” to finance adviser compliance examinations and on the fiduciary standard — as part of the Financial Planning Coalition, the group effort including the CFP Board and NAPFA.
The effort on user fees gained additional support, and an associated bill gained its first Republican cosponsor, Rep. Spencer Bachus, R-Ala., in July. The FPA attributed those gains, in part, to their outreach to lawmakers.
Beyond advocacy, the group's leadership said its top goals included deepening the pipeline of younger people into the profession, developing “knowledge groups” for members on topics including estate and retirement planning, increasing sagging volunteerism among members and championing diversity in the industry.
“Starting from 2015, the majority of our board is going to be women,” said Edward W. Gjertsen II,president-elect of the FPA. “We know we're the leaders of the profession."
