Despite our broad agenda, CFP certificants are vital to our purpose. We're a bit like a hospital that must balance the needs of its doctors with those of its patients. Think of the public as CFP Board's shareholders and CFP certificants as our highly valued clients. No organization can prevail that fails to respect the needs of both groups. Maintaining competency and ethics standards that serve the public, regardless of business model, will remain our core activity. All of our work is done in the context of our current nonprofit structure.

U.S. trademark law requires us to guard against careless use of our certification marks. If those marks were to become generic, anyone could claim to be a CERTIFIED FINANCIAL PLANNER professional, just as today anyone can call himself or herself a "financial planner." With cooperation, the day may come when our marks are etched indelibly in the public consciousness. But to surrender the marks now because some individuals consider correct usage inconvenient would be irresponsible to the public that relies on those marks.

Experience has taught us to respect dissension. Dissension, in my view, has assisted our Board of Governors to become better. Consequently, we have adopted processes to collect and review feedback before we enact measures with broad impact. We seek input from diverse stakeholders including consumer groups, candidates, certificants, government agency staff and educators. Our Board of Governors meetings are open to the public. Dick Wagner stopped by our January meeting, and we hope others will visit the Board of Governors meetings May 13-14 and September 9-10 in Denver. The latter meeting will immediately precede the FPA Denver 2004 conference (formerly "Success Forum.") We will also post the job description for a new CEO online to inform the public about the qualities we seek.

We invite dialogue regarding CFP Board activities but our public mission "is what it is." Standards are worthless unless people benefit from them. Our volunteer leaders work not for personal gain or self-aggrandizement but to uphold and strengthen those standards through the CFP certification. We accept responsibility for mistakes, learn from them and move on. Dredging up tired criticisms of past initiatives benefits no one. We ask that the public weigh our occasional missteps against our accomplishments. Growing public confidence in CFP Board's standards suggests that, with your help, we are doing a good job.

If we work together to enhance and enforce competency and ethics standards in financial planning, consumers and the planning community will both benefit. We ask our critics to take into consideration our mission to benefit the public, the demands of trademark law and our 501(c)(3) tax status, and not to lose sight of the tremendous progress we've made. If you do this and still have reason to take issue, contact us. We are open to discussion.

My pledge to the public and to you is to do everything we can to be transparent with our thinking, steadfast in our dedication to our mission, and open to discussion on future initiatives and outcomes. It is only through practitioners like yourselves that financial planning can become a profession. CFP Board has a role to play but the primary responsibility lies in your relationship with your clients.

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