Last year, a group of mostly low- and middle-income people from the San Francisco/Oakland area gathered for a free financial planning seminar sponsored by the East Bay Chapter of the Financial Planning Association, an event geared to people who don't usually have access to advice. Many in this group were surprised at the conference to find out they had money waiting for them in bank accounts they didn't even know existed.

California State Controller John Chiang had done a computer search on all those who had signed up for the conference online and found the dormant accounts. Each name Chiang called out during that session drew a cry of delighted surprise, noted Gordon Dunne, managing director of the Financial Services Network, San Mateo, Calif., who is also president of the East Bay FPA chapter. Despite some accounts with a few thousand dollars in them, most of the new found money was in small amounts. None had enough to drastically change any lives.

For that, the participants were looking hopefully to the financial planners who donated their time.

The attendees included those normally underserved by the financial planning system, including the poor, those with literacy problems and those who just never felt they had enough assets to warrant a financial planner's attention. Planners came to answer their questions, offer advice and show them how to budget, among other things, and hopefully lead them to long-term life changes. 

Financial planners are often casting their nets for rich clients, trying to help people increase or preserve the wealth they have already created. But most Americans do not fit that category. The median household income in the U.S. is $50,000. Almost 10% of Americans are now unemployed and more are underemployed with debts growing.

Yet a growing number of financial planners and experts are changing that and offering to help those who are underserved. Saundra Davis, the president of Sage Financial Solutions, a small not-for-profit in San Francisco, goes so far as to call the effort a groundswell.
Davis is a teacher, financial coach and mentor in the not-for-profit sector (rather than a professional financial planner). But many CFPs in the San Francisco Bay Area, one of the richest regions in the country, are also involved in organized efforts to provide planning to those who can't afford it, offering low-income people time in a number of formats-one-on-one meetings, group sessions, seminars and educational workshops, among other things.

One of the people Davis has helped is Dametra Williams, a Bay Area single mother who was working for $10 an hour when she discovered the Earned Asset Resource Network (EARN), a not-for-profit that matches eligible clients' savings with $2 for each $1 saved and helps them take control of their financial lives. Davis is co-founder of EARN's Wealthcare Financial Coaching Program.

By the time Williams found EARN she had almost no confidence left about her finances. She chokes back tears when she tells of trying to raise a daughter on a $10 an hour job, never being able to make ends meet. She compares herself unfavorably to her own mother, who managed to raise 12 children successfully.

With the help of EARN and its group of financial planners and coaches, Williams has created a budget and has saved enough that, with scholarships, she can get a college degree. She is sending her daughter to college and is starting her own small business.

Now she is more confident, and tells others with a broad smile on her face, "We forget sometimes, how strong we really are."

Davis said she had always wanted to help those on the bottom rungs of the economic ladder reach up, but at first she could not figure out how to make a living doing it. She obtained several grants to start mentoring programs and she helped employees of not-for-profits put their own finances in order, so they could, in turn, help their clients. Now she also recruits experienced financial planners to help mentor "newbies" in the profession, many of whom volunteer to provide planning services for those who cannot afford even a few hundred dollars for a financial plan, let alone fees for help with investments.

Another professional, Frank Paré, president of PF Wealth Management Group LLC in Oakland, Calif., took a more traditional financial planning route. A CFP licensee, he began in financial services 20 years ago after working his way through San Francisco State University. He earned his way up through several broker-dealer and investment advisory firms before he decided to start his own business nearly five years ago with no clients and no assets. His average client account is now $300,000 to $500,000, usually belonging to a business executive, a middle manager or a recently retired person.

Paré's first client was his mother, and, somewhat coincidentally, his firm now handles the investments mostly of women. But his other passion is spreading financial education to low-income people. He attended an FPA financial planning seminar for underserved people in Los Angeles and came back to the Bay Area so enthused he insisted on starting the same type of event there. The idea has mushroomed in the last three years. This year, FPA Financial Planning Days will be held in 30 cities between the first of October and the end of the year.

At these events, financial advisors give their time to help with whatever questions the participants bring them. No one is allowed to sell any financial products, use the event as a marketing tool or even give out a business card. For that reason, it is difficult to say how many of the participants follow up on a financial plan or on the advice given, says Dunne, who helps organize the events.

Dunne says the growing need for pro bono and volunteer work among financial planners stems from current economic conditions. "I think there were always advisors who were willing to help, with no particular personal gain involved, but now a lot more need has been generated by the unemployment and real estate problems," Dunne says. "I think it is the times that have brought out these altruistic desires that were always present in a lot of planners. We have the ability to help people. [Paré] even organized an event in Richmond, Calif., a smaller city with a lot of hard economic problems, where you would think a financial planner would be an unknown entity, and he got a huge turnout."

A key factor in making all of these efforts materialize has been getting municipal, state and national officials and like-minded organizations involved. The U.S. Conference of Mayors has joined the FPA, the Foundation for Financial Planning and the Certified Financial Planner Board of Standards in reaching out to the underserved population.

Davis and others feel lower economic level people need financial planning help more than those at the top of the economic ladder. The Foundation for Financial Planning was organized in part to promote just these kinds of efforts and events.

The Financial Planning Day events are a perfect example of rallying resources to provide free services. "We issued an open invitation for everyone to come," says Marvin W. Tuttle Jr., CEO of the FPA. "Maybe they are dealing with foreclosure or have lost a job or have large credit card debt. Most of the participants will not be the people that planners traditionally serve, but they need a basic financial plan.

"We are incredibly grateful to the mayors who are working with us. The municipal officials realize they have a responsibility to their citizens for their financial well being, as well as the other types of municipal services," Tuttle says.

Paré has now come to be known as one of the CFP Board of Standards Planning Days organizers for the Bay Area with the assistance of Leslie Bigger, FPA East Bay Chapter co-chair for government relations.

He attributes part of the growth to "our collaboration with the U.S. Council of Mayors this year, [which] was a huge event for us," Paré says. "We submitted a formal resolution calling for similar clinics across the country and the U.S. Council of Mayors approved our resolution and submitted it to Congress for a formal vote. This will help to allow other elected officials in other cities to get the word out about the workshops. Our advisors devote a day of their time to help with any kind of financial question. If it is something they cannot handle, they refer the person to the proper place.
"We encourage participants to bring all of their financial papers with them so we can see what their challenges are," Paré adds. "But we did not want any of the advisors involved who had any product to sell. We want them to be there to give of themselves and their skills, not to use the day as a marketing tool."
The events that have been held so far have drawn a variety of participants, from welfare recipients to the middle class. It was at one of these events that California Controller Chiang announced the holders of lost bank accounts.

"Contributing pro bono time for people who cannot afford our services is a profound opportunity for us to help reduce the level of poverty," Paré explains. "It also shows the public we are a legitimate profession, because, unfortunately, there are some very smart people out there trying to rob the unsuspecting, and they can taint the whole profession."

For example, Davis knew of unsuspecting single mothers struggling to make ends meet that had been sold life insurance policies on small children, losing income sorely needed for more useful purchases.

Gregg Lynn, a realtor and EARN real estate auxiliary co-founder, says, "I have seen peoples' lives changed in a way that they feel empowered [when they learn to control their own finances]. It's a little bit at first, but it's a sense of pride, a sense of accomplishment, a sense of ownership, and that grows."

Project Read, a not-for-profit literacy organization in North San Mateo County, Calif., that helps adults with reading and writing, is now also giving financial planners an avenue for providing pro bono assistance to those who cannot afford the usual planners' fees. With grants from the Silicon Valley Community Foundation, Project Read's literacy program was expanded to include "Your Money/Your Life" after Project Read managers realized people with literacy problems often have financial difficulties as well. Davis plays a role here, too.
"We show people how not to live paycheck to paycheck, but to save and live on a budget," she says. "We give them knowledge. I had one woman come to me through this program who needed her credit score, but was afraid to ask for it because she did not know how to read it. Once we help someone, it has a ripple effect."

Vivian Padua, an administrative staff member at Project Read, has become one of those involved with helping people solve their financial problems. She finds the work so rewarding she is getting additional financial training and plans to become a full-time volunteer financial coach when she retires from her administrative position.

"I had a woman who had been involved with the literacy program for years, but we realized she also had financial problems," Padua says of Benita (who asked that her last name not be used). Benita was being pursued by the IRS even though she thought she was paying off her bill from the government.

"We finally found out that Benita just ignored the first few IRS letters because they were too confusing," Padua says. "Then she thought she was paying off the bill, but her wages were still being garnished and she could not understand why. We helped her solve the problem and it gave her a new sense of confidence. We never tell people what they 'should' do, but we help them, and, like Benita, they come away with a new 'can-do' attitude."

Because she wanted to help low-income people, but came from a different background from most financial planning professionals and did not have wealthy clients to pay her fees, Davis says she considers herself lucky to have been able to find backers for her various efforts. Her work in the financial field is being recognized at the FPA's annual convention in October in Denver, at which she will be named one of the 2010 Heart of Financial Planning Award winners.

The awards recognize individual professionals, not necessarily just financial planners, "who engage in extraordinary work, contributing and giving back to the financial planning community and public through financial planning. Recipients embody the spirit of financial planning and also represent FPA's core values [of] competence, integrity, relationships and stewardship," the FPA says.
Financial professionals who want to give their time also have to make a living, but giving back is of the utmost importance to many, they say.

Paré says his next goal is to reach out to even more financial planners and to more public officials to keep the effort growing and reach more people who need financial services. "If we can do this right, we can make a positive mark on our community and our country," he predicts.