The Financial Planning Association is omitting a part of its reorganization plan and delaying other proposals to gather more information, the association announced Tuesday.
The changes in the reorganization plans have been made since the complete overhaul was announced in November and reflect feedback the organization has gathered in the intervening months, the leaders said at a press briefing held last week.
The new plan eliminates a provision that would have had all 86 local chapters give up their legal independence to fall under a central national legal entity.
“The idea of merging the chapters as a single legal entity did not feel right, so that is off the table,” said Evelyn Zohlen, FPA president. “We will try a centralized legal organization with chapters if they want, but it is not a requirement.”
“Some chapters expressed concern over changing the legal structure of chapters citing that it could result in a loss of autonomy. While the intent of this provision was to strengthen our culture organization-wide, this decision is being deferred until the results of the beta-tests are known and deeper exploration can take place,” FPA said.
A 45-day comment period ending May 30 has been added to the plans to gather additional feedback from members, said Lauren M. Schadle, FPA executive director and CEO.
Since November when the original plans to make the FPA a more centralized organization were announced, FPA leaders met with local chapters to determine how they want to proceed. After the comment period, final plans are expected to be adopted in the summer but additional adaptations can be made later, FPA said.
The OneFPA Network, which will be created under the new organization rules, is designed to combine certain functions on a national level, such as technology and reporting, and is based on “participatory governance” to include local chapters in a centralized organization. The new proposal, called the “second iteration,” was developed by the OneFPA Transition Task Force, a body of national and chapter leaders, who had the responsibility of synthesizing feedback from members and recommending potential changes to the original draft plan.
“The entire feedback process – especially the listening tour to engage our stakeholders [that was held since November] – demonstrates the power of participatory governance, which is one of the OneFPA Network’s key tenets,” Zohlen said.
Ten chapters that volunteer will participate in a two-year beta test of the planned centralized technology, accounting and financial reporting, and staffing functions. The original plan called for chapters to report on their finances to the central body but to retain control of finances on a local level. That provision remains in the revised proposal.
To carry out the goals, an Advisory Council and Advisory Council Executive Committee will be created this year. Every chapter will have representation on the advisory council.