LPL Financial has unveiled a new education program their advisors can conduct on their own to improve the financial literacy of their clients and members of their community.
The World of Business Reading Group (WBRG), a financial literacy program designed by leadership support group Collaborative Gain, highlights six letters Warren Buffett wrote to shareholders on a variety of topics.
The six topics the course covers are ethics, finance and operating earnings, business leadership and decision-making, what makes a good company, how do markets operate, and the power of compounding.
“The beauty here is you actually have something that’s real life, that was happening in a point in time,” said Rob Pettman, executive vice president of Wealth Management Solutions at LPL Financial. “You’re examining arguably one of the greatest investors of all time and you’re going through real issues and real history.”
Students receive one of Buffett’s writings along with questions they will have to answer related to the original writing, according to Pettman. After completing the six-week course, students receive a certificate of completion.
LPL will provide advisors, free of charge, access to the materials to conduct the course. It will include a syllabus, the writings, a list of the questions along with the answers, and instructional videos on how to conduct each lesson.
The expectation is that advisors will use it to reach out to their local communities or help the children of their clients increase their understanding of basic investment concepts. However, how the advisor chooses to administer the program is up to them, Pettman said. The program is not meant to be included as part of a mandatory curriculum at a school.
“The advisor has ultimate flexibility to chase how they want to deliver the program,” he said. “We essentially give them the toolkit to go out and apply it with the flexibility that they want to make an impact in the communities.”
While the program was originally designed for high school students, Pettman said he can envision it including other groups as well. Specifically, he can see it as a resource for the younger generation in the middle of starting to accumulate wealth as well as those who may not have specific investment experience.
Pettman is optimistic that the program can help LPL’s advisors develop strong ties with their community and begin making those overtures to the next generation.
“The expectations are that we’ve given another resource for advisors to deepen the relationship within their community and with their existing client base and perhaps reach an audience they may have had trouble reaching before in the past,” he said.