The Essential Hub of our Financial Planning Community.



We empower financial planners by connecting them with the resources necessary to elevate their community impact.

What can we connect you with today?

Maintain My Professional Designation(s)

FPAAZ Actively Cultivates Quality Local Learning for Adult Learners:

Quality Local Learning means Rigorous + Engaging Learning for financial planning professionals. 

Introducing: Learning Hub+  and our Workbook for Professional Lifelong Learners. Note this workbook is still in draft form. Final form anticipated by Jan 25.  


Quality Local Learning:  Community Interest, Local Focus

Premise:  Consistently deliver Quality Local Learning (Rigorous + Engaging). 

Result:  Our community will prefer FPAAZ as their most trusted CE resource.

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FPAAZ hosts between 24-30 local Connection gatherings annually, at varied locations across major metro areas, with at least half of the gatherings qualifying for CFP® Professional continuing education credit. Consistently attending FPAAZ events provides financial planning professionals with 12-15 CE hours annually, most included in membership dues or very low registration costs.

Professional Development Working Team Volunteers focus on identifying topics our financial planning community desires, and then curating local Subject Matter Experts (SMEs) willing to deliver content via more interactive formats.  We encourage presenters to use our Learning Hub+ Adult Learning Styles Checklist, from our Learning Hub+ toolkit. 

When SMEs use the Learning Hub+ checklist and toolkit, you are more likely to have a Rigorous + Engaging CE experience.  

Many/most gatherings are Face to Face, with potential for Watch Parties in other locations as desired and requested in advance.

Chapter Connect! Calendar


Ethics Compliance - Introducing:  Compliance Hub+

CFP Ethics: FPAAZ is recognized as a center of excellence for CFP® Ethics education.  We credit the application of Learning Hub+ principles when delivering this mandatory content.  Our chapter was chosen to participate as a focus group in the summer of 2024, reviewing and providing commentary to CFP Board of Standards education staff on their draft updated Ethics course content.  Our feedback influenced the direction of prior and current course content toward more interactive, pragmatic material.

Annually expect at least one FPAAZ opportunity to complete your CFP Ethics course credit requirement.

Insurance and IAR/RIA Ethics:  FPAAZ supports unique Ethics content for Insurance Licensed professionals, as well as IAR/RIA Ethics continuing education. "Good People. Bad Things." leverages the Learning Hub+ adult learning toolkit - resulting in a fast moving 4 hour workshop that connects the dots between your firms' stated values and your compliance vulnerabilities.

Duty of Care Training: All CFP® Professionals have a Fiduciary Duty when delivering financial advice to clients.  Along with the Duty of Loyalty and the Duty to Follow Client Instructions, the Duty of Care practice standards form the backbone of delivering consistently professional financial advice. 

FPAAZ's commitment to exceptional governance and the adoption of Dynamic Governance systemically incentivizes a high Duty of Care in our decision making. 

Following the recommended process steps in the Board of Standards Duty of Care guidance before submitting proposals in a Dynamic Governance environment means our volunteers are utilizing the practice standards on a regular basis.  Duty of Care process make proposals more likely to earn consent.

Future planned additions to the Compliance Hub+ include a series of compliance resources not readily available elsewhere.  As more volunteers step forward to help, progress on these planned additions speeds up.  


Are you interested in helping?  The chapter will list Open Volunteer Positions on our Job Board.

Professional Development: Practiced! Introducing: Professional Development+[PDP+]

FPAAZ  created a series of 9 Workshops using the Learning Hub+ toolkit and checklists.  The 9 Workshop topics evolved from our collective effort to nurture and nourish leadership and teamwork within our community - teamwork capable of Advancing the Profession and Impacting Financial Literacy in Arizona in quantifiable ways over time.  Many (not all) PDP+ workshops also earn professional CE credit.

Do you want to be the best financial planning professional you can be?  Think you are a team player?  Earn your PDP+ certificate!

Tip:  For PDP+ Learning that Sticks, volunteer with any FPAAZ chapter team.  We literally practice what we preach.

Community Collaboration: CatalystsPartnersMOU's.

FPAAZ's Vision is to be the Essential Hub of our Financial Planning Community.  Overtly seeking and providing Chapter to Chapter continuing education support and Organization to Organization collaborative learning options is a core activity.

Find Catalyst, Partner and other MOU organizations' continuing education offerings:  Community Connections calendar.

Ruh Roh!

Need CE Fast?  Journal of Financial Planning - online digital edition -  continuing education credits are available to FPA members.



FPAAZ Programming Journey:  The Road Less Travelled

BC (Before Covid) FPAAZ experienced downward trending attendance over time at monthly chapter continuing education meetings, regardless of a consistent quality venue, topics chosen by financial planning volunteers, and well vetted presenters. 

Prior norms and force of habit weren't maintaining, much less building, future interest in attending chapter events.  Reduced registration fees, enhanced food & beverage options, extra networking time - no creative inducements reversed attendance trends.

Community engagement seemed to be diminishing, or the expectations around continuing education were changing? Small programming misses became oversize problems per survey responses.  An over zealous sponsor - buggy audio/visual - parking hassles - presenter cancellations requiring quick substitutions.  What to do with no margin for error, when something goes amiss?

The Covid 19 Pandemic did not create the downward trend in event attendance...it simply accentuated and accelerated the trend.

Post Covid 19 Attendance Antidotes?  Many chapters pursue critical mass in attendance by hosting less frequent, longer duration events.  This model works in some communities, though attendance and membership remain challenging in these chapters, too.  For FPAAZ, two years' of focused creation and marketing of  "Super CEvents " increased our chapter event production costs without reversing the downward attendance trends.  We could not count on luring our financial planners out of their offices.

So - we continued experimenting with our (unique) overt topic autonomy, varied gathering formats (frequency, location, pricing, structure), focused attention on financial planner lifecycles & ambitions, and the attention to Quality Local Learning (Rigor + Engagement) efforts.   Anecdotally, we appear to have impacted our professional community expectations around learning, as whether or not a presenter leans in to the Learning Hub+ concepts for Quality Local Learning, our attending professionals more continually and naturally drive toward interactive, two way dialogue with our SMEs.  We are still learning how to communicate attendee expectations around these Quality Local Learning attributes effectively, but very few of our events flow with a "lecture then Q&A" format.

Critical Crux:  See some AZ financial planners quarterly, or see more AZ financial planners at least once annually?

If you are curious about our chapter Journey - experimentation, discoveries, the resulting approach to Professional Development-Here's the rest of the story.



Do you value Quality Local Learning?


Catalysts


- financial planning professionals and firms -

willing to invest in our community

via FPAAZ make Rigorous + Engaging Adult Learning Possible.



Content and Links yet to come:

  • Allied Professional potential continuing education credit support.
  • CFP® Board of Standards CE Requirements and  Principle Knowledge Topics - Rotation/Resources/Variety
  • Community Input:  Suggesting educational topics for our Professional Development Working Team.
  • Community Input:  Suggesting Subject Matter Experts for our Professional Development Working Team.


Financial Planning Association (FPA) is a national 501(c)(6) non-profit organization.  FPA is Your Partner in Planning TM.

FPA Arizona (FPAAZ) is a state based 501(c)(6) organization, affiliated with FPA via a Chapter Charter and License agreement.

PO Box 4130, Scottsdale AZ 85261 Ph:  480-483-9035 Hours:  M-Th: 9 - 5  Fr: 9 - 1 


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