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Can Pro Bono Work Pay Off?
Smart RIAs count the ways that volunteering helps their business.
By Christopher C. Williams
HOMRICH BERG WEALTH MANAGEment decided seven years ago that it wanted to hire Cindy Wilson and worked to recruit her. But the courtship took four years, and she didn’ t join the firm until 2022.“ I married my husband faster,” Wilson jokes. She said at that point she wanted her next work home to be her last, and finding one was serious business. A 20-year veteran of the financial advisory business, she entered the process with a stellar resume and a firm sense of her professional and personal values, which notably included a strong desire to give back to her community. That included her desire to do pro bono work— offering free services without the regular fees to those who can’ t afford the advice. And Homrich Berg, an $ 18.5 billion AUM advisory firm, had a reputation for giving back to the Atlanta metro community through numerous charities and philanthropic endeavors, even setting aside days for employees to do volunteer work.
“ I can’ t honestly say I wouldn’ t be at HB without their commitment to the community,” says Wilson, director of client service.“ It was a critical factor used when weighing the HB offer against others.”
When most people think of pro bono work, they think of lawyers, but the practice is set to become a more prominent service offering among financial advisory firms in the coming years, according to recent surveys. A Foundation for Financial Planning survey conducted in 2023 found that 73 % of 1,166 CFPs had done pro bono work and 50 % had done one to 12 hours in the past year.
Future Planners Prioritize Pro Bono
Civic-minded advisors like Wilson are essentially putting RIAs on notice: To get top talent, firms must appeal to advisors’ values as much as their pocketbooks. And increasingly, according to research, the next wave of advisors are attracted to firms that would allow them to do pro bono planning to serve underrepresented groups and their communities with company support.
“ Research shows that firms embracing pro bono service can better attract, engage and retain advisors— while enhancing firm culture— so we believe the advantage firms can reap in today’ s war for talent will compel many of them to step up over time,” says Jon Dauphiné, chief executive officer of the Foundation for Financial Planning, the main charitable organization promoting pro bono service in financial planning.
In a 2024 survey, the foundation spoke with 314 future financial planners, including college students, career-changers and paraplanners, and found 83 % were more likely to join a firm with a pro bono culture. Nearly 90 % pledged to provide 20 hours of pro bono work annually, matching the recommendation of the Certified Financial Planner Board of Standards.
Fifty percent of the 2,000 planners surveyed by the founda-
JULY / AUGUST 2025 | FINANCIAL ADVISOR MAGAZINE | 21