Next Generation Planner: November 2022
WHO: Alexandria Dunn, CFP®, CTFA
WHERE: Wealth Adviser, Special Needs Financial Planning, a specialty practice of Affinia Financial Group
WHAT'S ON HER MIND: “I learned pretty quickly that there was a lot that my parents shielded me from that I was totally unaware of when I was growing up. Even being a person with a loved one with special needs, there’s a lot that goes into it.”
Alex Dunn went to college and started off majoring in psychology because she enjoys talking to people. She likes understanding what their goals and visions are to help them achieve their full potential. But shortly into her coursework, she decided to change majors.
“That was kind of where I envisioned myself as a young 18-year-old. But in my first year, I took an economics class. It was [with] one of my favorite professors, and I remember him introducing the book Freakonomics to us. That made me realize there’s so much more out there in this world—things that combined behavior along with business. I am a more technical person, so I liked the idea of blending those two worlds. I transitioned to a business and marketing major.”
She pursued an internship and initial career in insurance, but it didn’t quite click for her.
“In my senior year I was sitting in a sales class, and a person from Northwestern Mutual Insurance Company came and talked a lot about the career path you’d have in insurance. I ended up reaching out to someone at Northwestern Mutual, and, right out of college, started an internship program with them and then continued working there. I was there for a little bit less than a year and realized that insurance really isn’t the only thing that a family needs as part of their financial plan. So I started pursuing my licenses and the CFP® [certification].”
She was searching for how to make a bigger difference in clients’ lives, so she reached out to other planners to see what they were doing.
“Once I left Northwestern, I prepared a letter. I leveraged the fact that I did an internship and said, ‘I would love to talk with you about what your firm looks like and what your career path was, and how I could potentially get into the business and a different area than just insurance planning.’
“I met with several different advisers, which was great. I ended up being hired pretty quickly with a smaller financial planning focused firm; all CFP® [practitioners], CPAs. An extremely detailed, technical, financial planning firm, where we developed extremely intricate financial plans for families and guided them through all their different decision-making. I loved that—it was so much fun. I love getting into the technical side of it.
“Then I ended up joining Bolvin Wealth Management. This downtown Boston, woman-owned advisory firm had developed a niche; she worked with a lot of Verizon retirees. She created this unbelievable brand, so much that we were almost an extension of their retirement department.
“She had a couple of clients who had children with special needs. And of course, having my personal background, a brother with special needs, I worked with her in a couple different situations and helped with that.”
It was around this point in Alex’s life that someone talked to her and asked why she wasn’t working directly with her father, a financial adviser who worked with clients who had children with special needs.
“A colleague of my father contacted me and said, ‘Why are you not working with us?’ Looking back, probably five years after graduating or so, I thought, ‘You know, I don’t know. I really enjoyed talking with families that have the same planning concerns that our family has.’ So I ended up talking with my father more and some colleagues of his and decided to transition out from Bolvin Wealth and to my father’s firm.
“My father’s been in the business since before I was born. He’s a financial adviser, and he does specialize in special needs financial planning, so I am very similar to him. I saw how much he enjoyed that, and I did do an internship with him and was able to see the relationship that people have over the years and was able to see that a client was a friend.”
Alex’s brother has Down syndrome, and she wanted to help other families like hers. But she realized that, even after growing up with a brother who has special needs, she still had a lot to learn.
“James has Down syndrome and is 31 years old, and he is a ball of love. I thought that, growing up with him my entire life, who would know better than someone that lived it firsthand? I was a great sister, but I didn’t know all the intricacies of planning. I learned pretty quickly that there was a lot that my parents shielded me from that I was totally unaware of when I was growing up. Even being a person with a loved one with special needs, there’s a lot that goes into it. So, I started to educate myself.”
Parents who have children with special needs have an additional concern in that they are worried about who will watch over their child after they have passed away. A proper guardianship and trust needs to be set up to ensure that the child is cared for.
“We built a service offering called A Team to Carry On. We have this multigenerational offering where I’m [ready to take the] stage. I’m going to be around here for much longer [than my father], so we can service our clients now [and] for those multiple generations.
“A big worry for families who have children with special needs is that they have all this money, but who is the guardian going to be? The financial resources are very important, but equally as important, especially for our special needs planning, are the people resources. So, I ended up joining the Massachusetts Guardianship Association. And a year after joining the board, I was asked to be the president. I then helped and worked with a lot of wonderful professionals on that board to provide more information on guardianship to families in the community.”
She recommends that other financial planners get the CFP® certification at a minimum.
“I could not recommend the CFP® designation more. I feel that it gives you the foundation to be able to work with anyone, especially a family that has children with special needs. The whole process that you go through teaches you how to communicate and how to ask the client [for] what information you need. And then it teaches you how to help them implement those recommendations. And I think, particularly for families that have children with special needs, they want a very disciplined plan.”
She also recommends the certified trust and fiduciary advisor (CTFA) designation for planners who will frequently work with trusts.
“The CTFA is very helpful because you do manage a lot of special needs trusts and just trusts in general. I think more and more trusts are being done now with multigenerational wealth. So there are tax complexities that are involved with that, and distribution rules, and how to interpret trust language. Because of the level of trust assets that we do manage and the type of work that we do, that is a very helpful designation.”
But once you get those certifications, it’s not over. Being a financial planner is a lifelong journey of learning.
“I recommend continuously trying to educate yourselves: pursuing the CFP® [certification], taking different webinars and different trainings that are out there because the world is changing and evolving so fast. Right now, I am starting the blockchain and digital assets certification because I think that there’s so much happening, and I just think it makes sense. As advisers, it’s our commitment to our clients, and we have the CE requirements. Be sure that you’re taking advantage of opportunities out there to learn how we can best provide the best service for our clients.”
