Financial Planning reported that the Foundation for Financial Planning has updated its pro bono training course, a free program that lets financial planners earn continuing education credit while learning how to serve clients who cannot otherwise pay for advice. The outlet said the Foundation and Capital Group unveiled the revised course last month.
The course is the second version of an inaugural seminar the Foundation launched the previous year, according to Financial Planning. A Foundation press release dated October 13, 2026 said CFP Board has signed off on the course for one hour of CE credit, and that it can be taken now. The release credited CeriFi with contributing course-design know-how and its platform, while Capital Group funded the course. Financial Planning reported that the course is delivered through Dalton Education, a CeriFi company.
According to the Foundation's release, the course uses realistic scenarios so that planners can practise judgment before taking on pro bono clients. Financial Planning said the scenarios span emergencies like domestic abuse, veteran suicide, medical crises and wrongful imprisonment, as well as financial matters including housing, debt and disaster relief. The release also said that people who complete the course may qualify for the Foundation's errors and omissions insurance when they volunteer through the Foundation's referral channels or one of its grantee partners.
Financial Planning reported that grants the Foundation made across the current and previous year reached a record $1.3 million, with recipients including the Financial Planning Association and the National Association of Personal Financial Advisors. The outlet said more than 3,300 CFPs have registered as volunteers through the Foundation's ProBonoPlanners.org portal, and that a chart in its article shows 23,015 people received advice or attended workshops last year. That figure measures people served, not assets or revenue. The release adds that across three decades the Foundation has distributed close to $11 million, engaged over 30,000 planners and served hundreds of thousands of people who need help.
The Foundation holds 501(c)(3) status and says its work is limited to promoting volunteer financial planning, a focus it has kept since 1995. The Financial Planning Association's learning site says members must complete the pro bono course before providing pro bono services, and lists the course as a partnership among the FPA, the Foundation and Kaplan Professional. In a comment letter on a CFP Board proposal from December 2024, the Foundation endorsed a scheme in which each three hours of volunteer work would count toward one hour of continuing education, with a ceiling of ten such hours per CE cycle. It said the proposal should be trialled through its pro bono education system.
Dalton Education is one of four financial education companies, alongside Pass Perfect, Keir and Money Education, that form CeriFi, according to Dalton's own material. CeriFi is a portfolio company of Leeds Equity Partners and is headquartered in Alpharetta, Georgia, according to Dalton's terms page. Dalton has said it has trained over half of all CFP professionals in the country, a company claim that the sources do not verify. Capital Group, the course sponsor, is privately owned by senior employees and was founded in Los Angeles in 1931, according to a third-party company profile. Financial Planning reported that Saundra Davis, founder of Sage Financial Solutions, argued that training of this kind helps planners sidestep missteps that might inadvertently hurt the people they serve.
The sources do not say how many planners have completed the updated course or whether the Foundation plans further revisions. The Foundation's own materials describe the volunteer training as revamped in 2026, and an older Foundation page describes a 50-minute version, which differs from the one-hour framing in current materials. For advisors weighing pro bono work, the course offers a structured way to prepare, with CE credit attached and, for those who qualify, errors and omissions coverage tied to volunteering.