EARN Financial Coach Honored with 2010 Heart of Financial Planning Award

It’s Financial Planning Week, and to celebrate, we’d like to call special attention to a close friend and colleague, Saundra Davis. Several years ago, Saundra co-founded our innovative financial coaching program, “EARN Wealthcare.” Today, she’s the president of her own company, Sage Financial Solutions, and continues providing high-quality pro bono financial planning to low-income workers throughout the Bay Area.

For her deep commitment to volunteerism and service, we’re excited to announce that Saundra will be honored this Sunday by the Financial Planning Association (FPA) with a 2010 Heart of Financial Planning Award.

According to the FPA, award recipients “embody the heart of financial planning and represent FPA’s Core Values of integrity, competence, dedication to relationship building and stewardship.” Saundra certainly fits the bill, having “volunteered thousands of hours over the past five years by serving as a key leader for the FPA of San Francisco Pro Bono Committee; coordinating monthly financial planning workshops for The Earned Assets Resource Network (EARN); developing the Financial Education Network – San Francisco (FEN-SF) and continuing to support FEN-SF by teaching professional development classes on financial coaching and financial planning; and developing the financial coaching adult education program for Project Read.” That’s a whole lot of impact on the San Francisco community.

But to best understand the impact of Saundra’s work, we only need look to a single woman, Dametra Williams, who — along with Saundra – was profiled in Financial Advisor Magazine this month. “A Bay Area single mother who was working for $10 an hour when she discovered EARN,” Dametra struggled with providing for her young daughter, “never being able to make ends meet. By the time Williams found EARN she had almost no confidence left about her finances… She compares herself unfavorably to her own mother, who managed to raise 12 children successfully.”

Flash forward to 2010. “With the help of EARN and its group of financial planners and coaches, Williams has created a budget and has saved enough that, with scholarships, she can get a college degree. She is sending her daughter to college and is starting her own small business. Now she is more confident, and tells others with a broad smile on her face, ‘We forget sometimes, how strong we really are.’” (For more on Dametra, read our previous blog post, “Dametra Williams: From Homeless to Prosperous.”)

And Saundra hasn’t stopped with supporting the dreams of people like Dametra. In addition to running Sage Financial Solutions, this powerhouse of a woman regularly travels the country to present on EARN’s financial coaching program. Most weeks, you can also find her running around the EARN office, constantly identifying new ways to improve our coaching services and expand our capacity to effectively serve low-income clients.

For your energy, your passion, and your dedication to service – Saundra, we salute you.

Until next week,

The EARN team