Our Impact
Since our founding, we have focused on how our advice and investments impact the community at large.
“Doing well and doing good isn’t a cliché - it’s extremely doable.”
– Brent Kessel, CFP®, Abacus Co-Founder
Abacus Wealth Partners
2023 Impact Report
Reflections on our collective journey toward our vision and expanding what’s possible with money.
Abacus is a Founding B Corp
As a founding B Corp, we use business as a force for good. Certified B Corporations are businesses that meet the highest standards of verified social and environmental performance, public transparency, and legal accountability to balance profit and purpose.
It’s a certification that looks at our entire company and the impact we have on our workforce, suppliers, community and the environment. You can check out our B Corp Impact Report here.
Sustainability
Sustainable investing is not a sideshow for us—it is central to how we manage portfolios for the majority of our clients. In February 2008, our clients provided seed funding for the first environmentally screened, industry neutral, and globally diversified passive (index) equity funds in the marketplace. To date, these funds have fulfilled their objective of shifting capital toward the most environmentally responsible corporations while closely tracking market benchmarks.
We actively seek to expand the positive good we bring into the world through the allocation of clients’ funds. We believe this reduces legal and regulatory risk, expresses our values, and enhances the potential for long-term, sustainable social structures and investment returns.
Our Corporate Footprint
Beyond investing, Abacus has taken a number of steps to reduce our environmental footprint:
- Encourage telecommuting for many employees
- Reduce commercial air and car travel by using video-conferencing for both internal and client meetings
- Strive for a paperless work environment and when necessary, use 90% post-consumer recycled paper for all printing and copying
- Our Sebastopol location receives all of its power from a local renewable energy source
- Improve our offices with environmentally responsible building materials and furnishings
Social Private Equity & Debt
For more than a decade, Abacus has been a leading investor in private companies focused on financial and social results. We were one of the first SEC Registered Investment Advisors to make equity investments in microfinance institutions that make very small loans to impoverished but ambitious micro-entrepreneurs. Combined with others, our clients’ funds have helped millions of people fund businesses to help alleviate the poverty they and their families have lived in for generations.
Pro Bono Financial Planning
We believe everyone deserves access to quality financial advice and peace of mind around their money. Through Abacus’ pro bono program, hundreds of individuals and families who don’t meet typical minimums required by financial advisors now have access to the highest standard in fiduciary advice – the same high level provided to each one of our paying clients. Since the establishment of our program, Abacus has served over 200 households and in March of 2023, Abacus was named the NAPFA Foundation Pro Bono Service Award Recipient. We are also a Foundation for Financial Planning RIA Impact Partner. We support the foundation both through our charitable grant and via pro bono opportunities throughout the year, including serving at-risk seniors, families affected by cancer, and underserved women.
BLX Internship
Abacus maintains an annual commitment to the BLX internship program, a charitable organization whose mission is to make the demographics of the financial planning profession more representative of our country’s population. To date, Abacus has hosted 10 interns through the program, three of whom have joined our team as full-time employees. Along with our participation, Abacus donates $12,000 annually to the program and has helped to raise $10,000 in additional funds from other sponsors.
CFP® Scholarship
The Abacus Wealth Partners Scholarship for Increased Diversity In Financial Planning aims to advance the financial planning profession by providing financial assistance to students pursuing CFP® certification who are from populations underrepresented in the profession and have a financial need. This $100,000 scholarship offers up to $5,000 per student seeking to complete an undergraduate-level or a certificate-level CFP® Board Registered Program, either of which would qualify the student to sit for the CFP® exam. Over the next four years, 16 scholarships will be awarded. Given how many lives a financial advisor touches over the course of a long career, cultivating these 16 new careers will offer countless positive benefits to more diverse communities for years and generations to come.
We Donate 1% of Revenue to Charity
Abacus is a purpose-driven financial advisory firm focused on expanding what’s possible with money. As a firm who believes that philanthropy, self-sufficiency, and generosity are cornerstones to a fulfilling relationship with money, Abacus donates 1% of our annual revenue to various charities and non-profit organizations.
In addition to the non-profit partnerships listed above, Abacus allocates funds to our employees to donate to the charities of their choice.
On an annual basis, Abacus will use our donor advised fund to make gifts through the Abacus Charitable Grant. This money is thoughtfully given through the lens of a core part of the Abacus Vision: Effecting change in the financial services industry to create and serve a more diverse and equitable profession and client base.
