Financial consulting to stressed parents paying for college

Family College Planning Resources

Family College Planning Resources (Family CPR) are consultants who primarily works with “late-stage” families in the college planning process. Late-stage financial planning is where the majority of families find themselves when the early-stage planning wasn’t executed properly, or the family’s circumstances changed without a corresponding change to the plan.

Families in late stage planning are often desperate as they realize for the first time that they are totally unprepared to spend a large amount of money in a short amount of time. These families are also worried that they will have to make sacrifices to future goals (i.e. retirement), but have no idea what that might entail. These families often listen to the advice and experience of their family or neighbors who have just gone through the same experience. This leads them to some faulty conclusions.

Chief among the assumptions is that financial aid isn’t available to them. For a number of reasons they think they have to much income, to much debt, to many assets, or believe that public educational institutions are the only ones they can afford. Because each individual is different and every school has different standards for issuing aid, these assumptions are almost always wrong. And the variance can be large or small depending upon the school and student.

There are two main target audiences:

Late-stage planners – As explained above, these people are approaching college planning late and are normally confused about the process and desperate to get answers that will work for their family.

Early-stage planners – These people are probably looking for a financial planner that provides conventional planning (asset allocation, 529 and Coverdell account setup, etc.). People in this category could improve their overall plan greatly by implementing some of the non-conventional strategies that Family CPR recommends for it’s late stage planners.

Most Family CPR clients will be dual income parents. Many will be moms who have been given the task of finding aid. Some may be single female heads of households. Some will be dads who will approach the process from financial/analytical/bottom line perspective. All will be seeking to find a balance between cost and quality of education.

High school and college students are not a target audience.

This company is completely new and there are no style, logo, color, or branding guidelines that exist. We are open to both type and icon based logos.

We believe "Family" is the anchor in our name. However, a picture or icon of a family isn't a requirement in the logo. "College Planning", "College", and "Planning" all follow in order of priority. We also believe the acronym CPR in conjunction with the family connotes vital help for the family.

We don't currently have a tagline. Considerations include "Funding Solutions for America's Families", "Lowering the cost of a college education", and "Cost Solutions for today's family". However, having the tagline in the logo is not a requirement.

The logo should HELP (logo's can only do so much) people see Family CPR as:
- A solution to a problem
- Easy process, with the right guidance and advice
- Stress relieving
- Money saving
- A way to protect retirement savings
- For ordinary people, not necessarily for the rich or poor
- Professionally casual, not the pinstripe suit
- Reputable, not just a guy working from home

The logo will be used on business cards, printed and electronic letterhead, email, printed promotional flyers, stand-up posters, and a future Website. It should be designed with the understanding it will be used for all these mediums so should work well in B/W, light backgrounds, dark backgrounds, and should scale for enlargements.