Robert F. Smith’s Latest Move Supports Black CPAs as a Path to Building Generational Wealth

NSBCPA Board and Committee Meeting

When we last wrote about Black billionaire and increasingly active philanthropist Robert F. Smith, he had made a $50 million gift to the Student Freedom Initiative, addressing the overwhelming student debt faced by HBCU students. The gift built upon his Fund II Foundation’s $50 million grant to launch the fund, offering Black juniors and seniors majoring in STEM fields at HBCUs a more flexible, lower-risk alternative to private student loans.

Such funding reflects a key theme emerging in Smith’s exploding philanthropy—Fund II has made nearly 80 grants worth some $250 million since its founding in 2014—as the donor tackles systemic inequities in education, healthcare and other professional arenas.

Continuing that theme, Smith now has made a $1 million gift to the National Society of Black Certified Public Accountants (NSBCPA) to support a Certified Public Accountant (CPA) Exam Review Program for Black accounting students. The program is supported by the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants (AICPA) Foundation and aims to increase Black representation in the field. According to Bloomberg, Black Americans make up less than 1% of all CPAs in the United States.

On another front, Smith has been in the news for different reasons, avoiding prosecution by entering into an agreement with the Department of Justice in exchange for cooperating with the investigation of billionaire Robert Brockman, who has been indicted in the largest tax evasion case in U.S. history. While Smith is by no means the first Wall Street donor to deal with legal trouble, the case has loomed over his growing reputation as a philanthropist. Even so, the Giving Pledge signatory continues to be one of the nation’s highest-profile donors.

With Smith’s latest gift, he takes on a surprising field, but one that offers a lot of potential—funding will pay for students to take the CPA exam and offer additional support to ensure the program’s participants have the tools they need to succeed in the accounting profession.

“Raising Black representation in the financial workforce doesn’t just put more Black people in high-quality jobs. It helps build opportunity and wealth over generations while promoting financial literacy that is so crucial to achieving prosperity,” Smith said in a press release. “Representation matters, and this program will help aspiring accountants see that they belong in this field.”

Historically, the Cornell-educated engineer has put a premium on STEM education, including Fund II Foundation’s $50 million gift to establish an endowment for the Cornell University School of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering and provide scholarship and fellowship support for underrepresented groups.

But what got Smith interested in diversifying the field of accounting, and how did he connect with NSBCPA in the first place?

A familiar story of systemic barriers

Founded just six months ago, the National Society of Black Certified Public Accountants aims to increase the number of Black CPAs by providing knowledge, resources and advocacy. Its vice chair, Felicia Farrar, is a Texas-based CPA, an accountant and leader who’s well aware of the systemic barriers in her field. She founded the National Society of Black Certified Public Accountants Inc. CPA Review Program ("CPA Breakthrough"), which prepares accounting grads and professionals for the CPA exam.

“It’s not an easy exam. But who better to make Black CPAs than Black CPAs?” Farrar told me in a recent Zoom interview. For Farrar, the lack of diversity in her field cuts deeper than clinical numbers and statistics. When she started attending swearing-in ceremonies at the Texas State Board of Public Accountancy in Austin, she noticed that out of thousands of new CPAs, Black CPAs only numbered in the single digits. It became her duty to make sure she was there, assuring the next generation of Black CPAs that they belonged.

To Farrar, the pipeline issue isn’t just a matter of a dearth of Black accountants. In fact, a Bloomberg piece last year noted that 9% of all 1.9 million accountants and auditors in the U.S. are Black, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. So how does that 9% get whittled down to 1% as CPAs?

Well, one big issue is actually making more people aware of the CPA certification and its enormous value. Certified professionals can provide services on their own as consultants or as founding members of a firm. And in an era when there’s talk of diversifying corporate and philanthropic boards, CPAs could represent a perfect pool of candidates.

“If you don’t go to the Ivy Leagues, which many of our students do not, the connection between accounting and the test is not taught,” she tells me, adding, “A lot of people have good grades, but they don’t have the skillset.”

In addition, the CPA exam is not cheap, running an average of $300 per exam, with a total of four exams over the course of 16 total hours. And if the would-be CPA fails one test, they have to pay to take it again. Once the first test is passed, accountants have 18 months to pass the other three, or they must retake expired tests. Do not pass go and do not collect $200.

NSBCPA’s virtual program will provide students with the roadmap to complete their coursework and navigate all exams and entrance materials required to become a CPA, including placement assessments, educational sessions with Black professors, CPA exam review sessions led by Black CPAs, study sessions, and a CPA mentor assigned to each student upon entrance to the program, as well as books, applications and test fee support.

Generational wealth

Smith and Farrar first connected at an event where Smith was being honored for recovery work after Hurricane Harvey. They later connected at a Congressional Black Caucus event, where Farrar sold him on the importance of Black accountants in building generational wealth for the community at large. “It’s good to give back to our community, but we need to make sure we account for the money, too,” Farrar emphasizes.

Farrar says that Smith empowered her to start conducting bootcamps, including a pilot in Houston, which helped her fine tune her product. With a new model that included teaching more accounting skills, bringing on mentors and taking away the burden of cost, Smith signed on with a seven-figure check.

“I totally respect him and am overwhelmed with what he does,” Farrar says of Smith.

Smith and Farrar share a passion for history and Black America’s place in that history. One of Smith’s early philanthropic efforts was Lincoln Hills Experience, a youth empowerment program on a ranch and fly fishing preserve outside of Denver. Lincoln Hills has strong historic roots and was frequented by the likes of Zora Neale Hurston in her day.

Farrar, meanwhile, launched NSBCPA’s website with a First 100, a history of the first licensed Black CPAs in this country, spanning from 1921 to 1965—the year of the Voting Rights Act. Jesse B. Blayton Sr. became Georgia’s first Black CPA in 1928. A civil rights leader and businessman, he founded the first Black radio station, WERD in Atlanta and was Martin Luther King Jr.’s CPA. Earlier, he formed Georgia’s Mutual Federal Savings and Loan Association and reorganized Citizens Trust Bank, which became the first Black bank to join the Federal Reserve. The so-called “Dean of Negro Accountants,” Blayton even kept correspondence with W.E.B. Du Bois, emphasizing the importance of building generational wealth and power.

As part of NSBCPA’s new program, students will learn about the connections between past and present.

Consider Michael Bolden, a recent University of Houston graduate who now works at an accounting firm and already participated in the Houston pilot. Juggling six college classes at the time, he says the program helped him learn critical time management skills, learn how to study, and get an early crack at the exam.

And he’s looking forward to going through the officially funded program and hitting the magic number of 75 or above on his CPA exam. “I feel more confident than ever now, and I think this program is going to help me set aside time to focus more on the detail and provide the tools I need,” he said.