70% of Black Americans lack a will, leaving assets at risk.
Estate planning includes living wills, trusts, and beneficiary forms.
Financial diversity is critical for inclusive wealth management.
Investing
Brick by Brick: Building Generational Wealth for Black Americans
Brick by Brick: Building Generational Wealth for Black Americans
Brick by Brick: Building Generational Wealth for Black Americans
Zoe Team and Jacky L Petit-Homme, CFP® (Zoe Network Advisor)
6 min read
Frequently Asked Questions
Frequently Asked Questions
Why is estate planning vital?
It ensures your assets are distributed according to your wishes and relieves your family of emotional and legal stress during a difficult time.
What is a trust?
A legal agreement where a trustee manages assets for your beneficiaries, providing control and potentially tax or creditor benefits.
Why seek a culturally competent advisor?
Many qualified planners don’t understand the specific financial challenges or cultural nuances faced by Black and brown communities.
70% of Black Americans do not have a will. Unfortunately, when we find out there isn’t a will, it’s usually too late.
Why Black Americans Need a Will
What do Prince, Jimi Hendrix, Bob Marley, James Brown, and Barry White have in common? Besides being some of the biggest iconic, black musicians of all time, they all died without a will. In fact, 70% of Black Americans do not have a will. Unfortunately, when we find out there isn’t a will, it’s usually too late.
I’ve been helping clients achieve their financial goals since 2012, and I still feel there is a general hush-hush in regard to speaking about money. In my anecdotal point of view, this urge to keep quiet about financial moves is notably stronger in black and brown communities.
Why is Estate Planning Important?
Estate planning is often considered to be something that only the super-rich need to worry about… being it usually involves big inheritances and multi-million-dollar homes. That’s completely untrue. Estate planning covers many more aspects than trusts alone and is one of the most important parts of financial planning.
When it comes to deciding what happens with your assets and liabilities when you pass away, understanding your options is invaluable.
Unfortunately, black and brown communities are unaware of the access they have to build their own estate plan. Often leading to them passing away without one in place. Once we have an understanding of the importance of it, we can take action for ourselves and our loved ones. Here is a walkthrough covering the basics of estate planning and how it applies to you.
Living Will, Last Will, and Power of Attorney
The word “will” is very broad. Considering there are many different types of documents that can be established to indicate your wishes when incapacitated or no longer living. We’ll cover the main ones:
Living Will: A living will communicates your preferences when it comes to medical treatment, while you are still alive. One of the values of this document is that it also states your stance on life-sustaining treatments if one day you’re no longer able to speak for yourself.
Last Will: A last will sets specific instructions for the distribution of your estate in the case of your death. The value of this is that you are removing the emotional stress of your family, and can decide for yourself who gets what.
Power of Attorney: A medical or healthcare POA will designate someone to make decisions on your behalf if one day you’re unable to do so. This is often an extension of when a living will won’t cover all possible scenarios.
Types of Trusts
What is a trust? A legal agreement between an asset owner and a third party. The agreement gives fiduciary control of an asset or an estate to a trustee, who then manages it on behalf of the owner for the beneficiaries.
There are two common types of trusts: revocable, and irrevocable, and the names are pretty self-explanatory.
With a revocable trust, you can change or cancel the terms of it, including the beneficiaries. In this scenario, upon death, the assets on the trust don’t go through a last will, they go through the terms of the trust. With an irrevocable trust you can’t change the terms. How is this beneficial? The assets in the trust are not included in your gross estate for estate tax purposes. These assets are also out of reach to creditors.
Will Substitutes
There are many reasons why some clients don’t want their assets to go through a last will. This is often because of legal fees and long timelines. If this is the case for you, there are alternatives.
Beneficiary Forms: this form includes the name of your primary and secondary beneficiaries, overriding the last will.
TOD and POD: These acronyms stand for Transfer on Death and Payable on Death. Similar to beneficiary forms, upon death, your assets go to the individuals listed.
Right of Survivorship: Transfer assets directly to the surviving tenant at the death of the other. This can only be used with legally married couples and is not recognized in all states.
Lack of Diversity and Representation of Black Americans in Wealth Management
I would be remiss if I didn’t take a moment to address the disparities in access to education, resources, financial products, and the like in the finance industry. To pile on to the long history of Wall Street’s lack of interest in bringing financial competence to our country’s marginalized populations. The financial planning space suffers from a gross lack of diversity and representation. Out of 300,000 personal Financial Advisors, 92,000 are Certified Financial Planners®. Out of that population, only about 1600 (1.8%) are Black or African American. That means only about 0.52% of Financial Advisors are black and have their CFP® credentials.
That’s correct, this blog that you’re reading was written by a real-life unicorn.
So therein lies the problem. Even when people of color seek out financial advice, there aren’t many options when it comes to finding qualified planners that they can relate to and understand from a cultural perspective.
One of the biggest reasons I pursued a career in financial planning was because no advisors were knocking down the doors of people that looked like me to help them navigate their finances. As my career grew, I looked around and saw very few diverse planners. Additionally, I saw even fewer planners willing to work with “unqualified” prospects. But that’s the culture you get at the big Wall Street firms; the practice of assessing whether someone is worth your time because they meet a minimum asset level.
When I started my firm, I wanted to be different. One of our biggest priorities was to ensure anyone that wanted help from our group, would get it. Whether you have millions or are just starting to save up your emergency fund.
I Became a Financial Planner to Help People Who Look Like Me
In conclusion, there are many reasons why I am a financial planner today. But the main reason is that I want to maximize the available help for people that look like me. I understand the financial difficulties that black and brown communities face every day, and most importantly, I understand how hard it is to talk to someone about it.
I want to educate and spread awareness on the importance of financial planning, making sure your legacy ends up in the right hands. Above all, I want to be a resource to black americans that want to make the right decisions and don’t understand how to do it.
You don’t want it to be too late to plan for your legacy and the future of your loved ones, you deserve better.
70% of Black Americans do not have a will. Unfortunately, when we find out there isn’t a will, it’s usually too late.
Why Black Americans Need a Will
What do Prince, Jimi Hendrix, Bob Marley, James Brown, and Barry White have in common? Besides being some of the biggest iconic, black musicians of all time, they all died without a will. In fact, 70% of Black Americans do not have a will. Unfortunately, when we find out there isn’t a will, it’s usually too late.
I’ve been helping clients achieve their financial goals since 2012, and I still feel there is a general hush-hush in regard to speaking about money. In my anecdotal point of view, this urge to keep quiet about financial moves is notably stronger in black and brown communities.
Why is Estate Planning Important?
Estate planning is often considered to be something that only the super-rich need to worry about… being it usually involves big inheritances and multi-million-dollar homes. That’s completely untrue. Estate planning covers many more aspects than trusts alone and is one of the most important parts of financial planning.
When it comes to deciding what happens with your assets and liabilities when you pass away, understanding your options is invaluable.
Unfortunately, black and brown communities are unaware of the access they have to build their own estate plan. Often leading to them passing away without one in place. Once we have an understanding of the importance of it, we can take action for ourselves and our loved ones. Here is a walkthrough covering the basics of estate planning and how it applies to you.
Living Will, Last Will, and Power of Attorney
The word “will” is very broad. Considering there are many different types of documents that can be established to indicate your wishes when incapacitated or no longer living. We’ll cover the main ones:
Living Will: A living will communicates your preferences when it comes to medical treatment, while you are still alive. One of the values of this document is that it also states your stance on life-sustaining treatments if one day you’re no longer able to speak for yourself.
Last Will: A last will sets specific instructions for the distribution of your estate in the case of your death. The value of this is that you are removing the emotional stress of your family, and can decide for yourself who gets what.
Power of Attorney: A medical or healthcare POA will designate someone to make decisions on your behalf if one day you’re unable to do so. This is often an extension of when a living will won’t cover all possible scenarios.
Types of Trusts
What is a trust? A legal agreement between an asset owner and a third party. The agreement gives fiduciary control of an asset or an estate to a trustee, who then manages it on behalf of the owner for the beneficiaries.
There are two common types of trusts: revocable, and irrevocable, and the names are pretty self-explanatory.
With a revocable trust, you can change or cancel the terms of it, including the beneficiaries. In this scenario, upon death, the assets on the trust don’t go through a last will, they go through the terms of the trust. With an irrevocable trust you can’t change the terms. How is this beneficial? The assets in the trust are not included in your gross estate for estate tax purposes. These assets are also out of reach to creditors.
Will Substitutes
There are many reasons why some clients don’t want their assets to go through a last will. This is often because of legal fees and long timelines. If this is the case for you, there are alternatives.
Beneficiary Forms: this form includes the name of your primary and secondary beneficiaries, overriding the last will.
TOD and POD: These acronyms stand for Transfer on Death and Payable on Death. Similar to beneficiary forms, upon death, your assets go to the individuals listed.
Right of Survivorship: Transfer assets directly to the surviving tenant at the death of the other. This can only be used with legally married couples and is not recognized in all states.
Lack of Diversity and Representation of Black Americans in Wealth Management
I would be remiss if I didn’t take a moment to address the disparities in access to education, resources, financial products, and the like in the finance industry. To pile on to the long history of Wall Street’s lack of interest in bringing financial competence to our country’s marginalized populations. The financial planning space suffers from a gross lack of diversity and representation. Out of 300,000 personal Financial Advisors, 92,000 are Certified Financial Planners®. Out of that population, only about 1600 (1.8%) are Black or African American. That means only about 0.52% of Financial Advisors are black and have their CFP® credentials.
That’s correct, this blog that you’re reading was written by a real-life unicorn.
So therein lies the problem. Even when people of color seek out financial advice, there aren’t many options when it comes to finding qualified planners that they can relate to and understand from a cultural perspective.
One of the biggest reasons I pursued a career in financial planning was because no advisors were knocking down the doors of people that looked like me to help them navigate their finances. As my career grew, I looked around and saw very few diverse planners. Additionally, I saw even fewer planners willing to work with “unqualified” prospects. But that’s the culture you get at the big Wall Street firms; the practice of assessing whether someone is worth your time because they meet a minimum asset level.
When I started my firm, I wanted to be different. One of our biggest priorities was to ensure anyone that wanted help from our group, would get it. Whether you have millions or are just starting to save up your emergency fund.
I Became a Financial Planner to Help People Who Look Like Me
In conclusion, there are many reasons why I am a financial planner today. But the main reason is that I want to maximize the available help for people that look like me. I understand the financial difficulties that black and brown communities face every day, and most importantly, I understand how hard it is to talk to someone about it.
I want to educate and spread awareness on the importance of financial planning, making sure your legacy ends up in the right hands. Above all, I want to be a resource to black americans that want to make the right decisions and don’t understand how to do it.
You don’t want it to be too late to plan for your legacy and the future of your loved ones, you deserve better.
Disclosures: Zoe Financial, Inc. ("Zoe Financial") is an investment adviser registered with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. Registration does not imply a certain level of skill or training. Zoe Financial provides investment advisory services and access to independent registered investment advisers through its platform. The information provided by Zoe Financial is for educational and informational purposes only and should not be construed as personalized investment advice or as an offer to buy or sell any security. All investments involve risk, including possible loss of principal. Past performance is not indicative of future results. Clients should consult with their own financial, tax, or legal professionals before making any investment decisions. The material presented by Zoe Financial is for informational purposes only and is not intended to serve as a substitute for personalized investment advice or as a recommendation or solicitation of any particular security, strategy, or investment product. Material presented has been gathered from sources believed to be reliable, however Adviser cannot guarantee the accuracy or completeness of such information, and certain information presented here may have been condensed or summarized from its original source. Past performance is no guarantee of future results. Zoe Financial does not provide legal or tax advice, and nothing contained in these materials should be taken as legal or tax advice. SEC Registration does not constitute an endorsement of Zoe Financial by the SEC nor does it indicate that Zoe Financial has attained a particular level of skill or ability. The sole purpose of this material is to inform, and it in no way is intended to be an offer or solicitation to purchase or sell any security, other investment or service, or to attract any funds or deposits. Investments mentioned may not be appropriate for all clients. Before making any investment, each investor should carefully consider the risks associated with the investment, as discussed in the applicable offering memorandum, and make a determination based upon their own particular circumstances, that the investment is consistent with their investment objectives and risk tolerance. Lower expenses do not guarantee better investment performance. Certain information contained herein may constitute forward-looking statements. Due to various risks and uncertainties, actual events, results or the performance of a fund may differ materially from those reflected or contemplated in such forward-looking statements.
Disclosure: This page is not investment advice and should not be relied on for such advice or as a substitute for consultation with professional accounting, tax, legal or financial advisors. The observations of industry trends should not be read as recommendations for stocks or sectors.
Investment advisory services are provided by Zoe Financial, Inc. (Zoe Financial), an investment adviser registered with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). Registration does not imply a certain level of skill or training. Learn more about Zoe Financial on the SEC’s Investment Adviser Public Disclosure website. Brokerage services are provided by Zoe Securities LLC and Apex Clearing Corporation, members of the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority Inc. (FINRA) and Securities Investor Protection Corporation (SIPC). Learn more about Zoe Securities and Apex on FINRA’s BrokerCheck website.
The information in the visuals above is for illustrative purposes only and does not represent an actual user's account, balance, or return. Zoe Financial does not provide tax or legal advice.
Explore the Zoe Wealth Platform with AI
Some of this content may have been generated with the assistance of AI. Please review and sense-check all outputs, as AI tools can occasionally produce incomplete or inaccurate information.
In certain situations, you may be required to disclose that the content was “generated by AI.” Please confirm any specific disclosure or labelling requirements with Compliance.
(646) 680-9244
support@zoefin.com
666 Third Ave, 6th Floor
New York, NY, 10017
Copyright © 2026 Zoe Financial, Inc. | All rights reserved
Find an Advisor
Retirement Planning
Disclosure: This page is not investment advice and should not be relied on for such advice or as a substitute for consultation with professional accounting, tax, legal or financial advisors. The observations of industry trends should not be read as recommendations for stocks or sectors.
Investment advisory services are provided by Zoe Financial, Inc. (Zoe Financial), an investment adviser registered with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). Registration does not imply a certain level of skill or training. Learn more about Zoe Financial on the SEC’s Investment Adviser Public Disclosure website. Brokerage services are provided by Zoe Securities LLC and Apex Clearing Corporation, members of the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority Inc. (FINRA) and Securities Investor Protection Corporation (SIPC). Learn more about Zoe Securities and Apex on FINRA’s BrokerCheck website.
The information in the visuals above is for illustrative purposes only and does not represent an actual user's account, balance, or return. Zoe Financial does not provide tax or legal advice.
Explore the Zoe Wealth Platform with AI
Some of this content may have been generated with the assistance of AI. Please review and sense-check all outputs, as AI tools can occasionally produce incomplete or inaccurate information.
In certain situations, you may be required to disclose that the content was “generated by AI.” Please confirm any specific disclosure or labelling requirements with Compliance.
(646) 680-9244
support@zoefin.com
666 Third Ave, 6th Floor
New York, NY, 10017
Copyright © 2026 Zoe Financial, Inc. | All rights reserved
Find an Advisor
Retirement Planning
Disclosure: This page is not investment advice and should not be relied on for such advice or as a substitute for consultation with professional accounting, tax, legal or financial advisors. The observations of industry trends should not be read as recommendations for stocks or sectors.
Investment advisory services are provided by Zoe Financial, Inc. (Zoe Financial), an investment adviser registered with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). Registration does not imply a certain level of skill or training. Learn more about Zoe Financial on the SEC’s Investment Adviser Public Disclosure website. Brokerage services are provided by Zoe Securities LLC and Apex Clearing Corporation, members of the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority Inc. (FINRA) and Securities Investor Protection Corporation (SIPC). Learn more about Zoe Securities and Apex on FINRA’s BrokerCheck website.
The information in the visuals above is for illustrative purposes only and does not represent an actual user's account, balance, or return. Zoe Financial does not provide tax or legal advice.
Explore the Zoe Wealth Platform with AI
Some of this content may have been generated with the assistance of AI. Please review and sense-check all outputs, as AI tools can occasionally produce incomplete or inaccurate information.
In certain situations, you may be required to disclose that the content was “generated by AI.” Please confirm any specific disclosure or labelling requirements with Compliance.
(646) 680-9244
support@zoefin.com
666 Third Ave, 6th Floor
New York, NY, 10017
Copyright © 2025 Zoe Financial, Inc. | All rights reserved