The outlook for the Retirement Planning Association of Canada, a nation-wide organization that focuses on educating financial advisors on the lifestyle issues associated with retirement, is looking cloudy these days. A dwindling membership, combined with declining advisor demand for RPAC’s services, has RPAC executives on the lookout for an industry partner. The question is: will they find one?

At RPAC’s annual general meeting at the end of September, Ida-Jean McIntyre, president of RPAC, shared some troubling news: the 31-year-old volunteer association no longer had the resources to provide financial planners with holistic-style retirement lifestyle planning courses and conferences. An alliance or partnership with another industry association will be necessary for RPAC’s continued survival.

In the past five years, not only has RPAC membership fallen to only 100 members, but participation at conferences and support for RPAC’s designation, the professional retirement planner, has also been on the decline.

Competition from other organizations and courses — such as Toronto-based Financial Planning Standards Council’s certified financial planner designation, Toronto-based Advocis’s chartered life underwriter designation and the Delta, B.C.-based Institute of Advanced Financial Planners’ registered financial planner designation — has been the main reason for the decline, says McIntyre: “For many of our members who are financial planners, they have mandatory requirements to meet their financial designations and lifestyle planning is optional.”

When RPAC was launched in 1979, it was known as an organization that was “ahead of its time,” says McIntyre, because it was the only one that offered education about lifestyle issues that face retirees. But now retirement planning courses offered by other organizations have begun to include the elements that RPAC was known for offering. Says McIntyre: “Other players have caught up to the education RPAC offered that used to set us apart.”

The economic downturn made matters worse, adds McIntyre; it caused advisors to complete only the most basic educational courses needed to maintain their designations. “In times like these,” she says, “there’s been a big demand on a financial planner’s time and money to take care of educational requirements, and RPAC’s lifestyle education went from being a ‘need to do’ to being seen as a ‘nice to do’.”

Even in good times, membership can be a constant challenge for organizations that cater to the professional needs of financial advisors, says Greg Pollock, president and CEO of Advocis: “The industry changes so quickly, it’s hard for organizations to retain new members. In general, the retention rate is only 30%.”

Some of RPAC’s members are disappointed with the association’s decision to seek partnerships, says McIntyre. But an alliance or partnership could give RPAC members a better “return on the cost of membership,” she says, because a partner organization could improve networking and education opportunities for RPAC’s members.

Over the past two decades, the need for lifestyle planning for retirement has taken on something of a “chicken and egg” quality; financial advice is often not very useful without knowing what someone will do with their money in retirement. At the same time, without a financial plan in place, clients may not be able to afford to retire at all.

Considering that lifespans are increasing and that the period of retirement has increased to a 20- or 30-year time horizon for many people, fully integrated financial and lifestyle retirement plans are becoming more crucial, says George Hartman, president and CEO of Toronto-based Market Logics Inc. “Post-retirement, most people are going to be retired for a long time, well into their 80s and 90s, and quality of life is becoming a bigger issue.”

Although RPAC’s mandate is to help advisors share that integrated approach with their clients, many advisors have been flocking to the U.S. to get this type of training, says Hartman. A popular choice is Littleton, Mass.-based Kinder Institute of Life Planning, which provides training for advi-sors on how to become certified financial life planners.

RPAC does have ideas for campaigns that would help increase awareness and attendance at RPAC’s conferences. The problem is that the volunteer association doesn’t have the resources to execute them, says McIntyre: “We have lovely plans for campaigns. But the execution falls to the wayside because we have our businesses to run. And for many of us, our priority is our own clients.”

But that doesn’t mean RPAC is giving up. A task force dedicated to mapping out the association’s survival is searching for a partner with an infrastructure in place to help RPAC plan and host its national conferences.

In exchange, RPAC would contribute its membership base and its expertise in holistic lifestyle planning for retirement.

“We are looking for a dance partner who would benefit from dancing with us and we would benefit from dancing with them,” says McIntyre, “so our underlying philosophy is maintained. We don’t want to get swallowed whole.” IE