| Website
of the Month: National Association
of Financial & Estate Planning (NAFEP)
By
Susan B. Anders
The
National Association of Financial & Estate Planning
website, www.nafep.com, offers a selection of useful estate
and business planning materials. NAFEP is a for-profit organization,
providing estate, business, and legal expertise to CPAs,
attorneys, and financial planners and their clients, but
the website is free and available to any visitor. Although
there are some inconsistencies, the website also represents
a good example of approaches to organizing and publishing
technical materials, as well as promoting an organization.
The
NAFEP website presents a common format on all pages, which
makes navigation and resource location easy. The main menu
bar at the top of each page features the four major organizational
groupings of the
website: “Estate Planning,” “Business
Entities,” “NAFEP Info,” and “Prof
Info Center.” The secondary horizontal menu features
“Home,” “Contacts,” and “Member
Login.”
The
NAFEP website is a good example of a clear and attractive
presentation of technical material in a text format with
minimal graphics. Although the website is aimed at professionals,
the format will be appealing to other users. The topical
discussions are presented in HTML format, with some links
to .pdf versions. The HTML formats offer links to related
web pages on the site. One useful feature is links to a
mail-in form for requesting available booklets, although
these links are not offered consistently. Additionally,
the website utilizes an online form for the Certified Estate
Advisor application (discussed below) that would also be
helpful for information requests.
Estate
Planning and Business Entities
The
“Estate Planning” section includes materials
covering general estate planning concerns, asset protection,
capital gains tax deferral, planning under the 2001 Tax
Act, charitable foundations, and special interest. Under
general estate planning concerns, the “Estate Planning
Basics” document is worth reviewing. Although the
document is obviously aimed at selling NAFEP’s services,
it still provides a helpful description of why estate planning
is important, problems that can arise with insufficient
planning, the purpose of a will, and a fundamental explanation
of trusts.
Another
article, “Estate Planning Under the Tax Act of 2001,”
briefly describes the changes in the estate and gift taxes,
and explains why estate planning is still important. As
mentioned above, these articles are provided for marketing
purposes, but they still provide good background discussions.
Prof
Info Center
NAFEP
offers a Certified Estate Advisor (CEA) designation. A 25-page
downloadable information booklet is available, along with
an online application form in its Professional Information
Center. This section also provides recent newsletters in
.pdf format. The simple, yet professional, appearance and
quick download of the newsletters sets a good example to
follow.
NAFEP
Info
The
NAFEP “Info” webpages make for a small but powerful
promotional tool. NAFEP has made a good marketing effort
using a simple approach. The “More About NAFEP”
webpage explains the organization’s purpose and core
competencies. Importantly, it presents the names and images
of the top personnel, along with descriptions of their professional
backgrounds. The “Products & Services, Download
Brochure” section lists the organization’s major
products, with brief descriptions and links to two-page
brochures. The brochures download quickly, and are clean
and professional in appearance. The “Check Our References”
page is an interesting and eye-catching set of hyperlinks
to 16 unrelated websites that have referenced the NAFEP.
Susan
B. Anders, PhD, CPA, is an associate professor at
St. Bonaventure University, N.Y. |