Black Professional Advisor Alliance - Community Foundation of Greater Memphis

For over 50 years, the Community Foundation has helped people give with purpose, strengthening Memphis and the Mid-South.

We make giving easier and more impactful by matching your generosity with the causes and community you care about most.

We offer solutions and resources to donors and the professionals who advise them to help you give smarter and do more good.

We offer funding opportunities that helps nonprofits and students create positive change and build futures.

When you get involved with the Community Foundation, you join a group of people committed to Memphis’s future.

Learn more about the philanthropic hub that connects capital with the solutions that make our community thrive.

A forum for meaningful conversation

The Black Professional Advisor Alliance is a network of Black professionals—wealth managers, attorneys, CPAs, real estate professionals, bankers, and insurance professionals—who believe that knowledge is most powerful when it is shared. Brought together by the Community Foundation of Greater Memphis, this Alliance unites advisors who are not only leaders in their fields, but dedicated to serving their community.

A diverse group of seven adults, including a Black Philanthropic Advisor, sit in a row engaged in discussion. One speaks animatedly while others listen attentively, holding notebooks and pens against a plain gray wall background.

Its vision is to be the trusted network of Black professional advisors that advances generational wealth, strengthens economic opportunity, and expands community impact throughout Memphis.

How the Alliance started

In August 2025, during Black Philanthropy Month, the Community Foundation hosted its first Black Philanthropic Advisor Roundtable at the Powered by Us Symposium. Advisors at the table asked for closer connection, more intentional effort, and greater access to philanthropic tools for Black clients and Black-led organizations.

What the Alliance does

The Alliance meets every two months for timely, meaningful conversations at the intersection of philanthropy, wealth management, and community impact. Its work centers on five core commitments: financial literacy, mentorship, personal growth, service, and collective impact.

Alliance Members

Brooke Benjamin Kelley
Tax Attorney & Wealth Strategist // Founder, Benjamin Law Firm

April Bostick
Founding Partner
Bostick Law Firm

Williams Brack
Manager, Business Development
CBIZ MHM, LLC

George Henry Brown III
Registered Representative & Insurance Agent
New York Life

Darrell Cobbins
President
Universal Commercial Real Estate, LLC

Crandall Craigen
Senior Vice President, Primerica // Business and leadership development coach, I AM LEGACY

Leon Cunningham III
Retirement Plan Consultant
Corebridge Financial

Jamel Dagher
Assistant Vice President – Commercial Lending
Paragon Bank

Ted Davis
Partner, Vice President, & Co-Portfolio Manager
Bright Investments, LLC

Deja Foster
Manager of Advanced Wealth Planning & Consulting, Ameriprise Financial, LLC

Jerome Franklin
Managing Principal
Solutions Wealth Management

Chasity Grice
Probate & Estate Planning Attorney
The Estate and Family Law Group, PLLC

Jacinta Hall-Weeden
Estate Planning Attorney
The J.A. Hall Law Firm, PLLC

Scotty Hendricks, Jr.
Founder and CEO
Freedmen’s Financial Group

Katrena Hester
Financial Planner
Freedmen’s Financial Group

Deterrious Hill
Tax Professional
Reynolds, Bone & Griesbeck, PLC

O’Keith Jones
Registered Representative & Director of Advisor Development
Freedmen’s Financial Group

T.K. Jones
Operations Director & Money Coach
Forward Memphis

Faye Martin Alexander
Real Estate Attorney // Lead Trustee, Becton Family Real Estate Trust

Myra McCaskill Crenshaw
CPA, Tax Advisor & Real Estate Wealth Advisor, McCaskill Crenshaw Group

Audrey Miller-Okhiria
Senior Vice President and Area Investment Executive
Regions Financial Corporation

Travis Moody
CEO
Forward Memphis

Mario Nolan-Dillard II
Financial Services Representative
Sims Financial Group

Sean Norris
Sorkaty Capital Advisors

Nathan Ollie
Financial Advisor
Merrill Lynch Wealth Management

Dana Pointer
Investment Manager
Preserver Partners

Daryl Quarles
Financial Advisor
Wells Fargo Advisors, LLC

Latrice Smith
Financial Advisor
Equitable Advisors

Evan Stephens
Financial Advisor
Merrill Lynch Wealth Management

Marques Young
Financial Advisor
Edward Jones

Join the Alliance

If you are a Black professional advisor ready to connect, contribute, and be part of something bigger than your own practice, the Alliance wants to hear from you. The Alliance is built on relationships—and it starts with a conversation. Reach out to Philanthropic Services Associate Angela Richards, linked below, to explore membership and see if this network is the right fit for you.

Recent gatherings

Alliance members engage in fellowship, connection, and meaningful conversation at bimonthly meetings.

A group of people from the Black Professional Advisor Alliance sit around a long dining table in a restaurant, engaged in conversation. The table is set with glasses, plates, and silverware. Black and white photos hang on the wall behind them.

Five people sit at a restaurant table with drinks and menus, engaged in conversation. Red curtains and candles decorate the background. Some people are smiling while others look at their menus. The gathering has the warm camaraderie of a Black Professional Advisor Alliance event, where members connect over dinner and meaningful discussions.

People in business attire, including several Black Professional Advisors, sit around a long table at a restaurant, talking and smiling. There are menus, drinks, and name cards on the table. Black-and-white photos decorate the dark walls, setting the scene for this Advisor Alliance gathering.

A group of people sits around a restaurant table, smiling and conversing at a Black Professional Advisor Alliance event. Two women face each other, with drinks and name cards on the table. Others applaud. A TV screen and plant are visible in the background.

A woman in a red dress stands and speaks to a group at a dinner table in a dimly lit room with red curtains. Several people are seated, listening and smiling, with drinks and name cards on the table—an elegant gathering hosted by the Black Professional Advisor Alliance.

Here to help

Aerial Ozuzu, a woman with short curly gray hair, wearing glasses, gold hoop earrings, a red top with white patterns, and a white crocheted shawl, smiles outdoors against a softly blurred green background.

Angela Richards

Philanthropic Services Associate

Information for prospective donors and professional advisors

(901) 722-0019

Email Angela