Advisers Giving Back: Kelli Davis and CSi Advisory Services

Among other efforts, the firm dedicates significant time and resources to causes that fight hunger and support financial literacy among girls and young women in Indiana.

Art by Niv Bavarsky


Kelli Davis is a vice president of retirement plan consulting at CSi Advisory Services, where she has worked since 2008.

It is a dynamic role that involves working directly with clients and helping them solve their retirement plan design and investing challenges. Davis says the job is a rewarding one, made even more so by her firm’s commitment to giving back to charitable causes in the Indiana community.

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Though informal giving efforts had occurred earlier, Davis says, CSi Advisory Services, based in Indianapolis, opted to create a more formalized giving framework about three years ago.

“It was an organic decision based on the fact that we all felt that we needed to start doing something together to give back to our local community,” Davis explains. “We knew we were at a point where we had the ability to make the time commitment and the financial commitment. We embraced a multitier approach from that point.”

One program the team established allows staff members to “dress down” and wear jeans on Fridays, so long as they have made a charitable donation during the week. Every six months, the team submits proposals for which charity to benefit next, and the firm matches staff donations. 

“Our team puts forward proposals and we all discuss and vote on which organization we are going to support,” Davis says. “This whole approach creates such great buy-in among the staff. It has come to mean a lot to them. It’s so important and meaningful to have the staff pick the causes. They have a stake. They want to support a cause that means something special to them, and it should connect with their passions.”

The next big component of CSi’s giving is an annual service day—which the staff also gets to vote on. Most recently, the team has been working with Gleaners Food Bank of Indiana, an entity that generates most of the food bank contributions going to about a third of all the counties in Indiana.

“It is a very large population of Indianans they are serving,” Davis says. “They have a giant warehouse with about 50 people on staff, but they need about 200 or 300 people a day to fulfill the needs. They crowdsource the rest of the work from community volunteers. When we go in to serve, one of the full-time staff members is with us all day, and we get to learn about why this work is important, why this work matters. We all find it to be such a meaningful experience.”

About a year and a half ago, CSi decided to expand its giving efforts again and to leverage the firm’s longstanding focus on financial literacy and education.

“We felt we needed to do something where we could have an impact at a younger age,” Davis says. “That is how we came across an organization called Invest in Girls. They go into high schools and teach financial literacy.”

Invest in Girls had mostly been focused on the East Coast, Davis says, with no presence in Indiana.

“In fact, when we reached out, they said they were already interested in launching a pilot program in Indiana, and asked if we would take that on,” she says. “We decided to step up and we brought the program here. Now, we work with about 25 different school systems in the state. We had mapped out a curriculum that we thought would be helpful and interesting, but during the first sessions we also polled the students and asked what they wanted to know about.”

Davis says it was amazing to see the entrepreneurial spirit of a lot of the girls.

“Many of them say they want to own a business someday, and they want to understand how to do that,” Davis says. “We redeveloped and pivoted our educational plan to match what they told us, and it has turned out to be really amazing. It’s so important because the teachers don’t have the time or funding to teach any of this.”

In terms of the impact on staff, these giving efforts have been very powerful, Davis says.

“They feel good about working for an employer that is dedicated to these issues,” she says. “I know they enjoy being able to tell our clients about it. When I go to client meetings on Fridays, I explain why I am wearing jeans and I get to tell them about the work we are doing and the causes we are trying to support. Also, this is very much a part of our recruiting and hiring process. Young people coming into the workforce right now really identify with these causes and working for an employer that agrees with their values.”

15th Anniversary of RPAY: Mike Goss and Fiduciary Investment Advisors

The firm has grown tremendously since it was recognized as the Retirement Plan Adviser Team of the Year in 2009, and it recently underwent a significant merger.


Fiduciary Investment Advisors had $15 billion of assets under advisement and 25 employees when it won recognition as the PLANSPONSOR Retirement Plan Adviser Team of the Year in 2009. Today, it has 85 employees and $100 billion in assets, says Mike Goss, executive vice president and senior consultant.

And, in April, the practice merged with DiMeo Schneider & Associates.

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“We have a similar client base and focus,” Goss says. “We service 401(k) and 403(b) plans and pensions in the mid- to large-plan markets.” 

Since 2009, Goss says, the practice’s service model has remained steadfast. “We provide high-touch, proactive service emphasizing fiduciary governance as well as participant financial wellness,” he says. 

Due to the DiMeo Schneider & Associates merger, Goss says, Fiduciary Investment Advisors now has the opportunity to forge strategic partnerships beyond the East Coast, where it has offices in Boston; Hartford, Connecticut; and Portland, Maine. The DiMeo operation has offices in Los Angeles; Chicago; Austin, Texas; and Washington, D.C. 

At the same time, a lot has changed in the past 11 years for the firm and the marketplace. Goss says it has “grown up.”

“There are more large firms like ours that are specialists,” he explains. “There are far fewer individual advisers or brokers serving retirement plans today, and there is more emphasis on fiduciary services and holistic participant financial wellness.” 

Asked whether he is hopeful about the future of the retirement plan industry, Goss is quick to say he is very optimistic.

“There is always a need for proactive advice and strategic financial partners to help businesses with their retirement plans,” he says. And as far as how well Fiduciary Investment Advisors is navigating the coronavirus pandemic and lockdown, Goss says the firm has successfully made the remote-work transition.

“We are all working virtually, which has been very effective,” he says. “Our transition to working from home was seamless. We are actually communicating more with our clients since the passage of the Coronavirus Aid, Relief and Economic Security [CARES] Act and the onslaught of the market volatility in February and March.”

He says one interesting point of business that has come up is speaking with law firms about their cash balance plans.

“They are either adopting new plans or tweaking existing ones,” Goss says. “We are also talking with many clients about their frozen pension plans and the best way to align those plan assets with liabilities. We have adapted well to provide more touchpoints with clients, through meetings or written communications.”

Had the pandemic erupted five years ago, Goss says, the firm would have been less prepared.

“Our IT [information technology] department has done a fantastic job keeping us on the cutting edge of emerging technologies,” he says. “We are able to trade remotely, and are using Zoom and Microsoft Teams. Our disaster recovery systems have been tested multiple times. We had decided to be prepared should a natural disaster occur. That preparation has paid off, and we are working flawlessly from home.” 

As to how Fiduciary Investment Advisors is trying to help those struggling emotionally and financially due to the pandemic, Goss says, “We have always given back to the communities where our employees live and work. All of our advisers sit on nonprofit boards, and we contribute to those organizations.” 

Also notable is that, this year, Fiduciary Investment Advisors has debuted an intern program called InTurnship.

“The goal is to offer a virtual internship for 50 rising seniors in college who might have lost an internship or job because of COVID-19,” Goss says. The practice has very deliberately sought out a “diverse population of all different races and backgrounds,” he says, adding that he hopes this leads to some of these students joining the industry and helping to diversify the workplace. 

Reflecting on the arc of his career, Goss says success in this business starts with providing “good fiduciary governance and being proactive in encouraging sponsors to add automatic features to their plan design, as well as a competitive company match and profit sharing plan.” It is also helpful to equip participants with financial wellness tools that can give participants insight into their total financial picture. 

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