Supporting the Pipeline (DEI Micro Site)

Collaborate with educators at North Carolina’s community colleges, two-year colleges, and four-year universities.

Provide financial assistance to students from underrepresented populations.

Collaborate with the State Board and other stakeholders to collect and understand the demographic composition of the profession to allow for continuous evolution that will broaden the talent pipeline and aid in identifying progressions, challenges, and trends.

Advocate for legislation to designate Accounting as a STEM profession and make federal funding available for accounting courses for students who are members of groups that are underrepresented in accounting careers.

Educators

• Offering educational opportunities like the ones listed on this page
• Hosting CPA Evolution roundtables
• Consulting academic programmers for relevancy (i.e., Jessica Moran at Poole College of Management)
• We are committed to inviting HBCU educators into the classroom as leaders through a partnership with NC University
• The Association is working to connect Business Leaders and Educators through various events
• NCACPA created an Education Resource Group whose primary objective is to support the accounting pipeline.

Financial Assistance

• Awarded $130,000 in scholarships to 62 students from 21 schools in North Carolina.
• Received a generous contribution of $100,000 from NCACPA Board of Directors in recognition of the Foundation’s efforts to address the pipeline and its focus on diversity, equity and inclusion.
• Continued partnership with the NC State Board of CPA Examiners now totaling 22 students from 14 different schools receiving vouchers covering CPA exam fees. One of our original voucher recipients has passed all four parts and three additional students have passed at least half the sections.
• Expanded our demographic data collection efforts to both better understand our applicant pool, as well as assist in future Foundation programs.
• Utilizing a portion of its operational surplus from FY 2021 and in support of the NC CPA Foundation’s strategic initiatives to support a diverse, equitable and inclusive pipeline, the NCACPA Board of Directors contributed $100,000 in the Fall of 2021.
• The NC CPA Foundation is committed to supporting a diverse, equitable and inclusive pipeline to the profession. For the fourth consecutive year, the Foundation awarded over 1/3 of its scholarship dollars to students from underrepresented backgrounds, equating to $48,000 in 2021.

Data Trends

• Efforts to collect demographic data at the association and state board level. Understanding the demographic composition of the profession will allow for continuous evolution that will broaden the talent pipeline and aid in identifying progressions, challenges, and trends.
• NCACPA has expanded our demographic options related to race/ethnicity and gender, in hopes of gaining a better understanding about those in our community.

Advocacy

• The Association’s work on H.R. 3855, the Accounting STEM Pursuit Act, which would designate accounting as a STEM profession under Technology. It would add “activities to promote the development, implementation, and strengthening of programs to teach accounting” to the list of allowable uses of grant funding under the Student Support and Academic Enrichment Grant program, with a focus on increasing access to high-quality accounting courses for students who are members of groups underrepresented in accounting careers. Here is a link to the email that went out about this.
• Through NCACPA’s lobbying, Representative Deborah Ross and Representative Kathy Manning signed on as cosponsors of the H.R. 3855 bill.
• The Association continues to push for passage of this federal legislation and will explore options for STEM designation for accounting at the state level.