Meet Our Founder
Kara Downing, CFP®
President & Founder
As a young college student, Kara helped settle her mother’s estate when she passed away of a chronic illness and helped to get her father’s affairs in order as he dealt with the onset of Alzheimer's disease. This difficult experience catalyzed her future: one in which she would dedicate her life to using her psychology and accounting education to assist other individuals, no matter what circumstances they are dealing with in life.
After spending a wonderful tenure at a premier wealth management firm in Cleveland, it was time to deliver her own holistic and unique approach to wealth management. She created Younity Wealth Partners to bring a deeply individualized, more balanced approach to wealth management, grounded in both personal experience and interdisciplinary expertise. Younity takes her passion for bringing order out of chaos and using it to help her clients accomplish their own dreams.
The Y-O-U in “Younity” speaks to the partnership between us that results when we work alongside one another as client and trusted advisor. When you become a client, we will work together toward the same common goals – those that are unique to you and you alone. Our philosophy is simple. As a firm, our focus is to understand your goals and develop a plan to reach them. We will meet with you to present an analysis and discuss our recommendations. Together, we implement the recommendations and monitor your progress. From here, we will plan regular meetings with you to assess the progress toward your goals and, when necessary, we will make adjustments to your financial plan.
Kara is a CERTIFIED FINANCIAL PLANNER™ (CFP®) practitioner and earned a Bachelor of Science degree in Business Administration, cum laude, with a concentration in Accounting from Bowling Green State University. She currently serves as Chair of the Financial Planning Association (FPA®) of Northeast Ohio Board of Directors, a non-profit volunteer organization that supports high standards of professional competence, ethical conduct, and growth of the financial planning profession as a whole. As a proud Northeast Ohio native and lifelong resident, she enjoys giving back to the community in which she lives. When she's not in the office, she volunteers her time and expertise helping underserved individuals and families by providing free, no-strings-attached, objective financial planning services. For fun, Kara enjoys traveling to new places and dining in so many of Cleveland's wonderful restaurants. As a member of the Cleveland Museum of Art and subscriber to Playhouse Square KeyBank Broadway Series for many years, she often finds herself in Downtown Cleveland for a new art exhibit or live show. In the summers, you can find her at any number of local farmers markets, arts and crafts shows, or hiking in the Metroparks. To unwind, she enjoys walking her rescue dog, Moki, sipping wine, and trying new recipes in the kitchen. Born and raised in Northeast Ohio, she currently resides in Hudson.