First Reliance Financial institution’s founder and CEO Rick Saunders together with his spouse, Tiffany, and three kids
To assist ease the method, First Reliance Financial institution gives help for associates who welcome a foster or adopted youngster into their household.
By Rachel Hatcher
Fast Stat
76%
of adults contemplating worldwide adoption are involved about with the ability to pay for it
Supply: Dave Thomas Basis for Adoption 2022 US Adoption Attitudes Survey
The highway for {couples} and households trying to undertake is suffering from hurdles. Perhaps they’re nonetheless saving as much as accommodate the prices, or their employer isn’t keen to supply the day without work mandatory for a kid to regulate to their new dwelling.
First Reliance Financial institution, a $925 million-asset neighborhood financial institution in Florence, S.C., has made strides to interrupt down these limitations.
In response to the nationwide nonprofit Dave Thomas Basis for Adoption, funds are a priority for 54% of adults contemplating adoption from foster care and 76% for worldwide adoption. To ease considerations like this for his or her workers, First Reliance Financial institution established its Adoption Help Coverage, which offers monetary reimbursement for adopting households.
The neighborhood financial institution grants program individuals as much as $14,500, which might go in direction of adoption bills equivalent to private and non-private adoption company charges, authorized charges, medical and journey bills, and different related prices. As well as, FRB offers eight weeks of paid depart. If an worker is new to adoption, founder and CEO Rick Saunders and his spouse, Tiffany, make themselves out there to supply recommendation.
A private connection
Saunders is a powerful advocate for adoption, having personally skilled the method. After Tiffany skilled three miscarriages, she and Saunders determined to undertake a baby. Nevertheless, after that they had begun the method of adopting slightly woman in 2003, they found Tiffany was pregnant. Regardless of that, Saunders and his spouse selected to undergo with the adoption.
“We simply had been already in love together with her,” says Saunders. “We already had her footage.” Their daughter turned the namesake for the neighborhood financial institution’s extra monetary adoption useful resource, Reagan’s Promise Fund, which is funded by worker contributions and income from branded product gross sales.
Saunders takes satisfaction in First Reliance Financial institution’s adoption advantages. “Anytime the corporate might help the individuals who work for them chase their passions, their love for all times and household and their work—I simply assume it creates a tradition and an surroundings the place folks love being there, they usually’re not simply chasing the greenback.”
As a testomony to the neighborhood financial institution’s dedication, the Dave Thomas Basis for Adoption not too long ago acknowledged First Reliance Financial institution in its 100 Greatest Adoption-Pleasant Workplaces.
Encouraging neighborhood
Adoption could be a tough journey, however it proved life-changing for Saunders’ household. When he and his spouse introduced Reagan dwelling, she struggled with well being points introduced on by mistreatment throughout the system. But in a short while, they noticed an enormous change in her. “You may see the adjustments mentally, emotionally and bodily in her simply in a couple of weeks,” Saunders says, “and it was a very new life for her.”
Even with medical doctors’ predictions that Reagan would battle with reminiscence retention, she is now 20 years outdated and a Dean’s Checklist pupil at her faculty. Saunders and his spouse later went on to undertake one other daughter, 14-year-old Riley.
“I do assume our individuals are actually extremely engaged, and numerous that has to do with packages like this that say, ‘My employer cares sufficient about household and in regards to the individuals who work right here that that is the sort of place I wish to work.”
—Rick Saunders, First Reliance Financial institution
Saunders hopes the neighborhood financial institution’s program will encourage workers to pursue adoption and make a distinction in a baby’s life. He says one to 2 financial institution associates make the most of the adoption advantages yearly, however many others respect the sentiment and help that this system gives.
“My First Reliance household offers me the pliability to take care of my household and the kids I take into my care,” says one worker who fosters and adopts. “Being a working mom is a problem, however at First Reliance, I actually really feel revered for what my husband and I attempt to do for these kids.”
Saunders additionally believes that accommodating adopting households ought to be the norm. He says, “I do assume our individuals are actually extremely engaged, and numerous that has to do with packages like this that say, ‘My employer cares sufficient about household and in regards to the individuals who work right here that that is the sort of place I wish to work.’”
However his reasoning for this system goes past simply the optimistic impact it has on his financial institution. “Anyone who might help household, be part of that and construct their very own households,” he says, “I feel it’s a superb factor for our world, and it’s a superb factor for our nation.”
Rachel Hatcher is assistant editor of Impartial Banker.