catherine reed a host at the st paul forum and coming up i'm speaking with dave riling sunrise banks welcome to the st paul form i'm katherine reed day and joining me today is dave riling of sunrise banks welcome dave hi catherine great to be with you so happy to have you here because there's so much going on in the in the world of banking today and so much of it is unfortunate but we don't want to talk about it that's all the reasons i wanted to have you on because sunrise banks has been doing some great work tell us just a little bit about the the brief story of sunrise banks what it means to our community sure so sunrise banks is about an eight hundred million dollars bank it is a family owned bank so my father founded it and now i run it and i have the responsibility and joy of doing that is your father still involved he is he sits on the board of the sand and it's how many years old  so from a community bank standpoint it's a fairly good size community bank relative to the size a community banks in minnesota overall if you put it on the scope of all the banks the united states in particular of the of the largest fifty it's quite small so it's still very much a community it's really it's more of your neighborhood bank you got it and you know i know that people are afraid of banking sometimes they you know two people walk in the doors anymore there are a whole communities that are unbanked  love for you to paint a little bit of a picture about let's let's start with saint paul because we're based here in st paul and it's the twin cities institution so we can but what is that what does that mean to the average person what do they need to know about a bank center elation ship to it so maybe let's start a little bit about sunrise in regards to its strategy so really has two distinct strategies to it one is really geared towards those people who fear a bank or are not too sure about what to expect in the bank  sunrise it's locations are in intentional and where they are and they're generally in low and moderate income communities so we really are there for those folks who really are under served in those urban communities and then that's really what we consider our place base business we also have a people based business which is really more of a national footprint and focused on those on an under banked individuals we do have an office in sioux falls south dakota so we leverage a prepaid card platform as a way to give people access into the payment system say that a little bit more slowly because i want to get my head around what you just said so what does that all mean prepayment platform senator so a prepaid card is think of it as a gift card right now to you and i we may think  cards only at the holiday season in giving it to a relative but if you think about it in a broader context in the people that we serve sometimes they use a prepaid card is just a micro savings account it's a way that they can take their cash and put it into a card and that might be one of the larger retailers and so when those emergencies happen they have that card in which to fall back on doesn't cost them any money and it's just a very simple might cost them twenty twenty five dollars to put on the card but it's their savings that they keep tucked away as a little person and you're saying you're doing that primarily in sioux falls you're saying that's happening and all of your that's happening as the country and so it's a nationwide exactly and so when i think about people  who really need this these services describe a typical person that's in that situation sure so let's take an example of well let's take an example of one of our clients is a farm in northern california that grow strawberries so the workers are primarily immigrants or migrant workers and so they're there for a season and instead of receiving a paper check on any given friday and having to leave the farm go in pay a fee to cash a check and then go to the store and then get transportation back that payroll gets loaded onto a card and they can at their leisure go into town go to the grocery store and free of charge use that card instead of having those transaction fees that inconvenience of getting to the check casher before closing that's a great example and it's it's one as specially because you're talking about migrant workers and we have lots of migrant worker workers in minnesota too but you know using a california example it seems like that effort is designed to  really build build up the economic capacity of those individuals by not i mean this is the very thing that people are afraid of with banks is they're going to take take money from me and set it giving instead of helping me preserve my that's really what you're talking about i am in even more so and i think maybe an important piece that we've discovered in working in really under served communities is that we have to understand as the bank that we're not the most important player so once we get over our ego if you will so for those immigrant farm workers their employer is helping them gain access to those financial services and with that card they can now shop online they can get bargains in discounts that they didn't have access to before so we're working with trusted partners and so another example that quite frankly is we work with lutheran social services on the east side of st paul and we actually have an east side financial center where people can come in and get financial budgeting counseling and get actually mortgage counseling if they'd like and in combination with those financial products so they understand but not have that mystique in that fear of being in a bank that's great so that's a partnership relationship and it's on the ground i've always i've really admired social services financial work they've i've spent i've served on a couple of advisory teams for them and sure it's just impressive i mean they have had a twenty four hour call in yep i've actually steered some clients to those services where families just weren't equipped even even in a wealthy family because it's a family owned businesses and wealth has been gained by someone who wasn't particularly educated around services and the rest of the family is an educated and so we use them as a partner but it sounds like you could be partners in that too absolutely and that's not only for our you side financial center it's all the customers and employees of sunrise banks can take advantage of the consumer credit counseling in budgeting for yeah that's really important so so that kind of sets the tone of tell us a little bit about that even though you're saying you're not emphasizing exclusively the locations or tell just remind us where you're looking your very near the capital you're right across from the mcdonald's on you used to work on some projects in philips i mean how do you describe the constituency now of each of these cities any one bank you know it's fantastic quite frankly the thing that's fantastic is are these are the staff reflects the community and you have this wonderful multicultural community i was blase deal on friday and on any given friday i think you could speak seven or eight languages in the lobby and it's just great to see such a such diversity and such joy in that multi cultural and do your bankers have to be multi lingual you know they don't have to but that's that's how we hire and that's how we attract people and that's the culture that we have that this is really a celebrated part of the bank and it's really fun and i'm not sure people think about banking and think about being multi lingual i don't know that i'd quite got my head around that either bit you know in our environment today that's just seems really a natural that is because i'm always surprised i think we speak nine languages between all the people in the different locations so hopefully we cover enough ground there to serve as many people as we can well one of the other reasons i want to join us is that i've been following the movement around social impact and social and social enterprises yeah exactly and i'd love for you to give us a little bit of a mini education on that because it seems like minnesota's better leader it's in part due to your involvement and efforts as well as others so can you kind of set the stage for us on what that is a to be happy to and so the i mean this a social enterprise maybe to start with is really an entity that's using let's say business or commercial practices but more than to maximize shareholder value it's really there  to for social and environmental benefit as well as be sustainable financially so in that social enterprise model you could be a nonprofit you could be a for profit you could be a co operative we're not so much looking at that corporate structure is you're impacting your outputs have some social environmental benefits to them and this movement really nationwide we are moving if you are familiar with the law diffusion of innovation know that's a big bell curve i know it's quite simple though if you have your innovators in your early adopters that's essentially where this movement is at the moment once you get beyond those early adopters there's a term for that called the that's really there's enough people that it really starts to hit this early majority and he starts to become very normal and part of that part of your day to day conversation and that's i think basically where we are we're getting close to that chasm to where this social enterprise movement really is becomes commonplace when i initially learned about social enterprises i think it was tom's shoes that i you know sure and that are you familiar enough to describe the way he does his that what that what i mean it was it was make a pair of shoes gave a pair way exactly and that making a pair was the giveaway was happening in other countries primarily it seems like that has really shifted though that that model is different it's shifting in different ways are there different kinds of social enterprises and i'm wondering if you can describe a few that might you know ring a bell with people the people watching the show sure so there's many might i mean locally there's a great brand finnegan is your typical company they make and sell a great product beer it happens the beer we all enjoy that ok generally and the profits go to hunger organizations or to solve hunger and they've been of that particular it's it's coming it's recognising bring it to the customer absolutely and you know i would say another one is piece coffee is a good example but slightly different than finnegans there you're going to have finish i'm sorry piece coffee is really looking at their suppl chain so fair trade organically grown coffee and then they're looking at their environmental footprint so they're going to deliver your coffee on a bike and you see them around right exactly and right very colorful and both have been successful companies correct and so is that one of the missed you have to bust about social enterprise is that it can be a profitable successful company definitely the biggest one quite frankly is that you can do well and do good at the same time they're not mutually exclusive as a matter of fact the way we think about it is that your mission can actually multiply your margin in your margin can actually multiply your mission it's not the traditional thinking where hey i have this this mission and have this margin making money and anything to do with this mission stuff subtracts from it quite frankly those are two good examples of their companies are growing because they continue to do good things and innovate in that space and people are excited about that and i think as we as we are warming up we're talking about a young generation i have a college student you're seeing that say you know students are really putting pressure on academic organizations to inform and train around this idea absolutely i can't tell you how many presentations i've made and how many conversations i've had with faculty and staff of universities both locally and nationally about their developing social enterprise programs and i would say that they're looking for content and examples that i would call it is just not your father's kind of business ethics class and it isn't just corporate responsibility it's really how do you in the d n a of that business really put social and environmental factors on parity with economic and financial sustain if you're just joining us i'm speaking with dave riling of sunrise banks about social enterprises and social impact so i really interested do you think that this model is one that is going to help us really look at this graph great divide in our country and really build prosperity and a new way i do i really do believe that business can be a force for good we've seen really tremendous technological advances and we've seen really some tremendous achievements and prosperity i would still say though the fact is we have huge progress to go in terms of serving the under served and as a result of that i think business has got to be the third leg of the stool with government nonprofit organizations in order to really solve the social environmental problems that we have it just seems to me that that is such a challenge in this country we seem to denigrate one or another right so much and i'm just wondering kind of what what can we how can we help with that how do we give voice to that idea i mean it seems as your concrete actions and through the bank into the new legislation which we should touch on briefly sure can help with that but how do we get it from it seems like the student level this this adopter idea that you're talking about it's that is that the way that's going to help it reeducate us around the separation we've created i do think that is ultimately what's going to put us over that chasm into that early adopter is is the students that are coming up have really grown up in a lot of respects in a life of service volunteer ism is been a big piece of their curriculum and as a result of that they're looking for more meaning than just having a job and they're looking for flexibility and they're looking for more than a paycheck from a financial standpoint but also looking from an emotional paycheck that they're actually doing some good in the world and i think that is the momentum that's going to move us forward in the fact that the systems are now really being developed there's accountants and attorneys to help structure businesses and the b corp legist or the benefit corporation legislation has now passed in minnesota is kind of one interesting leg in the stool if you will to help facilitate that and even more so now there's twenty seven states that have passed benefit corp legislation and another fourteen coming so it's great that momentum is really strong you know i was with a friend yesterday who's a lawyer and she was telling me about something as simple as going around and sampling some locally made foods look at at the new longfellow market and she was thinking about the attorney aspect is what made me think of it she had all natural on their label and she turney said let me help you with that you know because there are some challenges here and from the attorney protection standpoint she said you know gave him her card and said you know i'd love to talk to you about that sure you're on to a good thing but here are some cautions and are there is that where the social impact center can come in is that this is a new we'll talk briefly about it but i'm just wondering i because when you're starting something out and yeah you think i can afford the banker and i can afford the lawyer and i can you know where is that working that come together definitely the social impact center is really in my opinion the place to go or to start where you're going to find like minded people you're going to find a community or an ecosystem to really help you with those question as in those resources on where to go to build your social enterprise and quite frankly the energy and space in that  community is vibrant and so it's motivating and it is you know going through the process of developing a business takes quite a bit of courage and so it kind of helps you through that to where you really get that capacity and that confidence to keep going so your role with that center is as a people can look at that but what is your role in relationship to it you know i'm just a strong advocate of we are a sponsor as well i don't sit on the board but the fact is i'm a huge proponent of social enterprise and i think the twin cities is absolutely right to to develop social enterprise i mean we have such a philanthropic base that that thinking in combined with our business axiom in really puts us on the stage to be leaders and to  change kind of the way we do business you know to be a force for good and i think that social impact center is just it's the hub it's the place to go to really where people can meet and get to get started and my understanding about the way that's go structured i'm not an expert on it but there are some memberships you can be a founding member you get some services you can hang as you said hey out there it's co working space it's some technical assistance but it's know i look like i think we'd be surprised on how many enterprises are out there that don't think they're a social enterprise but yet do a tremendous number of things for the community in the community in that whether that's the sharing of products of the giving  money or things for their employees whether that's you know going an extra mile for them i think if you were to look at the family businesses that are in minnesota specifically yeah a lot of them probably you could label as social enterprises because they're really they're doing their business in an ethical manner the way that their family values have been built over time and as a result of that they're conducting themselves in their business in a way that is not only good for the end consumer  but there's integrity in the supply chain and as a result of that that business is quite healthy and then my opinion reduces the risk of the overall enterprise how many we've got a huge percentage of family owned businesses in this state don't we i mean are we are we are unusual that way are we normal i don't i don't know which it is i don't know which it is either i would have to lean on the side that we have maybe more family businesses per capita than other states but boy when you start looking for family businesses they seem to be every become huge but and when you know when you look at it from i think about the secretary of state's initiatives around business formation to intern under mark ritchie's leadership you know how many businesses are we forming year do you have any idea i mean is it fair how many come through how many years the banks seem i mean we see a steady stream of business of small and medium sized businesses and that's really where our niches and so you know that's in the hundreds and maybe thousands per year where i think specifically if we were to look at the benefit corporation as that gets inactive during puts into law january second i think we'll see you know maybe twenty to fifty businesses become benefit corporations or elect to become better for corporations within the first few months of the year right and then from there i think it's really that education process if those are your innovators your early adopters are close behind because they really act in accordance with with the sensually more than just an economic interest and for their boards and their directors to be able to look at social and environmental factors i think is a risk mitigation for them and something they should pursue and risk mitigation means helping make sure they don't quite a business correct is our issue i mean most people hear those statistics that it depends you know they don't last beyond a year or a few months i decide restaurant that didn't make it or so that that assistance that you can get to that being in a relationship that will help people yes keep that business going or make better decisions sure and as a as a result of mean of looking at their business bottom line but a good supply chain for the organisation which again helps to the longevity you know i'm a business owner i'm working in a neighborhood we're forming a creative enterprise zone at university into d ideas more people make a living by their creative capacities yes you know i think one of the hardest things is to help people understand whether they're if they are good candidates to actually take their business to the next level or for them to understand what education they need next who do you think of as good suppliers of that educational i mean you're talking about you know has a relationship process how do you think people are going to learn about what this the corporation and where are they going to get that information sure i mean i think one of those mean centers of information well they'll go to the state because the state will have a website but i think the social impact center will be a hub for information around benefit corporations  we're now seeing attorneys who are really taken an interest in social enterprise in so they'll be marketing their services there's a whole array of accountants quite frankly that have been in the nonprofit space looking at social enterprises the next thing for them so i think those core resources where people can get educated are developing in addition to that i would say from a more formal education obviously we talked about the colleges and universities here which we have we're blessed with tremendous resources in the colleges and universities and the resources they bring the web is also a great source of information and they can type in that the benefit corporation and find something they're as we're going to have them the website for the social impact center we're going to get them your website yep and is there something specific under your website that you want to direct them to i mean you'll see our our benefit corporation kind of button after you can hear some you could find some information about that you certainly can contact us we're more than happy to share information come actually inside the bank you can come inside the bank to you i know that i like to get in but i like to do that i still like to go inside a bank and i don't know why  been trained really early that you can walk in and have a relationship with people there maybe is one more resource that i would point people to and that is it's a similar term so the legislation is called a benefit corporation and that's actually the corporate status if you will ok there's a nonprofit organization out of philadelphia that's called b corp and that organization its official certification is a b corp but it's called the lab and if you were to google the lab you would find all all sorts of information about benefit corporations in the legislation as well as what it means to be a certified b corp nice ok so is there someone you're just super excited about that's going to become the next next kind of company are in our state her company and it is gosh i'm drawn to name something swim ok and she's basically helping autistic children get comfortable with the water which ultimately she's using this kind of interesting your unique technique which helps them calm down get comfortable in the water and quite frankly get exercise that they didn't have before and it's life changing for them and life changing for the parents i thought was a fantastic story oh it's great what i say i'm going to try to get somebody from that either the fredrickso group or whatever on to talk about because there were ten great stories there obviously and so we have something to look forward to coming up anything any last thoughts about banking in minnesota sunrise banks anything that you want to leave us with  we go through this holiday season sure you know be careful in your holiday season watching you know the banker and me as you know be cautious with your spending be prudent but all beyond that the fact is is that giving comes in many forms and so take the time out to give somebody a compliment some of the best gifts that you can give to somebody are actually free in the fact is whether it's a compliment or doing some or you a favor sometimes those are long lasting memories absolutely you open a door for somebody else aloof not keep that in mind at the us a lot that's free just got side and enjoy the beauty of our community absolutely great well thank you so much for informing us about sunrise banks and the b  the benefit corporation and this opportunity we have that's all we have time for come join us again next week on the st paul