Sunrise Banks’ mission is to be “the most innovative bank empowering the underserved to achieve.” The bank seeks to radically change the way urban communities and underserved people thrive by empowering them to achieve their aspirations.
Sunrise Banks is devoted to using business as a force for good through financial products and services, employee volunteerism, corporate philanthropy and more. Throughout all of the bank’s actions, Sunrise Banks strives to create strong relationships and looks for multiple ways to make an impact in the community.
Sunrise enables its employees to participate as much, or as little, as they would like through its employee volunteerism programs. Sunrise is unique in that the organization does not set a maximum number of hours an employee may volunteer during work time. This means that employees are not limited to only one day a year of volunteer service.
Sunrise facilitates employee volunteerism by organizing, sponsoring and posting volunteer opportunities to the organization’s intranet website. In addition, as a part of their job duties, Sunrise Banks expects all managers and officers of the bank to participate in a meaningful way at a nonprofit organization; as such, the majority of loan officers serve on a nonprofit board of directors.
In 2015, Sunrise employees volunteered over 8,303 hours in the community; this equates to approximately 41 hours per employee.
Pay It Forward
Every year, employees at Sunrise look forward to the Pay It Forward Program. Through this program, the Sunrise CEO gives each employee $25 cash with the only instructions being to give the funds to someone less fortunate. Examples from the previous year include:
- One team pooled their funds to purchase a Kindle Fire for a family in the Breaking Free program.
- An employee contributed the funds to Dogs on Deployment, which helps find foster homes for pets owned by military personnel.
- Two employees donated to the Salvation Army Red Kettle on a day that had a corporate match.
Giving Week
Annually, employees also participate in charitable giving week to build awareness and raise funds for local nonprofit organizations. Through the 2015 giving week, employees pledged over $20,000 to local nonprofit organizations and donated approximately 29 hours of time
Welcome Home
In 2016, Sunrise will be helping one local family achieve its dream of owning a new home by building a Habitat home for a local Twin Cities family. Sunrise is the first Twin Cities company of its size and the first community bank to take on this enormous task.
This project kicked off in 2015, with over 370 staff hours dedicated to making the project a success. As part of the bank’s commitment, Sunrise will be giving $90,000 and countless hours of staff time, both in the office and at the build site. In addition, Sunrise will be working to obtain $75,000 in partner support.
Sunrise is new to CVC-TC in 2016 and is excited to continue to learn and innovate with other organizations dedicated to doing good in the community. Learn more about Sunrise by visiting http://www.sunrisebanks.com.