Economic Growth United States Project #8880

Save Up Program

by RISE Foundation, Inc.

Project Report | Jun 15, 2020
Achieved, Lost and Regained: A Resilient RISER

By Tangela Morgan | Development Director

Munson

Two weeks after closing on her first home, the house caught fire, destroying all of her family’s possessions.

Take a moment to ask yourself, how prepared are you to make the tough decisions that need to be made in this scenerio. One Save Up graduate, Ms. Munson lived through this exact situation and everything she had achieved while in the program, everything she lost and will regain as a result of the fire, she attributes to her faith and resilience acquired from money saving lessons learned at RISE.

“People say to me, ‘You lost everything, but you’re still smiling.’ But I didn’t lose everything,” she said. “I still have the gift of life. My sons and I are still standing strong. Sometimes God tests your faith, but I know something good will come out of this.”

Save Up is a matched savings account program that teaches participants to create a budget based on their income and expenses and to establish a bank account and purchase assets, such as homes, small businesses and vehicles. Within 10 months of beginning the program, Ms. Munson had saved enough money paired with matching funds from RISE for a down payment for a home.

“The program gave me a refresher on invaluable concepts, such as how to increase my credit score and saving money for purchases and emergency funds,” she said.

RISE provided Ms. Munson with the critical tools to purchase and keep a home, but she said her sons are the clear motivation for her accomplishments. Please consider a donation to the Save Up program at the RISE Foundation today. This program is so successful that 85% of program graduates continue to save and implement the gains in knowledge acquired through Save Up classes. With your help we can reach many more working families and guide them toward homeownership and self-sufficency.

Munson3

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Feb 13, 2020
Strong and Stable Communities take Partnerships

By Tangela Morgan | Development Director

Housing Success

Many families in poverty pay more than 50% of their income towards rent. Communities that work together to produce stable homeowners are in a position to turn this around and for the 26% of Memphis residents who live below the poverty line, the time is now. Since our inception in 1999, the RISE Foundation has helped over 911 low to moderate income households become self-sufficient by helping them build and sustain human and financial assets.

In our signature program Save Up, one of those financial assets chosen by many of our participants is a family home. Through the Save Up program, long-standing collaborations with area banking partners, city homebuyer initiatives and non-profit agencies, has helped RISE to successfully assist families in achieving the dream of homeownership.

Save Up graduate Ms. T. Clemons recently worked with RISE in partnership with Habitat for Humanity to attain her new home. Ms. Clemons described her experience as “something she knew her family desperately needed and had decided coming into the RISE Save Up program that she and her family would commit to being 100% dedicated to the projects, assignments and attendance required to complete the process”.

To inspire future graduates Ms. Clemons wanted to share what she learned through RISE because she feels that RISE teaches program participants to never give up, even if others can’t immediately see the benefits of creating a spending plan and budget for your family. She was referred to the program by a friend and former graduate who she is grateful for. Ms. Clemons pledges to continue to practice money management, invest in an emergency fund for her household and work on starting her own business. She credits RISE for helping her to realistically see a plan to create wealth-building assets for generations to come.

She states that her road to homeownership was not at all easy and the setbacks were challenging but worth going through because she had help from RISE program coordinators when she needed them, and they always kept her eyes on her future greatness. “God is good all the time, even in our short comings”, she says.

RISE is thankful for the many referrals from our community partners and former graduates who believe as deeply in our mission as we do. Please help us to continue making our communities stronger through financial education by making your donation to RISE today.

RISE Collage

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Nov 18, 2019
Graduation Day: Sweet Success with Save Up

By Rodney Lomax | Senior Save Up Coordinator

Save Up Success

The RISE Foundation announced their most recent graduating class on November 8, 2019 at the Benjamin Hooks Main Library. A total of 12 committed RISER's invested in themselves and their families by enduring five weeks of intense personal financial training and started personal savings accounts with Paragon Bank. In attendance to celebrate their milestones were over 30 of their close friends and family members.

Community Development Officer, Nancy Walls represented Paragon Bank which was the host bank for this cohort. She gracefully welcomed our participants as new customers, and spoke about Paragon's history and services. Paragon Bank was also responsible for the evening's refreshments and sponsored the catering for the event.

Graduates were impressed by the wealth of information they received by the two invited speakers, Freda Turner and Ken Harrison. Freda is with Memphis Area Legal Services and spoke to the class about lawful rights as current renters and best practices when renting a house or apartment. She also spoke about the multitude of services offered by Memphis Area Legal Services. Entrepreneur and Investor Ken Harrison gave a passionate talk about perseverance and overcoming barriers on the road to homeownership and success in general.

Through the Save Up program, graduates are able to transform their lives by obtaining critical financial literacy skills that help them build assets and make better financial choices for their families. Graduating from Save Up is such a sweet success because they are then able to take the resources, techniques and partnerships that they acquired through RISE and teach their friends, neighbors and family members.

The RISE Save Up program helps to break the cycle of generational poverty one family at a time and your donation directly supports those efforts. Please consider making a monthly donation to the Save Up program today to ensure that program participants will never be without the much needed programming services and education classes that leads them to a life of financial self-sufficiency.

Successful Grads

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