Compassionate capitalists: young social entrepreneurs merge values and business savvy to change the world

National Catholic Reporter, May 30, 2008 by Kris Berggren

CheckSpring, a full-service bank, opened as a commercial enterprise in November 2007 a few blocks north of Yankee Stadium, in a hardscrabble working-class neighborhood, home to many immigrants from Latin America and Africa as well as native New Yorkers. Some are unemployed, some self-employed as construction or daycare workers, others work in health care or have city jobs. Today 600 depositors have accounts, and nearly as many use check-cashing services, which CheckSpring offers at a better rate than other financial institutions in the area. CheckSpring's nonprofit arm, Ariva, provides tax preparation services and financial education classes.

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Dillon and Wilcox believe that by offering the products their customers want today such as check-cashing and wire transfer service--used often by immigrants sending money to families back home--they'll build trust and open the doors to long-term financial empowerment.

"People make assumptions that if you are low-income you're dumb about finances," said Dillon, who left Morgan Stanley in 2002 to help open Ariva and work on the plan for CheckSpring. "They are very savvy about cash flow."

A former vice president of strategic business development with Citibank, Charlie Wilcox and Dillon, also a former Citibank employee, met several setbacks getting CheckSpring off the ground. They applied for a bank charter assuming they'd secure such investors as larger banking institutions, only to meet with skittish check signers who saw a Bronx bank as a big risk. After five months the charter expired, so they had to start again. This time, they lined up funding first, from a wide group of investors including two successful immigrant businesspeople who wanted to support a venture that appealed to their personal and business values.

Dillon said their dream is to expand. "We want to prove the model, work out the kinks--then blow it out elsewhere by purchasing check-cashing stores and use their storefronts," she said. This is something Wilcox predicts will take at least five years.

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"Ultimately we want to show that profitably, and in collaboration with our customer base, we can change the way financial services are provided in moderate- to low-income neighborhoods across the country," Wilcox said.

Faith plays a role

Social entrepreneurship is by no means the sole purview of the 20-something crowd. Sam X. Renick, a 1980 graduate of Loyola Marymount, isn't exactly a member of the millennial generation, but he's engaged interns from his alma mater to help build his business, It's A Habit. Its mission is to teach children to save money and take responsibility for their choices through products such as books, videos and school appearances.

Mark Celio, a more recent graduate of Loyola Marymount, spent two years as an intern with Renick's company, helping with marketing, building a database and performing before school audiences as "Sammy Rabbit," a character Renick created.

Renick decided to bring his values more directly into the marketplace while working with Fortune 100 companies and as an independent consultant. In his personal life, he embraced his parents' example of thrifty living and was surprised to discover through his work that few people "lived below their means" as he'd learned to do. In his consulting work, he heard many clients regret that they didn't know how to handle their money better.