About HU

About HU

PROVIDING UNDESERVED INDIVIDUALS & COMMUNITIES ACCESS TO RESOURCES WHICH WILL BETTER THEIR LIVES

Mission Statement

To provide traditionally underserved individuals and communities access to resources which will better their lives, in combination with hard work and self-discipline, via “hand-ups” versus “hand-outs,” through a unique non-profit education financing platform that meets the diverse needs and common goals of students, schools and mission-focused donors and investors.

Guiding Principles / Vision

  • Everyone has a purpose in their life, and is blessed with certain gifts, passions, and abilities
  • Education is most often the key to fulfilling this purpose
  • Sadly, socioeconomic or political variables beyond their control may limit people’s ability to achieve that purpose by attending their chosen school and program.
  • If these limiting variables are alleviated or removed, with hard work and self-discipline everyone can advance and succeed in life.

Goals

Stewardship That Meets the Needs of All – Hand Up is the only entity that can bring students, schools, donors and investors together in a way that meets these common goals:

STUDENTS – To get a higher education, virtually all students and families need well-designed and well-executed financing solutions, delivered at affordable price points, regardless of their credit score or background

SCHOOLS – To avoid intrusive government regulations, institutions need alternative funding to supplement Federal funding, at comparable prices and approval rates, while avoiding becoming a lender themselves

SUPPORTERS/INVESTORS – To provide high social impact investment with positive financial returns, donors and investors need a safe and trusted place to deploy capital, in a program that is compliant with federal and state lending laws, and that provides a tremendous societal benefit to students and the schools of their choice.

Purpose

To be a social enterprise adding substantial value to society while offering products and services at subsidized terms to markets not served by for-profit enterprises.  As a non-profit social enterprise, it will seek to employ the best practices of traditional for-profit corporations, but without the shareholder return mandate that can often inhibit the value delivered to society.  As a result of this philosophy, the entity will seek to be as self-sufficient as possible, with the premise that all value derived by the enterprise will be returned to the communities and organizations it serves.

Our Founding Story

Our Founding Story

The vision of Hand-Up Financial Group was the culmination of a lifetime of experiences, which were heavily influenced by the following:

  1. Three decades of personal and career experiences within the higher education systems in America;
  2. Exposure to international microfinance through my work with HOPE International;
  3. A series of family and global financial crises; and
  4. My own personal faith journey that was jumpstarted by the NY Times all-time best-selling non-fiction book The Purpose Driven Life.

Our Leadership Team

Our Leadership Team

Don

Don King

FOUNDER, CHAIRMAN & CEO – HU
MANAGING PARTNER – KCG

Don King is a Big-4 CPA who began his career in public accounting, where he worked primarily on Real Estate, Energy, and Higher Education clients. His Hand-Up Financial Group, Inc. (HU) and King Consulting Group, LLC (KCG) both leverage teams that have over 100 years of Higher Ed experience in a variety of Institutional Finance/Accounting, Legal and Student Finance roles. He has held executive level finance positions focused on operational and financial oversight of multi-state and multi-national educational institutions.

Mike

Mike Brase

BOARD MEMBER – HU
SENIOR MANAGING DIRECTOR – KCG

Mike Brase began his career as a Big-4 CPA in public accounting, where he worked primarily on Financial Services, Manufacturing and Governmental/Non-Profit clients. He has spent the last 20+ years leading and advising management within the health care and education service sectors. His teams have provided support to operations on such things as pricing decisions, maximizing sources of funding, analysis on the impact of anticipated scholarship programs, acquisition integrations and monthly insight on financial results.

William

William Calhoun

BOARD MEMBER – HU
SENIOR MANAGING DIRECTOR – KCG

William Calhoun brings a rich history in post-secondary education and publicly-traded companies as he assists clients with revenue growth, risk mitigation, and regulatory compliance. William helps Cicero clients accomplish these objectives by bringing a creative consumer focus, unique experience in this space, and dedication to the needs of our clients’ students and customers. These characteristics have allowed William to develop and coordinate growth, compliance and risk-mitigation strategies across admissions, education, accreditation and licensing, and more.

Andrew

Andrew Min

BOARD MEMBER – HU

Andrew Min is a 20-year veteran of Risk Management who began his career in consumer lending.

Andrew currently serves as AVP of Credit Risk Management, Risk Analytics and Process at Mechanics Bank Auto Finance

Andrew previously served in a variety of roles in the consumer lending industry.  He has held various Risk Management positions focused on operational and program oversight of multi-state consumer lending programs.

John

John Spruill

BOARD MEMBER – HU

John Spruill has over twenty-four years of experience in the Automotive Industry and has successfully created and led large engineering organizations to on-time launches of hundreds of new vehicle models and aftermarket products. With extensive expertise in Reliability and Validation Testing, Emissions and Crash Safety Homologation, Powertrain Design and Development, Engine and Vehicle Calibration, and Product Design and Development.

FAQ

FAQ

We believe that everyone has a purpose in their life and is blessed with certain gifts, passions, and abilities. Higher education is often the key to fulfilling this purpose. Sadly, socioeconomic or political variables beyond their control may limit people’s ability to attend their chosen school or program. However, if these limiting variables are alleviated or removed, with hard work and self-discipline, everyone can advance and succeed in life.

The 2008 financial market meltdown, the 2010 nationalization of federal student lending into a single-payer system, and other regulatory changes collectively combined to eliminate funding from over 1,500 financial institutions that previously supported the funding of higher education. As a result, billions of dollars per year in private-funded student financing vanished, leaving many students/families without the necessary financing to pursue their education.

Hand-Up specializes in GAP Funding.

GAP Funding is defined as the last dollars needed for someone to attend the school and program of their choice. Hand-Up’s GAP Funding solutions level the playing field for underserved students with uniquely designed, privately funded, repayable solutions that are comparable to federal government aid programs offerings to credit-tested parents and grad students. These solutions include educational loans and income sharing agreements that are guaranteed/funded by the benefiting schools and/or other HU supporters.

GAP Funding can affect students from many different backgrounds, but the groups most often affected are the following:

  • Independent/adult students (often referred to as non-traditional students)
  • Minority students
  • Students from lower socioeconomic means
  • First-generation students (both those whose families are new to the country, as well those whose families have never attended a higher educational institution)
  • Students that receive less Merit based aid (which can be driven by disparities in standardized testing and/or unequal K-12 education systems)
  • Families where parents are ineligible for Federal and/or credit-tested loans

GAPs tend to range from $1-15K with an average of about $5,000.

Annual cost of attending college can range from $10K to $80K with averages hovering around $35-45K. After school discounts and grants, this number is generally reduced to a net price of $5-35K with an average of about $20K. Most students can access $10-15K of federal and state aid. The amount left after government aid is the GAP.

Hand-Up enables schools to expand their reach to a broader demographic of students. It also helps to increases enrollments, reduce the risk of students not showing up for school, decreases attrition (when compared to students with large in-school payment obligations), allows more students to attend full-time, and increases cash flows (by reducing unfunded discounts and increasing payments made over time). Lastly, Hand-Up helps schools become more diversified in their funding sources, reduces risk and influence from government funding programs, and most importantly, it prevents schools from having to be a lender themselves.

Hand-Up is a unique non-profit education financing platform that unites students, educational institutions and its mission-focused donors and investors to meet diverse needs and achieve common goals. Therefore, HU uses a blended capital structure that includes donations, investments from socially responsible and impact investors, funded reserves from school partners, and investments from schools via their endowments. Therefore, programs can vary by school from 100% school funded (which net against loan proceeds at organization) to 100% investor funded; or as is most often the case, a combination thereof.

Hand-Up allows its supporters to invest directly into the lives of the students HU serves. The greatest investment most people will make in their lifetime is in themselves, via an education. Sadly, without financial support, many people will fall short of their full potential in life. Hand-Up allows its supporters to come alongside students with small but meaningful investments and in return be part of a lifetime of impacted lives, regardless of whether the students they choose to support are plumbers, pastors, or the next Bill Gates.

It’s a “Hand-Up” not a “Hand-Out”

Many charitable and education funding solutions rely on giving away resources to those in need. This model leads to endless need for additional resources and can also lead to dependency in the lives of those served. Hand-Up believes in investing in the lives of its student borrowers. Therefore, all of our solutions are repayable which means that the same resources can continue to bless the lives of the students we serve over and over. Lastly, the below- market (federal-like) rates and fees we charge our borrowers, allows us to pay investors a 2% Treasury-like returns, while also covering most of the operating cost of managing the portfolio. This allows the maximum benefits to be delivered to the students, school and communities we serve and eventually will lead to Hand-Up becoming and operationally self-sufficient social business.