AAFMAA’s Post

Transcript

Welcome, all. I'm Sarah Bumgardner with asthma. The American Armed Forces Mutual Aid Association. Since 1879, we have been serving our military community, and our mission is to be the premier provider of financial solutions for the American Armed Forces. Now, as the director of partnership and member Engagement, I talk with other nonprofit organizations about what they are doing to help our service members and their families. If you are joining today, please drop in the comments. Sections where you're joining from, I always love to see that. If you happen to be listening by phone, fear not, you can always go into the comments to see any of the links that we are talking about today. So what are we going to be talking about? The age-old question of how do you make the most of what you've got, right? And to start that answer is knowing what you truly had and need and then understanding the resources and tools available to help you. Army Emergency Relief for AR is an organization. That is there to help service members in a time of financial need. I have the pleasure today to talking with the 16th Sergeant major of the Army, now retired, Tony Grinston. He is now the CEO of Army Emergency Relief and he's going to shed some light on what a ER is doing to support our soldiers and their families. So it is so great to have you here with DAY. Thank you. Thanks for having me. So let's start with your story, right? You have recently retired as the 16th Sergeant Major of the Army. How did you decide to join the Army and start your journey? Sometimes I think it was maybe like a little bit of serendipity. And so I was in college at the time and one of my friends said, hey, let's join the military. And I believe it or not, I actually wanted to go to college before and I was home on vacation. I was going to be an architect at Mississippi State. And I ran out of money was like, oh, like, oh, what are we going to do? We got to figure all this out. And the recruiter just happened to call. While I was home for summer break and said, ohh, you know, hey, you know, you get some money to join the Army and you could finish your degree, you know, just kind of go for a couple of years, just a couple years, you'll be fine. And so, you know, I didn't come from, you know, family with a lot of money. Mom worked her whole life single parent. So we didn't have any money to give any of the kids for college. So it just happened to be the recruiter called me. And next thing you know, 36 years later. Alright. Just a short time, just 36 years. So you finish up a 36 year career in Beyond Me because you ran out of money. And somebody was there to say, hey, this is a reason for you and you could find a place here. You obviously had a very long and very prosperous career. So what brought you from being the Sergeant major over to CEO of Army Emergency Relief? Well, the number one thing that really brought me there was the commitment that AR has the soldiers and their families. And I love my job. I love what I do. And you know, after a long career, everybody's looking for a purpose or job and, and or not, you know, some maybe I wanted to go play, you know, golf a little bit more. So there's all these decisions you had to make, you know, do you work for profit? You work for nonprofit? Do you work at all? So those are the big three. Buckets work at all For Profit nonprofit and I really thought, you know, nonprofit and AR specifically, just helping soldiers and their families and retirees was just like the greatest mission I could do. Just my way of giving back. And that's what it was. That's what really attracted me. Is I had an opportunity to give back to soldiers and their families and then help them when they're going through a tough time. And I wake up every day thinking, you know, what a great job I have and I got a great purpose. So I love it. And that's what the real calling was, just to do this versus to go any other route. Yeah. So when let's talk a little bit about what AR does, right? You're a Relief society. You work in the financial space to ensure that those service members who might need a financial relief have a place to go. So when you see these young junior soldiers, what is some of your messaging to them about one becoming financially stable? But also, if you aren't, where can you go for help? For what? What things can you get help for? Well, my main message for young soldiers or anybody you know, just in life is, you know, the goal of your life is sometimes to be financially stable. You just don't want to wake up and, you know, worry about money. Nobody wants to, you know, how am I going to put food on the table? How am I going to pay for rent? So that's, that's what I would tell anybody is, you know, um, your goal when you get through maybe some of the more difficult years that young trying to figure it out, family years. Is really you want to become a financially stable and talk about that and just realize that there are people out there that are willing to help you if you're going through a tough time and you don't have to put yourself in such a bad way. And that's why I love ER and what I've told everybody in the ER, soldiers, families, everybody. I want to be the number one nonprofit of choice. When you're in need, I want them to call AR think of AR and we've got a lot of programs, but what I've asked every Army. Emergency relief officer that I've talked to is if we don't do it, let's you know, and you think this is something we need to do, let's find a way to do it. So #1 nonprofit of choice where people go to, if they're in financial need, if they're a soldier or a spouse or a retiree, is think of us first. Don't you know, Max out your credit card, go into bad debt going to all these things, you know, payday lenders, you know, get those high interest rates. We got interest free loans, we got a lot of ways to help you stay financially stable. So just think of, you know, I don't know exactly maybe what AR does, but let's give them a call. That's my number one. That's just everybody. Yeah, that's wonderful. And I think we all know as a military spouse myself, right, the second you start driving towards a military installation, there are usually some very choice financial agencies out there, quick payday loans, you know, car dealerships, things like that, these high interest loans. And so I love how you've just made it very simple that you know, if you are thinking you need some help, just call AR and they'll they'll figure out what they can do for you. And a lot of. Times that comes with education. I know here right at AFMA we do a lot of financial education, a lot of financial literacy to younger service members as well As for those in the transition space to say, hey, this is how you can make sure you're on good sound financial footing when you do this. That. To leave the military one day and that comes through education and a lot of times that comes from leadership within the military, right? So what would be one of your messages for those who are in leadership positions to ensure that their soldiers are financially prepared for life and ready? Number one, I would say for all leaders, let's just talk to your people. It's like get your get to know them. Hopefully they'll open up to you. And a lot of times what I found is a as a leader all throughout my career, all the way to the end, from probably the beginning, is that people just don't want to talk about, you know, financial stress or just finances in general. I think enlisted, you know, are worse than the officers. I don't know. For whatever reason, we just don't want to talk about it. We don't want to share ideas. We don't wanna say, ohh, go think about this. I don't know why. I've never really figured out why we don't do this. But as a leader, my number one recommendation is get to know your people and then you'll find out some amazing stories. So you know, sometimes good but sometimes bad on financial readiness. And I'll just give my one story is this is many years ago, it was a very senior leader and was OK. I was at a division was divisions are major and I said. Hey, my the NC of the work for me said, hey, let's talk about this. You know, this individual got really uncomfortable and I said, well, let's talk about it. And you know, the person opened up and then started laying out their debt and it was like, I have a timeshare, I have this, I have that. Now, you know, if somebody out there does business with time, shares don't come after me, but. Number one, remember I am Army but. I I found the Internet said like worst long time investment ever. It's like, so she just had all this debt and I just, I never asked. And you know, I said, well, let's come up with a plan. We got financial planners. I'm not one, but you know, we've got financial planners here. We got there. I mean, and then, oh, by the way, you're deployed, so, you know, you're getting extra pay. Let's pay off that credit card, let's go that credit card. And so it just went down the list and we had a plan at the end. So that all starts with just asking the question. And then the same thing I would give to leaders is. There's a lot of people that want to help and you got Army Community Services, you got AR, we've got programs, we want to help you. But it starts with just ask the question and know your people and if they trust you, they'll open up. And what I've found when people open up. Unfortunately, most of the time they're they're in worst debt than I thought they were. I thought these were really high quality individuals, you know, really got their life together, high performers and come to find out they were, they were doing some financial long-term mistakes. It's going to hurt them for a long time. Well, I, I love how you post that, that you have to ask the question, right? You have to get to know people. I think a lot of what you've kind of talked about is that there's a little bit of this stigma out there about talking about your finances and that people can be very high performing individuals in their work, but it doesn't mean that they understand financial literacy. And that's OK, right? It's just getting the resource, knowing where to go to get educated. You know, if you don't work in finance every day, then you know, it's probably not something you're keeping up with. But like, like you said that there are so many organizations out there that are there and poised to help, to say, let us help you with the plan. Let us help educate you and how you can become financially stable. And a lot of times it just starts with the conversation. It just starts with pick up the phone or just pull somebody into an office and have that conversation with them to get to know. Yeah. And I think that that's really important that you've kind of highlighted that. Yeah. And and I think I, I just want to talk about. I'm sorry. Yeah, I, I just want to be clear. I was one of those people that. I had to ask for help. I, you know, I was young staff Sergeant Ranger qualified. I thought it was very high performer and I didn't know what to do. And I finally asked somebody. So I was the exact same person, but they were a long time ago. And I just ask people for help and it's, it's made all the difference in the world, in my life. That's amazing. Well, and you know, it's asking for help and it's also having that leadership such as yourself or other senior leaders that have that same kind of mentality of let's get to know the person, let's ask the question, let's not make it a big deal deal. Let's just have a positive conversation and get a plan, right? Get a plan to get you on track. And some of that plan might be an immediate relief, right? An immediate need to get over something. So what do you think with a ER, what is the most provided service you would say that you offer for soldiers? Yeah, our number one service, I'll put this in a bucket, is basic needs. And those basic needs are things like housing and rent and car repairs, sometimes emergency travel. So all these things that just basic needs are on a soldier, you know, we moved them to this location. I was just at one location, they had a, a newborn 2nd. Duty station, now they had to find rent that for the first months rent, the last months rent that they deposit, they couldn't afford it and then they asked for AR. So our number one category is still housing, followed by car repairs, but it's still in the basic needs category. Yeah, yeah. Well, and that's important for people to know, right? Right. They might not think that they can get help with things like that. But as you said earlier, you know, if you're uncertain, just pick up the phone and call or, you know, just get on the website. So, you know, one of the things or one of the takeaways I've personally learned from this is that when interacting with service members is if they don't know, just just call, just reach out. Somebody at a ER will be able to say, yes, we can help you. And this is how. Or here's another resource, a better resource for you.