The Both Hands FG Story

Both Hands Financial Group was founded in early 2016 but its story begins ten years before and is a large reason for the name of the company.

 In July 2006, one of our co-founders, Don, traveled to the small country of Moldova. Right between Romania and Ukraine. I beautiful country about the size of Rhode Island with a sad story. After the fall of the Soviet Union, the country experienced challenging times. Villages, instead of coming together, took pieces of the only tractor so that one person could have the steering wheel, and another could have the canopy, and another could have the gear knob.

There was a bit of self-destruction the country experienced. Perhaps the saddest thing about this country is that nearly 70% of the women that are sold into human trafficking in Europe come from Moldova.

Don found himself on a mission trip with an organization focusing on building beds for orphans because the orphans often slept three or more to a bed. These beds are smaller than a twin bed.

While on his mission trip Don met an 11-year-old boy named Gheorghe. He had lost both of his parents so he and his three siblings, Trofim, Mariana, and Max were orphans.

Don felt a connection with Gheorghe and felt God call him and his family to adopt these four children.

As many of you know, the adoption process is not quick and Moldova is no exception. While back in the states Don ran into a friend, JT, at church. JT asked Don how he planned to pay for the adoption. JT was well aware of the costs since his family had just brought home their daughter from China. Don was not planning on adopting a child, let alone four, so he was not saving for it and as Don likes to joke Moldova was not offering a group discount.

So, JT had an idea. He told Don that they can get their friends together and write letters to everyone they know to ask to be sponsored for a day as Don and his friends fix and repair a widows’ home. They would get all the material donated by local companies and have a workday.

So, that’s just what they did. They found a widow who needed lots of help, had a ton of volunteers that day, and raised $55,000 that day for the adoption.

A couple of months later Don flew back to Moldova and brought back his three new sons and new daughter.

But that’s not where this amazing story stops. JT knew they were on to something. JT left his job and started Both Hands Foundation. One hand for the orphan and one hand for the widow from James 1: 27.

“Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world.”

Fast forward to today and Both Hands Foundation has helped 1,325 orphans find their homes, 994 families have raised over $13,000,000 for adoptions and 1,177 widows have been served.

As for Don’s Moldovan children they are grown and wonderful young people. One of them is getting married in September this year.

If what happened because of Don’s mission trip to Moldova is not amazing enough, the other co-founder, Cory, was in Moldova at the exact same time as Don was. Completely different mission trips and they did not even know each other.

In fact, their paths crossed, and they did not even know it. Cory was working on a construction project for a transitional home for girls after they left the orphanage and Don went to see it while Cory was working on it.

Cory even met his wife preparing for one of his following mission trips back to Moldova.

There is only one author that can write a story like this.

So, when it came to deciding a name for their company both Don and Cory were trying to think of something much bigger than themselves. Don was driving to Savanah, GA to see one of his daughters and he got an idea. He called Cory who was going to get his hair cut and said, “I know what we should call our company. Something we are both passionate about. Serving orphans and serving widows. Our company should be Both Hands Financial Group based on James 1:27. One hand for orphans, one hand for widows. And because of what we do, one hand for insurance and one hand for investments."

As Cory likes to say when he knows something is right, “I don’t even have to pray about that. That’s our company name.”

Don, Cory, and all the Both Hands Financial Group advisors focus on serving our clients, their families, and their needs. Serving in this way is not what we do, but who we are.