Financial well-being for all and the birth of a credit union

Co-authored by Gigi Hyland, CUDE, Executive Director, National Credit Union Foundation, and Andrea Molnau, CUDE, Executive Director, Minnesota Credit Union Foundation.

You don’t often see articles co-authored by the executive directors of your local state credit union foundation and the National Credit Union Foundation. That’s ironic considering the symbiotic relationship between our organizations. We meet every month to discuss topics of mutual interest. We hold a national conference to promote opportunities for collaboration and credit union philanthropy. We work seamlessly together when disaster strikes to help credit unions, their employees and volunteers continue serving members through ongoing fundraising, grant making, and resources.

Our two organizations embrace the cooperative principle of collaboration to improve financial well-being for all – and we are calling on our credit union peers to do the same.

Financial well-being for all is a current, national effort within our system to reframe our beloved “People helping People” motto into modern terms. Spearheaded by the National Credit Union Foundation with CUNA, the leagues, system partners and credit unions, this work aims to show how credit unions demonstrably improve the financial lives of all within their fields of membership.

Our nation needs this now more than ever before. We know that 66% of us (166 million people) are financially fragile. We know our employees, members and loved ones have trouble making ends meet. And we know people of color are disproportionately at risk.

There is a persistent and growing wealth gap between white people and Black, indigenous, and people of color, rooted in racism and exacerbated by the pandemic. This cannot continue.

Read the rest of this article on CUInsight.com