Choices is among the smallest, if not the smallest, of the 13 credit unions to have received CDFI money this year, a distinction that Minden said Choices earned through its persistence through the process.

"We definitely had some help and advice from [the National Federation of Community Development Credit Unions], and I had meetings with the CDFI Fund staff and attended several Web events they held, so we had help through the process but it was definitely a long process."

Minden, a senior business developer for Fannie Mae in St. Louis, said he was the one to write the successful grant application. The CDFI Fund estimated that it takes about 100 hours to complete the full application, even after it streamlined the process and made it all electronic.

Brian Gately, director of technical assistance for the federation, said that the agency's 100-hour estimate sounded about right and noted that the competition for each year's grant money was stiff enough that it meant applications had to be close to perfect.

"You have to remember that applicants need to fill these things out just like they say, even more than with other agencies," he said. "It can be a difficult process."

Choices has 177 members now and serves the employees, volunteers and clients of 15 local social service agencies, including Habitat for Humanity, Beyond Housing/NHS, Catholic Charities Housing Resource Center, the Urban League, Better Family Life and Employment Connection, among others.

Minden explained that he and other organizers decided to found the credit union in 2005 after it became clear to them that just helping lower income Americans to buy a home was not enough to necessarily get them started in a relationship with a bank or credit union.

"It really began to be absurd," he said. Because lower-income mortgages often have a requirement that the new homeowner put money away each month to pay for upkeep on the home, some of the nonprofits that were helping them obtain mortgages became de facto bankers.

This worked OK, despite causing the nonprofits extra work, except that they noticed the homeowners would come in and get a check for some home repair and take it up the street to the check cashers to cash it and pay the 5% fee.

"It really got to where it just made no sense for these people to have managed to have gotten into their own homes but still have no real access to financial services, so we decided we needed to help them," Minden said.

"The mission of Choices is to prepare its members to enter the financial mainstream," Minden said. "We have never seen ourselves as a direct competitor to local banks and credit unions, rather, a stepping stone for future customers of these lending institutions."

Minden explained that one of the biggest challenges Choices faced so far has been handling the back office work and gaining the expertise it needed. He said that some of the larger credit unions in the state had stepped forward with nonmember deposits for Choices but that none had, so far, come forward with offers of guidance or back-office support.

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