Credit Unions Sharpen Giving Strategies

On the surface, a credit union’s process of giving back to the community appears simple: Pick an organization or cause, and write a check or plan a day for staff to volunteer their time. But for many cooperatives, there’s a lot more to it than that.

The decision-making process behind which groups or causes are most worthy of a credit union’s resources can be very intentional. It often involves identifying the local community’s most pressing needs, and determining how to make the biggest possible impact with the resources available. And credit unions have found that strategic community giving leads to benefits beyond just putting cash or other forms of help in the hands of people and non-profits that need it.

Recipients of grants awarded through Wright-Patt Credit Union’s Sunshine Community Fund, a 501(c)(3) public foundation, are selected based on their alignment with eight “building blocks” that leaders of the $6.8 billion, Beavercreek, Ohio-based credit union believe most impact an individual’s or family’s ability to achieve financial well-being: Education, employment and income, food, financial services, homeownership, health care, justice and law enforcement, and mentoring ­development programs. Applications are reviewed and scored by an employee committee and the foundation’s board of trustees, and as a final step, all employees cast votes for their picks – adding to the inclusivity of the selection process, according to Vice President of Marketing and Business Development Tracy Szarzi-Fors.

“We could say yes to anybody and everybody that was helping somebody in an underserved community, but you need a little bit more if you’re going to tie it into well-being,” she said. “When we talk about the eight building blocks and look at a non-profit, we look to say, in how many of these areas and to what extent are you actually helping to create those positive changes? That made it so much easier to decide who we wanted to bubble to the top.”

Clearwater Credit Union ($854 million, Missoula, Mont.) has in recent years directed a portion of its community giving efforts ­toward the timely cause of fighting climate change. This commitment grew out of a longtime interest in environmental sustainability – in 2008, it completed the construction of a LEED Platinum certified branch and has since built a LEED Silver certified branch, distributed funds to local non-profits focused on combatting climate change, ­reduced its paper and water use, and cut its greenhouse gas emissions – offsetting what was left by funding energy efficiency improvements in a local affordable housing project, President/CEO Jack Lawson said. The credit union also began conducting its own environmental impact assessment in 2018, launched a solar loan program and purchased solar loan participations from Clean Energy Credit Union ($27 million, Centennial, Colo.).

“Climate change touches so many issues important to our members: The health of Montana’s wonderful environment, the future of our agriculture and tourism industries, the health of our community members, the risk of environmental and economic disruption, and the opportunities presented by the transition to the clean energy economy,” Lawson said. “Climate change isn’t the only issue we’re focusing on for our philanthropy, but is one that we take very seriously and will continue to work on.”

As it did in many areas of credit union business, the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic necessitated rapid changes in community giving strategies to keep up with shifting needs. Lawson noted that when the pandemic hit, ­Clearwater recognized it as an immediate problem and turned its focus toward helping the community weather the effects by supporting food banks, crisis shelters, childcare organizations, other social support programs, and community events and programs. However, the credit union continued its work on climate change, knowing that action must be taken now on the issue despite the fact that its worst effects won’t be felt until the future, Lawson said.

Like other credit unions, the $4.7 billion SECU in Linthicum, Md., began shifting its giving strategy in 2020 to target groups most adversely affected by the pandemic, including frontline health care workers and nonprofits focused on childcare and education. Most notably, it turned a day the credit union had set aside for employee volunteering in October into a month-long campaign called Kindness Connects, which encourages acts of kindness in response to the loneliness and lack of connection being felt in communities amid COVID-19.

As part of the initiative, the credit union distributed Kindness Kits to employees, members, partners and the community, which included items and ideas that can be used to spread kindness, such as postcards, flower seeds and sidewalk chalk. For every Kindness Kit requested in 2021, SECU donated $5 each to Special Olympics ­Maryland and the Kennedy Krieger Institute. SECU also asked participants to submit their acts of kindness online, along with the number on a “golden ticket” included in their kit, to see if they were one of 16 winners of a $1,000 prize.

In its second year of the campaign last year, SECU surpassed its goal of completing 70,000 acts of kindness in honor of its 70th anniversary with over 96,000 acts. These included a company-wide day of kindness on Oct. 11, breakfast and lunch drops to frontline workers in Maryland, and $13,000 worth of supply donations from financial centers to local groups.

Sarah Ryan, assistant vice president of community outreach for SECU, said the credit union chose the theme of kindness after national research revealed the pandemic’s emotional toll, with Harvard University finding more than one-third of Americans were experiencing severe loneliness, for example.

“Kindness Connect is all about the invisible connection that brings us all together, and it doesn’t matter if you don’t even have $1 to give,” Ryan said. “Even if you just smiled at someone, it could make their day brighter, and you could change the lives of your friends, family and strangers, all while making our community stronger with the kindness theme behind it.”

For Wright-Patt, the pandemic presented an opportunity to fine-tune the Sunshine Community Fund’s giving strategy as the credit union completed necessary steps to turn the Fund into an official community foundation. Launched in 2012, the Fund began as an effort to raise money for one to three non-profits a year, which the credit union did through another community foundation. After determining the Fund could sustain itself as a community foundation, it submitted paperwork in late 2020 and began functioning as one in 2021, according to Szarzi-Fors.

She said because of the social issues that became top-of-mind in 2020, as well as the fact that marginalized communities have suffered the brunt of the pandemic’s toll, Wright-Patt began to zero in on working with diverse ­communities to promote equal access to financial services. Pandemic-era recipients of Sunshine Community Fund grants have included a Big Brothers Big Sisters chapter in the Columbus, Ohio area that provided mentoring services for high school students, and Advocates for Basic Legal Equality (ABLE), which provides legal services in civil matters to low-income individuals and groups in Ohio and assisted people at risk of losing their homes during the pandemic.

In addition to providing much-needed help during a time of crisis, the benefits of credit unions’ community giving programs include a boost to employee and member engagement.

“It’s our employees’ favorite day of the year, and our calendars are already marked for 2022,” Ryan said of Kindness Connects and the annual company-wide day of kindness. She added, “When we’re able to launch something like the kindness campaign, it’s really like, ‘We’re here for you. Your neighborhood is our neighborhood and we care, so let’s have some fun together.’ So the members look forward to it as well. We ran out of Kindness Kits at the beginning of the campaign because the demand was so high.”

Ryan said Kindness Connects will be even bigger this year, with a higher acts-of-kindness goal and potentially more partners.

Szarzi-Fors noted that Wright-Patt’s commitment to giving exemplifies its culture and makes employees proud, as well as solidifies its reputation as a servant in the community. “While I don’t have any hard data to be able to say that members and business leaders in the community use us because we give back to the community, I can tell you that from the conversations I have with people, that’s a true statement,” she said. “By giving back to the community, and helping to build our community up, there’s an appreciation for the fact that we live our mission every single day, which is to help people through life and people cherish that.”

In 2022, Wright-Patt plans to tap signature funds currently being developed by the Sunshine Community Fund’s board of trustees to support financial wellness programs, such as education for youth and adults, and a mortgage down payment match program for first-time homebuyers.