3 New WFCU Grants Fulfill Areas of Need for Ukrainian CUs

As Russia’s ongoing invasion of Ukraine approaches the one-year mark, Ukrainian credit unions are struggling to maintain normal operations. Due to Ukrainian military personnel being exempt from paying interest on their loans under martial law, credit unions are feeling the pains of lost interest income. In addition, Russia’s attacks have disrupted Ukraine’s power grid, leaving many businesses, including credit unions, without electricity. And as a result of poor economic conditions in the country including rising inflation, Ukraine’s credit unions are having trouble keeping up with basic operating costs.

The Worldwide Foundation for Credit Unions is helping to ease these burdens with new grant programs specifically designed to address these three areas of need: The Servicemen Interest Compensation Program, Covering Operational Expenses Program and Alternative Power Sources Program. WFCU distributed a total of $355,000 to Ukrainian credit unions in December 2022 through the new grant programs:

• Forty-two credit unions that applied for the Servicemen Interest Compensation Program have so far received a total of $170,000 to make up for lost interest income, which had been limiting their ability to initiate new loans.
• Under the Covering Operational Expenses Program, 75 credit unions received a total of $130,000 to help pay for operating expenses.
• Through the Alternative Power Sources Program, 91 credit unions received $600 each to help cover the cost of a power generator, power station or power bank that would provide them with the electricity needed to stay operational during a blackout.

WFCU said it worked with the All-Ukrainian Association of Credit Unions and Ukrainian National Association of Savings and Credit Unions, both of which are World Council of Credit Unions member organizations, to identify the three areas of need, and is channeling the grants through the two national associations and on to their member credit unions.

“Thanks to WOCCU and WFCU efforts, as well as donations from the global credit cooperative community, Ukrainian credit unions have received invaluable assistance. In these difficult times for our credit unions, the assistance provided has been a significant contribution to the support and preservation of the Ukrainian credit union movement. Your support emphasizes that all of us, together, make up a large global credit cooperative family,” Olga Tugai and Volodymyr Sydorovsky, managers of the All-Ukrainian Credit Union Association, wrote in a joint letter to WFCU.

Last month’s $355,000 distribution represented the latest effort by WFCU to help the country’s credit unions continue serving their members through the Ukrainian Credit Union Displacement Fund. The Fund, formed by WFCU nearly a year ago during CUNA’s GAC, has now disbursed more than $600,000 to provide much-needed assistance to Ukrainian credit unions, their members and their communities.

In October 2022, Ukrainian farmers who took out agricultural loans from credit unions partnering with the USAID/WOCCU Credit for Agriculture Producers (CAP) Project received $100,000 worth of diesel and 1,329 free fuel coupons through WFCU’s Fuel Disbursement Program. In June 2022, WFCU awarded a $100,000 grant to reimburse eligible CAP-partner credit union member farmers on 10% of their agricultural loan principal payments. And in March 2022, the Podolian Agency for Regional Development, a Ukrainian non-governmental organization providing humanitarian assistance to refugees, received a $50,000 Ukrainian Credit Union Displacement Fund grant.

“We continue to be overwhelmed by the support of the international credit union community, which has now donated nearly $2 million to the Displacement Fund in less than one year,” WFCU Executive Director Mike Reuter stated. “We will keep looking for ways to provide aid to credit unions during the war, while keeping money on hand for the eventual restoration and rebuilding of Ukraine’s credit union system.”