Fourteen credit unions and organizations that work with credit unions received $1.5 million each from the latest round of awards from the U.S. Treasury's Community Development Financial Institutions Fund.
Their totals were part of more $28 million that went to 27 credit unions and supporting organizations.
“Every community deserves to have access to basic financial products and services, from bank accounts to affordable home and car loans. The CDFI program provides access to rural and urban communities across the country by investing in local financial institutions that serve these communities,” said Deputy Treasury Secretary Neal Wolin. “Today’s awards will provide much-needed capital to help community-based financial institutions offer products and services that would otherwise be out of reach for thousands of low-income Americans.”
The fund made awards of over $142 million to 155 community development financial institutions around the country and announced the awards yesterday in Chicago. The awards included $1.5 million to the National Federation of Community Development Credit Unions, a trade association, CDFI and supporting organization for CDCUs and the North Carolina Minority Support Center, a CDFI that works with CDCUs in North Carolina.
“We are delighted at the strong showing of CDCUs in the new round of funding from the Community Development Financial Institutions Fund,” National Federation CEO Cliff Rosenthal said. “CDCU winners, plus awards to the federation and our colleagues at the North Carolina Minority Support Center, totaled nearly $28.7 million.
The 25 awards to credit unions out of 155 total awards to all CDFIs represent 18.06% of awards. The total amount of $28.7 million made to credit unions and credit union support organizations, compared to the $142.3 million made to all CDFIs, represents 20.17% of award dollars. This is a very good showing for our movement by historical standards.”
In addition to the National Federation and the North Carolina Minority Assistance Center, the Alternatives Federal Credit Union, ASI Federal Credit Union, Brooklyn Cooperative Federal Credit Union, Communicating Arts Credit Union, CoVantage Credit Union, Fairfax County Federal Credit Union, First Legacy Community Credit Union, Industrial CU of Whatcom County, Latino Community Credit Union, Lower East Side People's Federal Credit Union, Mendo Lake Credit Union, Self Help Credit Union, and Shreveport Federal Credit Union also received $1.5 million awards.
Robin Romano, CEO of MariSol Credit Union in Phoenix, Ariz., which was awarded $750,000, commented on the significance of the award announcement.
"This award from the CDFI fund is our first ever and will allow us to open a remote branch in a primarily Hispanic supermarket, where we hope to open new accounts and get the word out about our services. We also plan to use some of these funds to make micro-business loans and to develop an affordable first time homebuyer loan for our members in the CDFI fund's target areas," she said.
"We are a recently certified CDFI, and the federation's assistance in helping us receive our certification and apply to the fund was indispensable,” she added in an announcement the National Federation made about the awards.
