The National Credit Union Foundation has teamed up with one ofthe largest financial think tanks in the country, the Center forFinancial Services Innovation, to find a big idea to fund thisyear.

The foundation partnered with the CFSI after deciding earlierthis year to move from a model where it funded a variety of ideaswith smaller grants to one where it might fund an idea withpotential applicability to many credit unions with one largegrant.

The CFSI will help NCUF identify that proposed idea.

“What we wanted to do was to refocus our grant making on ideaswith true industry-wide or national scope,” explained NCUFExecutive Director Bucky Sebastian. “It seemed to us that the statefoundations had the expertise and resources to fund the smallergrant proposals as well being closer to them. We should handle thelarger proposals.”

Sebastian said NCUF chose CFSI because the organization alreadyhad a history of supporting some innovative credit union grant proposals, such as the effort toestablish credit union branches that resemble check cashers as away to make them more accessible to the unbanked, as well asPiggyMojo, an idea which pairs social networking and technologyto get people to change their savings habits.

“CFSI receives a plethora of groundbreaking proposals and wewant to elevate the number of ideas proposed by our community,”Sebastian said. “We hope that a significant amount ofproposals will stem from credit unions – working on their own or inconcert with other organizations.”

The Financial Capability Innovation Fund is the specific fundingvehicle the CFSI is using for this round of grant making. Sebastiansaid the organizations would consider grant applications and theFoundation may fund worthwhile proposals that CFSI cannot fund.

“We received many interesting project ideas from credit unionsin our previous grant-making rounds, and we are confident thatcredit unions will present even more innovative concepts thistime,” said Sarah Gordon, vice president of advisory services andnonprofit investments at the CFSI.

Gordon said the CFSI has always taken an interest in creditunions and has even funded some successful ideas with credit unionswhere the organization's role is little recognized, including suchas the Save to Win program where credit unions in Michigan tiedsweepstakes participation to deposits in savings accounts.