Steve Delfin, executive director of the National Credit Union Foundation, will step down from that position on Dec. 31, 2009 to become CEO of America's Charities.
"This is a job opportunity with an organization I have supported for 30 years," said Delfin when confirming and explaining the move. "The work will be similar with a national focus," he added.
America's Charities is a federation of 180 national and local nonprofit organizations that promote the use of the workplace for charitable giving, particularly through the use of payroll deductions.
Delfin has served as the NCUF's executive director since October 2004 and has helped guide the organization through a substantial revision of its grant-making processes and assumption of the leadership of the REAL Solutions program.
In a prepared statement, Delfin expressed great pride in the foundation's adoption of REAL Solutions. The program seeks to equip credit unions to more directly serve lower income communities and members by taking ideas generated by credit unions, researching and tinkering with them, and then offering them to other credit unions. The goal, Delfin has said, has been to enable credit unions across the country to have access to the sorts of best practices available in working with underserved communities.
"REAL Solutions focused initially on predatory transactional services such as traditional payday lending and check-cashing and worked to identify sustainable, lower cost credit union alternatives," said Delfin.
Since January 2007, when NCUF took on REAL Solutions as its signature program, the program has grown to encompass 33 states, with over 800 participating credit unions representing nearly 10% of all credit unions, 19% of all credit union assets and 20% of all credit union members. "It has tremendous potential for growth and sustainability," said Delfin.
Delfin also oversaw a significant shift in the foundation's operations. While he was executive director, the foundation moved from making grants several times per year to making grants only once per year. The foundation also began to favor projects where the recipient credit union was able to use foundation grant money to attract funding from other sources as well. The foundation also helped credit union grant recipients more aggressively measure the progress and results from the projects the foundation helped fund.
Delfin also noted with pride his efforts to strengthen and improve the Credit Union Development Education Program, which had suffered from moving between sponsoring organizations for some time.
During his tenure the foundation nearly doubled the number of Development Educators through the program, as well as helping raise and distribute more than $4 million for financial education programs like the PBS BizKid$ TV series and raising another $4 million for credit union disaster relief.
"The staff together with a progressive board has established NCUF as a dynamic and innovative leader serving underserved and emerging markets. I couldn't be more proud of our team's accomplishments," said Delfin.
He went on to say that NCUF is in excellent financial shape, having built a strong reserve during the years when the foundation raised more money than budgeted for grants and programs. "That may be my proudest accomplishment: to leave the organization in a strong financial position poised for growth and sustainability."
Delfin said his decision to leave was based strictly on the specific opportunity with America's Charities. "This was a very difficult decision because the work we are doing at NCUF is so important. But I've always had a passion for and have stayed engaged in expanding strategic workplace philanthropy," he said.
–dmorrison@cutimes.com

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NCUF Executive Director Stepping Down

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