Changes in how and why Americans make charitable donations and investments will create opportunities for the National Credit Union Foundation and its supporters, according to the departing executive director of the National Credit Union Foundation.
Steve Delfin will leave the Foundation at the end of this year to accept a position as CEO of America's Charities, but before he left he said a number of different philanthropic trends are favoring credit unions.
"I think there are a number of different things that are coming together that will favor the National Credit Union Foundation and its programs over the next three to five years," Delfin said, during a final interview with the Credit Union Times' as executive director. "I am very proud of the foundation and its board that the organization is positioned in a way that will enable it to take advantage of the new opportunities."
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Delfin noted that other, non-credit union organizations, have adopted the credit union philosophy of offering members the products and services they need in an affordable and sustainable ways. Not for profit, not for charity but for service, Delfin said, underpins a number of popular social investment and charitable giving efforts.
One example is the Web site Kiva.org, where visitors to the Web site can invest in the entrepreneurial efforts of lower income people all over the world, including the U.S. The micro-finance loans are repaid and investors can either take their money back with a small amount of interest when the loans are repaid or roll the investments over to invest in another effort.
It would not be too much to imagine, Delfin said, that a credit union could start a foundation and use money donated to it as leverage to attract funds from other sources to help fund micro-finance lending, financial education programs, individual development accounts or other products and services aimed at helping lower income members and communities come into the financial system. And unlike previous efforts, which principally saw themselves as charities, the new focus would be on funding investments in these products and services.
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