The St. Paul, Minn.-based Northwest Area Foundation will fund a pilot project that will pair two community development credit unions with community immigrant organizations to introduce credit union products and services to immigrants, the National Federation of Community Development Credit Unions announced Sept. 11.

The federation along with Grantmakers Concerned with Immigrants and Refugees, will administer the pair of $37,500 grants. One will go to the $67 million Lower Valley Credit Union in Sunnyside, Wash., which is paired with the Seattle-based organization, OneAmerica.

The other grant will go to the $342 million Ascentra Credit Union in Bettendorf, Iowa, which is partnered with the Muscatine, Iowa-based Diversity Service Center of Iowa.

Lower Valley Credit Union won the CU Times' Trailblazer Award for Outstanding Service to the Underserved in 2013.

The pilot's goal is to test ways that credit unions can partner with community organization to make their products and services available beyond their branches and more familiar marketing channels, according to Clarissa Ritter, the federation's director of marketing and communications.

“The analogy we like to use is that of a trusted friend,” Ritter explained. “The community organizations are already trusted in the immigrant community. This pilot will test and demonstrate how these community organizations could introduce immigrants, who might not otherwise approach them, to these credit unions. We hope these approaches, once developed, can be replicated by other credit unions in other markets.”

In 2015, the federation and GCIR will jointly publish a white paper and a set of best practices drawn from the pilot projects.