TACOMA, Wash.–CU Strategic Planning is reporting its client credit unions topped more than $70 million in funds as part of the Treasury’s 2016 CDFI Awards.
The company reported that its analysis shows credit unions are on track to deploy over $1 billion to consumers as a result of the firm’s winning grant applications.
CU Strategic Planning, which won its first CDFI Award in 2009, included the nearly $13 million in CDFI Awards it won this year in a longitudinal impacts study to quantify its contributions to the credit union industry.
According to the firm, its measure of the effect of the funds it has helped client CUs to win from 2009-2016 show:
- $70 million in awards won as part of 72 winning grants by 52 credit unions across 19 states
- $753 million in loans projected in winning grants
- $1 billion in loans originating to consumers as credit unions exceed grant goals
- 111,544 moderate to low income individuals receiving loans
“We feel it’s important to share the contributions of our company with the credit union movement, because we are a little company doing a lot of good in the industry,” shared CEO, Stacy Augustine. “It’s powerful data for NAFCU, CUNA, state leagues and credit unions to share with legislators.”
Augustine, her business partner Jamie Strayer, and fellow CU Strategic Planning executive, Mike Beall, are all former credit union trade association executives. While the data helps to quantify how the credit union movement is helping distressed communities, Strayer said that releasing the data isn’t just about supporting the industry.
“This honors the work of our employees,” said Strayer. “Credit unions are on track to improve 100,000 lives from the work CU Strategic Planning staff have put into these grants, along with the efforts of our strong industry partners.”
CU Strategic Planning clients are even members of the National Federation of Community Development Credit Unions, which also is credited for the awards and participates in its statewide initiatives.
In 2016, CU Strategic Planning said its program, Community Development Across Florida, in partnership with the League of Southeastern Credit Unions & Affiliates and Suncoast Credit Union, garnered $4.65 million for credit unions in the state. The company said that program is a replication of Community Development Across Missouri, spearheaded by Beall when he was president of the Missouri Credit Union Association. Beall recently joined CU Strategic Planning.
In 2013, CU Strategic Planning reported that it and MCUA broke the record for the most credit union grants won in a state in the CDFI Fund’s 20-year history. Following suit, Florida was the top state winner this year.
“When CU Strategic Planning started, credit unions weren’t winning many of these CDFI Awards. The thinking at that time was that CDFI was only for fringe credit unions and there wasn’t a company organized to win the grants,” said Beall. “That thinking was right at that time. There wasn’t a company winning the grants and we shifted that thinking with what we accomplished in Missouri. I’m honored to be part of the team that is making that shift across the entire country. A billion dollars in loans to low income consumers represents auto loans for people to get to work, and jobs created from small business loans.”
Suncoast Credit Union also set a new record in 2016. At over $7 billion in assets, CU Strategic Planning said it is the largest Community Development Financial Institution to win a CORE CDFI Award to date. CU Strategic Planning authored the application, which signals a shift in the last eight years, prior to which no billion-dollar credit union had won, it said. In addition to Suncoast, four other billion-dollar credit unions were award winners in 2016, including CU Strategic Planning client, Royal Credit Union. The first billion-dollar credit union to win a CDFI Award was CU Strategic Planning client GTE in 2013.
The following CU Strategic Planning credit union clients won 2016 CDFI grants:
- District Government Employees Federal Credit Union
- Guardians Credit Union
- Horizon Credit Union
- Royal Credit Union
- Suncoast Credit Union
- Tallahassee Leon Federal Credit Union
- The Focus Federal Credit Union
- Trailhead Federal Credit Union