TACOMA, Wash.–Credit Union Strategic Planning, which is the CU community’s largest organization for helping credit unions obtain Community Development Financial Institutions Fund grants from the Treasury Department, is reporting it facilitated nearly half of all successful 2021 CDFI FA grant applications for credit unions, totaling $20 million.
CU Strategic Planning said its winning Base FA applications were awarded $109,274 more on average than other credit union award winners.
In terms of dollars won, CU Strategic Planning clients won 59% of all funds awarded to CDFI credit unions outside of Puerto Rico, the company reported.
“Credit unions will leverage these funds to serve more hard-working people across the country,” CU Strategic Planning said.
Among the CUs winning grants: California-based Financial Partners Credit Union, which was awarded $690,000 in CDFI grant funding that will be used to develop products that assist low-income renters on the brink of eviction pay off rent in arrears, along with refinancing high-interest debt and auto loans to improve household financial stability for those critically affected by the COVID-19 pandemic.
How Funds are Being Leveraged
“Using the funding as loan loss reserves, Financial Partners will originate an additional $16 million in eviction prevention, debt consolidation and buy here-pay here auto refinance loans to prevent the displacement of low-income, minority consumers most affected by the pandemic,” CU Strategic Planning said.
The company noted approximately 400,000 households in the Los Angeles-area became vulnerable to eviction once the moratorium was lifted earlier this year, according to UCLA Luskin Institute on Inequality and Democracy.
“Financial Partners’ strategy will focus on L.A., with an emphasis on the Promise Zones of South LA (SLATE) and LA Promise Zone, where poverty and COVID have hit hardest,” CU Strategic Planning explained. “The credit union will work in partnership with property owners of the approximate 14,000 tenant units the credit union has financed.”
Loans and counseling will provide tenants assistance through relationships with the property managers, legal aid agencies and community partners, the company added.
‘Incredibly Proud’
“We are incredibly proud of all our clients, like Financial Partners Credit Union, and the work they do each and every day to provide relief to families in distressed communities,” said CU Strategic Planning CEO Stacy Augustine. “CDFI credit unions work tirelessly to battle financial inequities and unlock the opportunities in their communities. We’re happy to facilitate the solutions credit unions provide through our CDFI grant efforts on their behalf.”
Added Chief Advocacy Officer Mike Beall, "We feel it’s important that the quality of our consulting creates ROI that more than covers the expense of working with us.”
Largest Award
CU Strategic Planning said it also wrote the application for the credit union that won the single largest award this year: Canton School Employees FCU at $870,000.
In total, 248 CDFIs, including 67 credit unions, earned awards totaling $119 million in Base Financial Assistance grants.
CU Strategic Planning said it has now won more than $270 million in grants for credit unions from the Treasury Department’s CDFI Fund.