CU Foundation Positively Impacts 13,000 Local Lives

The Credit Union Foundation of MD & DC’s expansion of grants and programs in 2013 enabled the charitable organization to positively impact an increased number of lives and enable credit unions to improve their member service and outreach.

“The Foundation Board continuously evaluates program and grant offerings,” said Foundation Chair Donald Tynes.

“We measure how effective our programs are because we are well aware that our donors have entrusted their contributions to us for their highest and best use. Calculating the number of lives we positively impact is one of the measures we use for our ongoing evaluations; annual surveys of all MD & DC-based credit union leaders is another valuable evaluation tool,” Tynes added.

Last year 317 college-bound students researched the credit union movement and created essays and videos based on their new-found knowledge. And in 2014 the Foundation has expanded its scholarships and added a photo-essay category.

More than 5,000 free copies of personal financial software have been distributed to Maryland and D.C. credit unions for their members’ use, to help families prepare budgets and monitor their income and expenses.

The Millionaire’s Club high school financial literacy program expanded to 470 members and over 5,000 iPhone/iPad users have downloaded the free Credit Union Finder™ app to find, connect with, and join a credit union.

One hundred fifteen credit union professionals and volunteers received training grants last year to help them better serve their members while nearly 200 credit union professionals are exchanging information, documents, and advice on the Foundation’s free LINX online forum.

“The Foundation also believes it’s important to help facilitate the sharing of so-called ‘best practices’ among our local credit unions,” noted Tynes. “That’s why we seek out some of the premier offerings of our local credit union professionals and share them via our TurnKey publication that we include with our Potential newsletter.”