Insights from My CreditUnions.com Interview
Several months ago, I had the privilege of being interviewed by CreditUnions.com. The CreditUnions.com blog is known throughout the industry as being one of the top sources of news for credit unions and expertise in our field.
In the interview, I had the chance to discuss my role at University Federal Credit Union. As the senior vice president of community impact, I oversee marketing and communication, relationship management, financial health and community relations.
Because of this, I get to be a major champion of UFCU’s overall impact - not just working with nonprofits or employee volunteerism — it’s all encompassing.
Here are some highlights from the CreditUnions.com interview:
What goals do you have for this role? How do those goals fit into the larger organization?
In April of last year, the board signed a motion that pivoted us to become a social purpose credit union. Over time, everything we do will be in service to three impact areas intended to lift our members and broader communities. Each area falls under the general umbrella of financial health, but we’re focusing on them to help the communities we serve become more prosperous.
They are:
Education — Specifically, encouraging more residents to graduate with a four-year degree.
Employment — This includes both workforce development and job generation.
Housing Affordability — This is an important need in our area.
Eventually, all our operations will be geared toward helping serve the community in these ways and creating financial health through these vehicles.
Another way to look at it is through our four areas of strategic focus on which we regularly report to the board. They include social purpose, financial health, organizational health, and member experience. Community impact comprises two out of four of those strategic focus areas, or 50% of our corporate scorecard, so it is clear how our team’s efforts fit within the larger organization.
What made you the right person for this position?
Prior to joining the credit union, most of my professional experience was working for nonprofit organizations. Most recently, I led a large, local nonprofit that has trained thousands of community leaders. Credit unions are just another flavor of not-for-profit organization, so my experience in those leadership roles qualified me to help UFCU in this capacity.
I love that I have one foot in the business side, considering what we need to be a safe and sound financial institution, and the other foot in my long-standing career path of serving mission-driven organizations. My previous experience in fundraising, for example, gives me insight into how to truly partner with a nonprofit to make a difference. It’s more than writing a check or giving a donation — it’s about engaging all the resources the credit union has to benefit our communities. I’m fortunate to have found a role that allows me to bring my business skills and my not-for-profit heart to the job.
How do you track success in your job?
We have a lot of programmatic metrics that we track around financial health. For example, how many scholarships have we given, how many members have enrolled in our savings habit program, etc.
However, our real community impact is not measured over the short term. We’re going to measure that over a long period of time. Today, we consider the number of scholarships we’ve given, but our real goal is to increase first generation college graduation rates in Texas. We’ll have to wait to see that those scholarship recipients do graduate and evaluate how our participation has helped move the needle in the community overall.
What do you do to stay current with topics that fall under your role?
Beyond keeping up with the latest news, direct engagement and active partnerships with our SEGs and community nonprofits keeps us up to date. For example, we serve all the universities — including our founder University of Texas — in our market.
One of the first things I did after moving to the community impact role was to interview every president at each of the universities to learn about their strategic priorities and how we could help them. We got a great picture of what was meaningful and looked for common themes to help us set our priorities.
Now that it’s been two years, I’m preparing to go on another listening tour to learn what’s changed. By maintaining direct, professional relationships with leaders and members, we’re able to stay in tune with exactly what they need and understand where we can have the greatest impact.
To read the full interview, visit https://www.creditunions.com/articles/whats-in-a-name-senior-vice-president-of-community-impact/#ixzz6IJOQ5G00