Credit union leaders tout diversity as key for member growth

In 2015, when John Bissell took the helm of Greylock Federal Credit Union, a $1.6 billion-asset institution in Pittsfield, Massachusetts, he immediately set about making actionable progress on various diversity, equity and inclusion goals.

"We all know that the U.S. financial system was set up by people who look like me to benefit people who look like me, and so if we're to change that, it requires systems change which means we need to apply the highest leverage that we can possibly muster," Bissell said.

As part of his framework for tapping into the culture of the surrounding communities, he publicly acknowledged that each branch is built on the ancestral land of the Mohican people — now known as the Stockbridge–Munsee people — and is hopeful that a potential partnership with the group's recently reactivated cultural outreach office in Pittsfield could improve financial inclusion across the region.

Credit union leaders are aware of the pressing need for leaders across the organization to reflect the fields of membership, including younger generations and those with disabilities. Bissell revised GFCU's hiring practices and democratized decisions on promotions and recruitment so that choices were fairly made.

"We took away the ability for anyone, even me, to make a unilateral hiring decision or promotion decision. … Everything is done in groups, we have hiring panels, we do anti-bias awareness training for all hiring managers and we use objective rubrics in our interviews to make sure that we're actually looking at the criteria that are actually required for success in the job," Bissell said. 

That practice has seen the credit union's workforce change from 2% to 3% of employees identifying as people of color, to more than 15% this year.

"It's my experience that the organization will never be more inclusive than the board, CEO and upper management and since our [inclusion, diversity, equity and accessibility] journey began progressing in 2015, we've worked to change the composition of our board to better reflect our membership," Bissell said. "Today, out of our 13 board members and supervisory committee members, nine are women or people of color."

Winona Nava, president and chief executive of Guadalupe Credit Union, a $271 million-asset institution in Santa Fe, New Mexico, started the credit union's formalized DEI journey when she took the helm in 2000.

"We were in a very competitive environment, there were two very large credit unions and there were five very small credit unions, of which we were one. … Today, there's only two of the small ones that are still around," Nava said.

One of the first initiatives Nava launched as CEO was a partnership with Somos Un Pueblo Unido, a local immigrant and workers rights organization that offers educational resources and legal services for victims of wage theft. It also advocates for legislation. Through the collaboration, Nava gained the trust and support of local immigrant communities — many of which were candidates of Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals or DACA — and began recruiting talent for the credit union.

As community members began coming to Guadalupe, Nava found that many employees who grew up speaking Spanish in their homes spoke an older dialect and were having trouble communicating with members who had only recently arrived in the U.S. She overcame the language barrier by recruiting people fluent in "modern-day Spanish" and encouraged employees to teach the differences to one another. 

"That was all part of the transition and ended up being our blue ocean strategy that really helped us to grow and to thrive because back in 2000, we were $30 million of assets and 4,800 members," Nava said. "Today, we're $270 million of assets and more than 25,000 members."

In the early tenure of her leadership, Nava expanded underwriting practices to include loans and mortgages that accepted Individual Taxpayer Identification Numbers, which people without Social Security numbers can use to pay taxes. Today, ITIN loans make up more than 21% of the credit union's portfolio.

"My board is 100% Hispanic and my supervisory committee is a mix of 80% Hispanic and 20% American Indian and it's really great that it reflects our membership," Nava said.

Read more:She gave immigrants respect. They gave her credit union new life.

Luis Pastor, CEO of Latino Community Credit Union, a $900 million-asset organization in Durham, North Carolina, has been passionate about progressing the rights of Latino immigrants since a rash of robberies and muggings fueled the launch of the institution in 2000.

"We started the credit union because of the exclusion or lack of access for the immigrant community to the financial services system. … We don't have a system [and] the current system doesn't work for us," Pastor said. "So instead of sitting outside complaining, we decided to start our own credit union."

He explained that as a credit union founded around the underserved immigrant communities within the state, Latino Community's original focus was not on DEI but rather meeting the needs of members with limited financial resources.

In 2012, when DACA was instituted, Pastor helped the credit union launch its DACA loan program.

"Our mission was that no kid in North Carolina is gonna lose the opportunity to receive a DACA card due to lack of funding, [because] that's why we are a credit union," Pastor said.

Years later, when the COVID-19 pandemic forced many financial institutions to temporarily shutter branches and lay off staff incapable of remote work, LCCU kept its doors open for members who mainly transacted through physical locations.

"At the start of the pandemic, March 12, 2020, the world came to a stop but we couldn't close our branches, because our members needed us and because our members didn't receive government checks, unemployment or Paycheck Protection Program loans. … The only support they had was us," Pastor said.