African American, Latino groups partner to advance credit union diversity

A new coalition of industry groups aims to boost credit unions’ commitment to diversity, equity and inclusion.

The Network of Latino Credit Union Professionals and African-American Credit Union Coalition this week announced their intention to collaborate in order to better offer CUs and industry groups “actionable strategies and wise counsel” to advance DEI issues.

“Too often organizations set up a task force that has individuals doing a lot of talking, however, the needle doesn’t move to affect change,” the two groups said in a press release. “AACUC and NLCUP will hold their organizations accountable and continue to ask the hard questions that will help to move the credit union movement forward.”

The two groups will be joined by Inclusiv in order to help “ensure that the members of credit unions are serviced by people that look like they do and have similar life experiences.”

Participants are planning to hold mini summits on these topics during AACUC’s annual conference in Florida later this summer and Inclusiv’s conference in May in Puerto Rico.

The announcement marks the second major partnership for AACUC on this topic this year. The group previously launched a partnership with Humanidei, a credit union-specific DEI consulting firm, aimed at increasing diversity among credit union leadership to 30% by the end of this decade.

A report from the Credit Union Executives Society release earlier this month also noted that CU boards are putting an increased focus on diversity, while last month the Filene Research Center launched a new diversity research center.