BATON ROUGE, La. -
LA DOTD FCU, Baton Rouge, La.
It's only natural that LA DOTD FCU would be recognized for its financial education efforts, when you consider that its CEO had originally wanted to be a schoolteacher.
"I guess that passion has never left me," said Anderson, CEO of LA DOTD Federal Credit Union. Although he spent a lifetime in credit unions, serving three others as CEO before coming to the Baton Rouge, La. institution, Anderson's commitment to education has never left. At LA DOTD FCU, the executive has made that passion profitable for his credit union, while serving the greater good of not only the communities in which his branches are located, but through credit unions to people throughout Louisiana.
"We believe in financial literacy for everyone," said Anderson, last year's NAFCU Professional of the Year Award winner whose institution nabbed this year's Federal Credit Union of the Year (Assets Less than $150 Million) honors. "What started as a niche for us has become a mission."
That niche developed as part of the $88-million credit union's growth strategy, said Anderson, who arrived at LA DOTD from Cosden Federal Credit Union in Big Spring, Texas on Sept. 10, 2001, the day before the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. At the time, LA DOTD had 10,900 members, $66 million and an unparalleled opportunity to rise above its role as one of nine credit unions serving employees of the Louisiana Department of Transportation and Development.
"We needed a niche," Anderson said.
By 2002, LA DOTD became a multiple-common bond credit union, receiving permission to serve all DOTD employees throughout the state because the credit union had financial products that its fellow DOTD credit unions didn't. In 2003, the credit union began serving several underserved communities in and around Baton Rouge. As part of that service, LA DOTD began offering financial literacy courses to low-income borrowers, working with various churches, groups and social services agencies. When employees of these agencies began asking if they, too, could attend financial literacy classes, Anderson knew the credit union was on to something.
"It's a fallacy that only the underserved need financial literacy training; we need it, too," Anderson said. "I have members making $100,000 who are spending $150,000 a year who could benefit from those classes."
The classes came with no cost and no strings attached to sponsoring organizations, other than that the organization become another of LA DOTD's "corporate partners," a term Anderson prefers to select employee groups. Groups signed on and the program grew to include 200 partners, expanding to school districts and necessitating the hiring of a professional, state-certified teacher to develop curriculum and lead classes. When the first LA DOTD educator was hired away from the credit union to become principle of St. Isidore Catholic School in Baton Rouge, Anderson hired educator Danielle Scott, who currently heads the financial literacy program.
But the credit union connection wasn't forgotten and St. Isidore last year became home to LA DOTD's first elementary school branch, which is run by sixth-graders who had been hired and trained when they were in fifth grade to manage the branch on school premises one day a week. The credit union this year opened a branch in Baton Rouge's Staring Middle School for at-risk kids at least two years behind in classes.
"This is really a last-chance situation for these kids to become part of the mainstream," Anderson said. "The principle targeted several kids she believed had promise for involvement in the credit union. Since that time, they've started to behave, come to class and are excited about their homework."
LA DOTD even started the EARN Foundation, a 501c(3) organization designed to spread the credit union's financial literacy program through other institutions to communities throughout the state. Credit unions can access the necessary tools through the foundation without worrying about LA DOTD moving in to take their members because that's not the foundation's purpose, he said.
"Our goal is to make Louisiana No. 1 in financial literacy," Anderson said. If making state residents more financially literate means more will join credit unions throughout the state, that's perfectly all right with Anderson.
