About CU Breakthrough™
CU Breakthrough™ is a fee-based consulting service that can help credit unions of all types expand and improve their financial services to low-income and other underserved communities. Serving these markets is not only the job of CDCUs – it is the job of all credit unions that want to fulfill the historic mission of the movement and retain their special status in the financial world.
Our goal is to supply teams of experienced consultants – especially, practitioners who have done the hard work on the ground -- to convey their lessons to other interested credit unions. Whether its lending products and services for low-income inner city residents, Native Americans living on or near reservations, immigrants, people with disabilities, or any group vulnerable to payday and other predatory lending, we want to help credit unions do more.
CU Breakthrough™ will draw on the community development expertise of the CDCU movement to help all credit unions expand their outreach and impact in underserved communities. Our experienced consultants can help your credit union to meet the needs of new and emerging markets within your field of membership.
Our Services Include:
- CDFI Certification: The US Treasury Community Development Financial Institutions (CDFI) Fund offers grants and low-interest loans to certified CDFIs. Our consultants can help determine whether your credit union might be eligible and assist with the certification process. For more information, click here or contact Pablo DeFilippi.
- Emerging Markets Review: Emerging markets represent the largest growth opportunity for credit unions that are ready to move to the next level, but many credit unions are not sure of the best way to reach communities that have recently been added to their field of membership. Our consultants can review your current operations and identify specific products and services that will benefit your members, your community and your credit union. For more information, click here.
- Grant Writing: Grant funding often can help develop new products and services, but most credit unions are unfamiliar with the world of grantmaking. Our experienced consultants can help evaluate funding opportunities, develop program strategies, and write grant applications with the best chances of success.
- Promoting and Sustaing Homeownership: Whether or not your credit union offers mortgage loans, you can help your members to achieve and sustain homeownership. Our consultants can help you evaluate and implement the most effective ways to expand access to affordable mortgage financing and certified housing counseling services in your area. As a HUD Approved National Housing Counseling Intermediary, the Federation can channel the experience from our national network of certified housing counseling professionals to help you promote successful homeownership in your community. For more information about the Federation's housing counseling program, click here.
- Speakers Bureau: Inspire your board, your staff and your partners with energetic speakers who know why and how credit unios can reach new markets and serve the underserved -- because they've done it.
- Credit Union Partnerships: Across the country, a number of innovative partnerships have shown how credit unions can do more by working together. Our consultants can help your credit union choose a partnership model that's right for you.
- Alternatives to Payday and Predatory Loans: Credit unions can help members avoid predatory lenders, and our consultants can help find the strategy and product that best fits your market and your credit union. CU Breakthrough™ consultants have experience with a variety of successful products and programs and can help find the one that will work in your community.
- ABCs of Asset Building: IDAs, VITA and EITC: Credit unions have always played a central role in helping their members protect and build assets. Today, credit unions are using new tools, such as Individual Development Accounts (IDAs), Volunteer Income Tax Assistance (VITA), and Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) programs to help low-wealth individuals in their community to attain financial independence. For more information about the Federation's asset building programs, click here.
More Information
For more information about CUBreakthrough™, please contact Terry Ratigan, Senior Development Consultant, at tratigan@cdcu.coop or (800) 437-8711 x251.
Becoming a CU Breakthrough™ Consultant
If you are interested in joining the roster of CU Breakthrough™ consultants, please click here.
