What’s in a name? A credit union’s LGBTQ program finds a wider audience Posted by AVCU on 11:21 AM

 Credit unions that tailor services for members of the LGBTQ community may find an unmet need among other demographics as well.

Michigan State University Federal Credit Union in East Lansing, Michigan, is nearing the finish line on development of a feature within its digital banking platforms and card offerings that will allow members to set a preferred name and set of pronouns. The program, which is expected to go live before the end of the third quarter, is like many others that allow credit card users, for example, to put their preferred name on the card.

While such services are developed with a transgender audience in mind, they also appeal to other marginalized groups such as international students or indigenous persons, said Amanda Denney, director of diversity, equity and inclusion for the $6.8 billion-asset MSU FCU, which serves students and staff of the university, as well as employees of the state.

“We have a lot of international students that come over and actually pick Americanized names, and they do this for a number of reasons, but that project is helping that group of people too,” Denney said. “When we hear preferred names and pronouns, people automatically jump to LGBTQ+, but there is such a huge impact [with this project] across the board with really anyone.”

The credit union first explored the concept internally in 2020 with the inclusion of pronouns in staff email signatures and editing of employment documents wherever legally allowed to record a new chosen name. It also incorporated educational material into its trainings on diversity, equity and inclusion to explain the significance of MSUFCU’s change.

Banks and credit unions that provide such products must also make sure their staff are properly instructed on using preferred names and pronouns in every customer interaction.

“Our goal is to allow everyone to be their full, authentic self and that’s really hard to do if you’re consistently being affronted with microaggressions by being misgendered [and] mislabeled,” Denney said. “Very specifically for the LGBTQ+ community, especially individuals that are nonbinary, or transgender, this can be a really important tool for them.”

Organizations such as Daylight, a New York-based digital banking provider for the LGBTQ community, and Mastercard have also launched preferred-name projects with the aim to better serve transgender and nonbinary consumers who endure negative encounters due to a difference between their legal and preferred names.

Some credit unions that already have similar initiatives in place are working to now offer more tailored services in lending for consumers seeking to undergo gender affirming procedures, as well as other LGTBQ funding needs.

Linda Bodie, chief executive and innovator at the $44 million-asset Element Federal Credit Union in Charleston, West Virginia, said she has worked alongside local pride organizations to better understand the needs of its LGBTQ members and determine which areas are most underserved.

“We have specialized lending for adoption, weddings, surgery [and really] anything particular to the LGBTQ+ community … We work closely with our local pride organization, Rainbow Pride of West Virginia, to identify our community needs,” Bodie said.

Element is planning to further its commitment to aiding local members through collaborative housing and employment partnerships with local realtors, pride organizations and other groups to address instances of discrimination during the search for a home.

In addition to her 24-year tenure as Element’s CEO, Bodie helped to organize and launch the LGBTQ credit union support association CU Pride in June 2020, which now has more than 1,200 members nationwide and is dedicated to progressing inclusivity within the industry and offering educational toolkits and opportunities for collaboration.

“With our tenets, which is to create educational opportunities for the credit union system … It gives them the opportunity to understand the community and really push towards our mission, which is to get the entire industry to embrace the LGBTQ+,” said Zach Christensen, co-founder of CU Pride and director of diversity, equity and inclusion and communications at Mitchell Stankovic. 

“Organizationally, credit unions are not queer or LGBTQ, but credit unions can be organizational allies,” through better education, he said. 

A Pew Research Center survey of 10,188 U.S. adults in May found that 5.1% of those under 30 reported they identify as transgender or nonbinary, with the share of adults knowing someone who is either transgender or nonbinary growing to 44% in 2022 from 37% in 2017.

Experts from trade organizations such as the National Association of Federally-Insured Credit Unions and the Credit Union National Association say that institutions need to closely analyze research and feedback from the data gathered or otherwise risk new programs becoming ineffectual.

“One of the things that we’re doing is becoming more intentional about this work and about listening to our communities,” said Samira Salem, vice president of diversity, equity and inclusion for CUNA, which is a supporting organization of CU Pride.

Better serving LGBTQ communities means developing products and services specific to their needs, Salem said. “It is in the DNA of credit unions to serve the underserved [and] the marginalized, and it is our value system.”

But beyond ensuring the success of the new services, credit unions aiming to stand as allies of those belonging to the LGBTQ community must also ensure that their efforts go beyond marketing campaigns and lead to change within the organizations as well.

“It’s not just about marketing and sort of this outward-facing messaging about what you are as an organization [and] what you stand for; you have to put your money where your mouth is, so to speak … and demonstrate that you have diversity, for example, on your board of directors and within your management,” said Ann Petros (formerly Kossachev), who works as the vice president of regulatory affairs for NAFCU.