adminFinancial education is one of the corner stones of what credit unions do, and grant funding can be a big boost in providing that assistance to members and the community. Credit unions have until June 30 to apply for the National Credit Union Foundation’s (the Foundation) 2019 grants, including Biz Kid$ Business Plan Competition Grants and Financial Health Measurement Grants.
Hosting Biz Kid$ Business Plan Competitions allows credit union organizations to take a leadership role in providing economic and entrepreneurship education to youth, helping them build a solid financial future. Through these competitions, students showcase their hard work while practicing financial education, entrepreneurial, public speaking, and teamwork skills. The creation of a business plan truly puts what they have learned in the classroom into action and provides hands on, outcomes based financial education to the students.
Examples of credit union organizations that have hosted these types of competitions:
- Cornerstone Credit Union Foundation Biz Kid$ Entrepreneurship Contest Toolkit
- WEOKIE Credit Union Foundation Biz Kid$ Middle School Cooperative Entrepreneurship Competition
The application can be found here. The Foundation is looking to distribute up to $25,000 in grant funds.
Financial Health Measurement Grants:
Additionally in 2017, the Foundation funded six credit unions to measure the financial health of their members, using the Financial Health Network (formerly CFSI) financial health segmentation methodology. The aggregate data showed that more than half (58%) of members in the total credit union sample are struggling financially, highlighting a significant opportunity for credit unions to help their members better spend, save, borrow, and plan.
To build on this work, the Foundation will evaluate and fund proposals by credit unions to consider their suite of products and services across the four components of financial health and document the improvement in member and/or employee financial health. The intent of this RFP is to support credit union initiatives to measure and document these efforts specifically in the Spend, Save, Borrow, and Plan categories created by the Financial Health Network.
Click here to download the RFP
The Foundation will review all applications for each credit union’s financial capacity and commitment to improving members’ financial health that directly support the stated objectives defined in the above RFP. Total funding of $75,000 is available with a minimum grant request of $10,000.
