Inclusiv Commitment to Fight for Racial Justice

Inclusiv Commitment to Fight for Racial Justice

Inclusiv is dedicated to the financial empowerment of communities of color. We affirm our commitment to fight systemic racism and oppression throughout our work. At Inclusiv, we acknowledge our responsibility to not conduct business as usual but rather to lock arms with our members, partners and allies to explore, challenge and overcome racial injustice wherever we encounter it. While we have worked hard and passionately to expand financial access and inclusion, we recognize that these efforts are not enough.

We must do more and better.

Our Commitment

1.       Begin with Dialogue and Reflection. You cannot fix what you do not see and acknowledge. At Inclusiv we have begun discussions with the staff, board and our members to share and learn about our different experiences and feelings of pain, grief, fear, ambiguity and guilt about race in our country. We are learning a lot from each other and will invest in continued learning, training, and education opportunities. Anti-racism is not a destination but a journey. We will continue these discussions and establish an ongoing dialogue around issues of diversity, equity and inclusion throughout everything that we do internally as an organization and also how we engage externally in our work as a movement and across industries. We will intentionally examine our recruitment, hiring and professional development practices in our own organization to reflect the diverse communities served by our members.

2.       Support our Network Members to Start and Grow their Own Dialogue. As the credit union network devoted to inclusion and economic justice, Inclusiv has an obligation to support all credit unions on their own journey of understanding and promoting racial justice.  We are learning a lot and are eager to share and learn with our Network members. We commit to jointly build the tools to support credit union members to lead these discussions internally.

3.      Build Diversity throughout the entire Credit Union Movement. Credit unions are financial cooperatives owned and controlled by the members and communities. It is not enough to simply extend financial services to communities historically locked out of the financial system. We must fight to extend the full benefits of cooperative ownership, control and determination. We will work harder to ensure that the governance and leadership reflects the diversity of our communities and will continue to expand Inclusiv initiatives; such as: Inclusiv/Black Communities and Juntos Avanzamos aimed at connecting Black and Latino consumers with credit unions. We are proud supporters of the AACUC Diversity Equity and Inclusion Academy for Financial Professionals. We support other allies such as the Network of Latino Credit Unions and Professionals (NLCUP) and Coopera as they lead similar discussions throughout the movement.

4.      Work to create a more just and equitable financial system We commit to fight for a more equitable financial system by examining products and policies with a racial equity lens, identifying products that may appear “race neutral" but in practice place greater cost and burdens on those in our communities that have an unequal starting point. We will work to extend the benefits of cooperatively owned and controlled financial institutions to communities of color in general and to Black communities specifically.

5.      Preserve the legacy of Minority Credit Unions. We commit to take immediate and sustained action to preserve and strengthen our rich legacy of minority credit unions, and particularly the large number of African American credit unions. The credit union movement has a proud history of forming, growing and sustaining credit unions in communities the banks could not or would not serve. Dating back well before the passage of the Federal Credit Union Act, African American communities have used the cooperative system to develop and sustain access to capital in their communities. As a result of decades of consolidation, this diversity in our movement is under threat today.  We commit to advocate for an independent review process for mergers and liquidations of minority-designated credit unions and to ensure that service and community assets owned by communities of color are not restricted or eliminated. Moreover, Inclusiv commits to raise capital and resources to invest in the ability of minority designated credit unions to grow and thrive in the months and years to come. As part of this commitment, we have launched the Inclusiv Resilience Fund to deploy grants into credit unions serving communities of color, and are actively expanding our deployment of investment capital into the minority credit union field.

We are committed to working in solidarity with our peers in promoting financial justice and inclusion throughout the Credit Union Movement. Specifically, Inclusiv is a proud partner of: