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What does Vancity do in the community anyway?

A major project I've been working on for the past few months is spearheading the re-architecting and rewriting of all the content in the community area of vancity.com. It's been a massive project because, well, frankly we never expained the myriad ways we do good things in our community everyday. A little gap I think.

In other words, the very reason I wanted to work at Vancity, and the main thing that keeps me excited to come to work everyday was almost entirely absent from our website. It's a long story.

So, I'm so extraordinarily pleased to share with you our new MyCommunity area.



Inside you'll find out about our four pillars of community leadership (Acting on Climate Change, Facing Poverty, Growing the Social Economy and Being Accountable), what we do in our communities, why we do what we do, what financial products we have that help create positive change, how we help the not-for-profit sector in our local economy, what grants we give out and whole lot more. This project has been absolutely amazing, and I'm really excited about sharing it with you.

I'd love to hear what you all think, especially other CU folks.

Labels: banking, corporate responsibility, credit union, design, environment, microcredit, poverty, social economy, underbanked, vancity

posted on Wednesday, April 02, 2008

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Muhammad Yunus and the concept of social finance.

At Vancity, where I work, we recently created a division called Social Finance. This is where our Business Banking department now resides, as well as Commercial Mortgages and our amazing Community Business Banking team, where many of our most innovative and socially relevant products and services are generated.

Creating and naming this new division was an interesting risk, and as soon as I heard the name Social Finance, I thought to myself: Holy crap I can't believe I get to work here.

What's even more amazing is that our executives created this new name and division based on an understanding of what Social Finance could be, but without a nailed-down definition of what it means for us. That's the work of whoever gets the gig of SVP Social Finance.

Last night we at Vancity brought Nobel Peace Prize winner Muhammad Yunus to town. He received an Honorary Doctor of Laws degree from the University of British Columbia for his amazing work as Banker to the Poor at Grameen Bank, which he founded in his native Bangladesh specifically to help the poor. He spoke about the power of small amounts of money to transform people's lives, and the role private businesses can play in creating change in the lives of our poorest citizens. In the past he has endorsed Vancity's Microcredit Toolkit, and we recently announced that our own microfinance-driven term deposit would now be funding local initiatives.

He calls it Social Business, and it's the subject of his new book, Creating a World Without Poverty: Social Business and the Future of Capitalism. We call it Social Finance. It's something that has to be framed for many people, because we have it ingrained in us that there are two options in life: charity and profit.

But there is room for a strong middle ground. Businesses can have as their focus socially responsible goals as their main driver and still sell their products and services in a business-savvy way, repay their investors, pay their employees well and thrive in the business context, and drive their profits back into the work they do. Their work can be of tremendous social value and significance, and yet be no less business-like.

As we deal with issues of climate change and social equity, these kinds of business are cropping up. They could be used to solve the health care crisis in America. To clean up the Downtown Eastside in Vancouver, reduce our carbon emissions, provide inexpensive and nourishing food for poor families to feed their children, vaccinate the third world.

The money invested could be reinvested and continue to solve our most pressing problems, rather than giving money away which has no lifespan beyond the initial donation.

Last night was an amazing time. I was so fortunate to be invited to a small private reception to meet Professor Yunus, and then go to hear him speak to several hundred people about his work serving the poorest people on the planet. His work is actually reducing poverty in Bangladesh by significant amounts. He has opened specialized services focused on beggars, and creating Social Finance opportunities such as Grameen Danone and Grameenphone, Bangladesh's largest mobile phone company owned in part by the 7.5 million co-operative owners of Grameen Bank.

A Vancity board member asked me at the reception why I had come down to hear Muhammad Yunus speak, and I replied that this kind of activity is the very reason I initially chose to do my banking at Vancity, and why I later decided to work there. Banking is really only marginally interesting to me, but using the platform of banking to solve social problems that we face in our communities is a powerful draw for me. Exploring that intersection where money and community come together is extremely powerful and much needed.

Last night Muhammad Yunus proved how true that is.

Labels: corporate responsibility, credit union, microcredit, politics, poverty, underbanked, vancity, yunus

posted on Saturday, March 15, 2008

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eBay in the Microfinance business.

A friend recently sent me an article in BusinessWeek about eBay's Microfinance engine. The article, EBay: The Place for Microfinance, speaks of eBay's 2006 acquisition of MicroPlace.com.

MicroPlace.com's mission is "to help alleviate global poverty by enabling everyday people to make investments in the world's working poor." Pretty impressive.

Pierre Omidyar, eBay's founder, is also an investor in Kiva.org, which is a similar site for investing small amounts of money to entrepreneurs in developing countries.

MicroPlace.com fits eBay's direction so nicely, and takes advantage of their infrastructure to do good in the world. Nice to see big players enabling Microfinance and bringing it to the masses. That's doing well by doing good.

Labels: corporate responsibility, kiva.org, microcredit, poverty, underbanked

posted on Wednesday, November 14, 2007

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$1,000 still gets attention.

On August 28th, I blogged about the ChangeSomething contest now running on ChangeEverything.ca. At the time, we had very little uptake on the contest, and I even wondered if this was going to be the first unsuccessful initiative we'd had on the site

Now that the contest has closed, I thought I'd chime in with an update. In the end, we had 18 contest finalists all submitted by members of the online community. Some of the entries generated excellent discussion.

Voting began on Friday, September 21, and now just 3 days later, the poll has 753 votes. Normally a poll on ChangeEverything.ca gets between 20 and 100 votes after a week or two. This is extraordinary. The winning entry takes the $1,000, so get voting.

Major kudos to Kate, the site's moderator who helped keep this top of mind and build momentum, even when there appeared to be none. I'm looking forward to seeing which cause the community wants to give $1,000 to.

Labels: changeeverything, corporate responsibility, credit union, microcredit, social media, vancity, web 2.0

posted on Monday, September 24, 2007

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Why I "do" credit unions.

Two seemingly unrelated things came together for me this week. One is that yesterday was my second anniversary of being at Vancity and my entry into the credit union movement. The other is reuniting with some of my favourite past colleagues via Facebook and catching up on where we're all at.

Explaining to people I used to work with in Los Angeles and Seattle why I'm working at a 'bank', which is a far cry from the brands I used to work on like Disney and Honda is not always an easy task. I left LA to find a lifestyle that was more aligned with my values, and that path inadvertently led me to credit unions.

Before Vancity, I worked at Telus, one of Canada's top telecommunications companies, and the main telephone provider in BC. I enjoyed working there until the strike in 2005, but I never thought of myself as part of the telecom industry. It was just a job.

But being at Vancity, I have found myself attracted to the philosophy and work of credit unions. If you want to create social change, much of that has to do with money, and that's where getting to the money via the banking industry is actually pretty exciting.

The link between my own engagement in the credit union movement became clearer when I saw a recent post on the always insightful OpenSourceCU. They were recently honoured as the first recipient of the Credit Union Global Spirit Award for translating philosophy into actions. This is a much-deserved accolade, based on their work helping credit unions reach their potential and engage the communities they serve in their mission.

It was awarded by Carol Schillios, whom I've never had the pleasure of meeting, but about whom I've heard so many amazing things.

The video on their page is the pivot point, the reason so many of us are passionate about credit unions. It is about the amazing work that Carol Schillios has done on behalf of credit unions with the world's poorest people.

I have included it below. Powerful, powerful stuff.

Labels: corporate responsibility, credit union, microcredit, opensourcecu, poverty, telus, underbanked, vancity

posted on Friday, September 21, 2007

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BarCampCreditUnion?

In the end, no banks showed up at all. It was mostly credit unions, consultants to credit unions and suppliers. One surprising thing to emerge from BarCampBankSeattle was the talk about the mission of the credit union movement and its relevance in today's world. Didn't expect that, but it was a vibrant, and I would argue important discussion to have.

Banks were invited, specifically Washington Mutual and Wells Fargo. I know that Ed Terpening, VP of Social Media at Wells, was planning on coming, but couldn't make it. I look forward to meeting him at some point. But in the end BarCampBank had no bank representation. An odd state of affairs.

When we talked about innovation and supporting communities, we all thought that that was the job for credit unions. What was incredibly reassuring is that there are many people who are passionate about what credit unions can do for communities and their constituents.

We need to be vigilant to ensure that credit unions don't become, as Jesse put it, small shitty, inefficient banks. In the end, it was a great marriage of a discussion around banking innovation and the role credit unions can continue to play in the service of people and their money. I hope the conversation continues, because it's exciting for me to see the next generation of CU leaders engaged in the credit union mission, who see it as a movement and believe in it passionately. Sometimes I wonder if the shift from Boomers to Gen X and Y will lead to a shift away from strong credit unions supporting their communities. We had an amazing blend of younger people, new to the CU world, and some long time champions of the movement - it was an excellent cross-section. This weekend gave me renewed faith.

Labels: banking, barcampbankseattle, corporate responsibility, credit union, microcredit, underbanked

posted on Sunday, July 22, 2007

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So far so good.

BarCampBankSeattle is off to a roaring start. I wasn't familiar with this Open Space model, but people started by proposing different sessions they were interested in and then started grouping and discussing. Some really impressive thought leaders here, and we're all mashing up, running ideas.

One session that kicked things off for me was "Credit Financing of International Relief & Development Projects" and we discussed some very interesting and innovative ways to get funding to needed projects in developing countries.

I'll blog the notes into more of a thoughtful post later. Powerful stuff.

Labels: banking, barcampbankseattle, blogging, corporate responsibility, credit union, innovation, microcredit, poverty, social personal finance, technology, underbanked, vancity, web 2.0

posted on Saturday, July 21, 2007

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Finances on Facebook

Jim Bruene has a great post on netbanker.com about the rise of financial services on Facebook.

Watching the explosion of content, and users, at Facebook, may be the most interesting thing we've seen since the rise of the commercial Web in 1995/1996.

Jim writes about the opportunities that exist for FIs to sponsor Facebook applications like ChipIn. Jim documents how ChipIn works really well using screenshots. Nicely done. It's exciting to watch this new explosion of financial services within Facebook. It really democratizes how people can access money.

And I'm not just mentioning this because he gave Vancity's Bike Share a nice plug (although it didn't hurt).

Labels: banking, changeeverything, credit union, facebook, microcredit, netbanker, social personal finance, vancity, web 2.0

posted on Monday, July 09, 2007

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See you at BarCampBankSeattle.

Labels: azaroff, banking, barcampbankseattle, blogging, changeeverything, credit union, innovation, microcredit, social personal finance, technology, vancity, web 2.0

posted on Tuesday, July 03, 2007

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Discovering kiva.org

In all the recent posts I've been reading about peer-to-peer lending, including the excellent reporting by Jim Bruene at NetBanker and Colin Henderson at The Bankwatch and CommunityLend, I hadn't come across Kiva.org.

I'm very excited about social personal finance and think it may well change the way people exchange money when they just need to borrow or invest a small to medium amount and don't want to bother with a bank or credit union.

But tonight my aunt showed me Kiva.org, and I got to admit I was a little embarrassed to admit that I didn't know what it was. It's an amazing concept where anyone can make microloans to people in the developing world who need small amounts of money to start an enterprise. According to their website:

Kiva lets you connect with and loan money to unique small businesses in the developing world. By choosing a business on Kiva.org, you can "sponsor a business" and help the world's working poor make great strides towards economic independence. Throughout the course of the loan (usually 6-12 months), you can receive email journal updates from the business you've sponsored. As loans are repaid, you get your loan money back.

You can cash out when you're repaid or reinvest it into a new opportunity. I think this is genius. Did everyone else know about this and somehow I'm the last to the party? Hard to be shown up by my aunt after all...

I started tonight by investing $25. Kiva.org asks you for a 10% addition as a donation to keep them running. That's optional. You can pay by PayPal or credit card. When you're done you can easily send the info about the cause you donated to to your email list to spread the word. Nicely done.

Here's who I donated to: Massan Aziado of Togo. Fantastic and inspiring!

Labels: banking, bankwatch, communitylend, credit union, innovation, kiva.org, microcredit, netbanker, poverty, social personal finance, technology, web 2.0

posted on Saturday, June 23, 2007

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