Filene Fill-In Ep. 44: "Is your credit union ready to welcome me?" with Dreamer Kenia Calderon

Filene Research Institute

Today’s episode is extra special. We shared our office space last month with Coopera -- a consulting firm located in Des Moines, Iowa, focused on helping credit unions and other organizations grow by reaching and serving the Hispanic market. That brought Kenia Calderon to our podcast studio to share her story of how she came to work with Coopera and her experience as a Dreamer getting a loan through a credit union for her Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals or DACA application. After attending university, Kenia became Coopera’s Client relations director and works closely with credit unions and other organizations in implementing Hispanic growth strategies. Her story is moving in many ways, but what we found most compelling is how enormous the ripple effect can be on an entire community starting with one credit union providing one small loan to one person. At Filene, we partner with credit unions to research, innovate and deliver programs like ITIN Lending that can be a strategic competitive advantage for the credit union that brings them to their market. We encourage you to listen to this episode with your team and follow it up with a strategy meeting to talk about how your credit union could take advantage of such programs and strategies to serve the Hispanic community – because if you don’t someone else will – and oh boy does Kenia have a lot to say about that…