Well, it turns out there are a number of community development credit unions!

Well, it turns out there are about 80 CDFI credit unions, according to the National Federation of Community Development Credit Unions, which has their OWN website. The CDFI credit unions are a subsection of community development credit unions. There are 225 community development credit unions, though only 80 have chosen to be recognized as CDFIs, as I mention above. (It sounds like ALL CDCUs are eligible to be CDFIs; it's not yet clear to me why they don't all become CDFIs.) I'm having a hard time finding a full listing of the community development credit unions, including the CDFI community development credit unions on this website --which seems to be oriented more to credit unions who are considering community development status.


I was very cheered by the Santa Cruz community development credit union website --wow. Looks like such a great credit union. The Chair of the Board is a economics professor at UC Santa Cruz, John Isbister, who has written some very relevant books, such as Thin Cats: The Community Development Credit Union Movement in the United States (1994), and, more recently, Capitalism and Justice, Envisioning Social and Economic Fairness (2001). (Thin Cats is a hard to find book --Amazon and Powells dont carry it; none of the libraries in my region has it...)

Some helpful info on the precise definition of a CDCU from the National Federation of Community Development Credit Unions website:

"A community development credit union (CDCU) is a credit union with a special mission of serving low- and moderate-income people and communities.

A CDCU:
is nonprofit and tax-exempt (but not a charity)
is cooperatively owned and governed -- one member, one vote
is government-regulated and has deposit insurance
provides fairly priced loans, including to members with imperfect, limited or no credit history
a safe place to save
a place to conduct transactions at reasonable cost
financial education for its members
has a commitment to serve the broader community, which it demonstrates through community outreach, participation in government programs, partnerships with the private-sector in community revitalization efforts, and/or collaboration with other CDCUs.

CDCUs and "Low-Income Credit Unions"
Often, the term "community development credit union" is used interchangeably with "low-income credit union." The great majority of CDCUs have low-income designation -- however, most credit unions with low-income designation are not CDCUs. Here's the distinction:
Designation as a "low-income" credit union must come from the National Credit Union Administration (or occasionally, a state regulatory agency). This designation gives a credit union certain special powers, such as the right to accept non-member deposits and secondary capital. Many low-income designated credit unions serve narrow fields-of-membership (for example, groups of employees), rather than their broader communities.
Only members of the Federation are "community development credit unions." Community development credit unions have access to the wide range of services and programs offered by the Federation. However, designation as a CDCU does not, by itself, give a credit union the legal power to accept non-member deposits or secondary capital; low-income designation is still required.

CDCUs and Community Development Financial Institutions (CDFIs)
CDCUs make up an important segment of the community development financial institutions movement. The Federation was a co-founder of the CDFI Coalition, and our Executive Director, Clifford Rosenthal, served as the first elected chairman of the independent Coalition of CDFIs.
The Federation regards all CDCUs as CDFIs within the meaning of the CDFI Act. All CDCUs are eligible to apply for CDFI certification, and 80 currently enjoy that standing.

So, exactly how is a CDCU different from a regular credit union --in terms of how my deposited money is used and in terms of what the credit union supports? And, then how is a CDFI CDCU different from a CDCU in this regard?