Spotlight on Truliant Federal Credit Union: Making Business Personal

We’ve had such a good time sharing the good news about credit unions’ give-back initiatives that we’re keeping the trend going. This time around, we’re focusing on Truliant Federal Credit Union. 

Truliant was founded in 1952 and operates from its headquarters in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. It now serves more than 300,000 members in the Carolinas and Virginia.  

The people behind this credit union believe that corporate social responsibility needs to play a key role in how the financial institution operates. And those beliefs have directly translated into the actions we want to highlight today. 

Truliant has put concerted effort into a number of areas to better serve its members and their communities. Those include:

Giveback through the Truliant Foundation

In 2021, Truliant Federal Credit Union established this foundation to support its mission of “People Helping People.” The Truliant Foundation financially supports individuals and communities through:

• Charitable giving that gets distributed to selected organizations on a quarterly basis
• College scholarships for high school seniors 
• Employee relief funds to help Truliant team members with expenses related to a disaster, injury, illness, or accident
• Community mini grants to nonprofits for up to $1,500
• Education grants to public school teachers teaching grades 6–12

The Truliant Foundation’s charitable giving and community mini grants go to organizations working in one of its focus areas:

• Community development
• Economic mobility
• Financial wellness
• Youth and education

Per its latest Community Impact Report, Truliant and the Truliant Foundation invested more than $1.1 million in communities across the Carolinas and Southwest Virginia in 2022 alone. That amount got distributed with more than $460,000 going toward community engagement activities through Truliant Federal Credit Union (like event sponsorships), more than $640,000 coming from the Truliant Foundation, and more than $15,000 worth of volunteer hours. 

CDFI certification

In early 2022, the credit union became a Community Development Financial Institution (CDFI), as certified by the U.S. Department of the Treasury. That allows it to access and distribute federal funds — including grant money — to help lift low-income and historically underserved individuals and businesses. 

“The CDFI designation increases our ability to provide financial services to the communities that need it most,” Anderson Langford, Chief Operations Officer at Truliant, explained at the time. “Through CDFI funding, we can target the pressing financial needs of economically distressed communities.” 

Truliant doesn’t plan to stop there, though. “By offering solutions to address predatory lending, rebuilding credit, and crippling debt, and by teaching healthy financial habits, we can play a greater role in building prosperous communities,” Langford added.  

Boosting financial literacy with Money Burst and more

To help its members (and anyone who accesses the credit union’s website) build healthier money habits, Truliant offers a variety of financial literacy resources.

Take Money Burst as an example. Hosted by Chris Browning of the Popcorn Finance podcast, these short videos address a variety of topics from life insurance to investing. Most of the videos are two minutes in length or less, making them a digestible way to get money tips. 

Additionally, Truliant Federal Credit Union offers free financial wellness webinars on a regular basis. In the next few months, the credit union has sessions slated on everything from Social Security to raising a money-smart kid. 

Truliant’s diversity, equity, and inclusion initiative

To build integrity, respect, and empathy into its workplace, Truliant has launched a mission to foster diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI). This initiative operates under four pillars. To stabilize its DEI initiative, Truliant is focusing on:

• Its teammates
• Addressing member needs
• Serving its multicultural communities
• Partnering with minority-owned suppliers

As Todd Hall, Truliant President and CEO, said in a message on the credit union’s DEI webpage, “We recognize that we would not be the organization that we are today without the dedication and commitment of a wonderful and diverse group of people who further our mission to improve lives every day. We stand against racism, we stand for inclusion, and we stand in solidarity with our teammates and our communities.”

We tip our caps to Truliant Federal Credit Union and all of the incredible work its team is doing, both through the Truliant Foundation and beyond! 

If you’re a mortgage lending institution and you want to make a bigger difference but your team always seems to be strapped for time, we can help. When you deploy BankingBridge tools, you can lighten the load on yourself and streamline your marketing efforts. This frees you up to focus on the giveback work that will light up your team and support your brand. To learn more, schedule a demo today.