Every difficult conversation needs someone to start it. CU Pride started with Linda Bodie, CEO of Element Federal Credit Union in Charleston, West Virginia.
“I’ve been in the credit union industry for 23 years and being a lesbian, when I would come to conferences or anything credit union-related, I would expect to see other people like me and I never did,” Bodie said in an interview at the Credit Union National Association’s governmental affairs conference this week in Washington.
“I would expect … that there would be some gay speakers, not just heterosexual ones, but I never encountered” anyone who openly mentioned a same-sex partner, Bodie said. “Nobody was out in the open.”
Bodie raised the issue publicly in 2018 at the Underground Collision — a gathering hosted by the consulting firm Mitchell, Stankovic & Associates to broach subjects that often are avoided in industry circles — and that led to her co-founding CU Pride, an organization that has more than 1,200 members today.
CU Pride’s first meeting took place at CUNA’S governmental affairs conference in 2020, just before the COVID-19 pandemic shut down much of the world. Thirty-seven people showed up to that initial gathering, including credit union executives and board members, according to Zach Christensen, co-founder of CU Pride and director of diversity, equity and inclusion and communications at Mitchell Stankovic.
“The passion was there,” Christensen said during a panel discussion at this year’s conference. “Then, of course, we know what happened in 2020 — and we decided to push forward. This was not the time to take a step back.”
CU Pride formally launched in June 2020 to help credit unions embrace the LGBTQ community, ensure inclusivity within their organizations and offer educational and networking opportunities, Christensen said.
Credit unions that succeed in serving their communities will reflect that audience’s diversity in their branches, their leadership and their marketing. But for the LGBTQ community this can be more difficult because “we’re not visible — you can’t just tell by looking at somebody, usually,” Bodie said.
Many financial services products operate on assumptions that the users fit into a narrow definition of gender identity or family structure, and only recently have banks and credit unions acknowledged the need for change in their product design. For example,
“This isn’t just about having a conversation about diversity. This is about your employees. This is about your members, your community that you serve,” Christensen said. “Now we’re having the conversations and people feel safe, they feel good, they’re able to show up as their authentic selves.”
This level of attention is necessary to demonstrate that a credit union welcomes an LGBTQ audience, and is actively seeking it out. This effort needs to go beyond featuring same-sex couples in television ads, according to Bodie.
Credit unions need to work with local LGBTQ organizations to build relationships and market through them if they want to demonstrate that they're serious about helping the community, Bodie said.
The problem is that this isn’t always an option, particularly in rural areas where LGBTQ organizations may not exist. “Rural areas are a challenge,” Bodie said.
As CEO of a credit union in West Virginia, Bodie knows this challenge firsthand. Element was one of the first credit unions in its area to actively march in a pride parade years ago.
It was a scary step to take, Bodie said. She was afraid of being maimed or killed simply for marching in a parade.
"Being that presence in the LGBTQ community in a very small town, a rural town, I mean, this is not normal, right? It's normal for bigger cities but it's not normal for us," Bodie said.
But it was an important step not only for her local community but for the LGBTQ community in the entire credit union industry, because it was part of what led to the creation of CU Pride.
"That, I think, is super important because we have so many more people now who are feeling more comfortable to be out," Bodie said. "That's a movement. That's something I'm proud of and that I'm excited is going to be even way bigger than it is right now."
