Milestones, 1980-2020

Self-Help starts as an effort by Martin Eakes, Bonnie Wright and others to help displaced workers develop worker-owned businesses.

Self-Help provides technical assistance to the New Bern Bakery, owned and operated in eastern NC by three African American men who were displaced textile workers. We raise our first capital infusion -- $77 -- through a bake sale organized by the bakery. 

We receive our first operating grant to provide management assistance to worker-owned businesses.

Our vision of financial empowerment requires community focused, affordable loans that a credit union can provide. Pictured: one of Self-Help's earliest borrowers, the Worker-Owned Sewing Company in Windsor, NC.

This nonprofit corporation is created to allow Self-Help to make larger loans to finance larger-scale community development projects.

By the end of 1984, the credit union has more than $1 million in deposits. 

Our first major venture into mortgage lending occurs in Charlotte, NC, where we participate in a federal program to help low-wealth families buy their first home.

Recognizing that quality child care is essential for strong communities, we begin targeted child care lending. Since then, our loans have helped create or maintain 25,000 child care spaces, focusing on quality services to children from low- and moderate-income families.

Self-Help takes a major step in real estate development, acquiring and renovating an historic building in Asheville, NC as a center for nonprofits and small businesses. Today we have developed over a million square feet with a focus on spaces that serve people in under-resourced downtowns and neighborhoods.  

By offering business loans backed by the Small Business Administration, Self-Help is able to expand affordable lending to small- and medium-sized businesses. Since 1993, Self-Help has lent $403 million to small businesses through the SBA 504 Program. 

In 1994 we host the first meeting of the CDFI Institute, a gathering of community development financial institutions. Congress established the CDFI Fund to boost affordable lending in low-wealth communities. In 1996, Self-Help Ventures Fund received $3 million in the first round of CDFI funding ever made. 

Over 13 years, we work with partners to build or renovate 80 houses in the historic neighborhood of Walltown in Durham, NC. Partners included the City of Durham, Duke University and Habitat for Humanity. Since then, Self-Help has developed affordable housing in many locations across the state. 

At that time, we operated only in North Carolina. Today Self-Help CU provides services in North Carolina, South Carolina, Florida and Virginia; Self-Help Federal CU serves in California, Chicago and Milwaukee.

As a leader in the Coalition for Public Trust, Self-Help helped ensure that the Blue Cross Blue Shield conversion resulted in the creation of a health care foundation.

We partner with Fannie Mae to create the Community Advantage Program, a secondary market program that ultimately provided $4.5 billion in mortgages to more than 50,000 low- to moderate-income homeowners. Follow-up research shows that this loan program, funded by the Ford Foundation, built significant wealth for these borrowers. Today we continue to fuel fair, affordable home loans by purchasing affordable mortgages from a variety of lending partners. 

We began lending to public charter schools to support social entrepreneurs working to provide strong educational choices in low-income communities. Since then, we have created or maintained 54,000 school spaces, the majority in schools serving low-wealth communities.

We help form a diverse coalition that includes state banking leaders to urge North Carolina lawmakers to stop common lending abuses. The resulting law saves NC consumers $100 million in the first year alone. The law becomes a model for many other states that passed similar reforms.   

CRL emerges out of a strong NC coalition dedicated to fighting the growing problem of predatory lending.  As a research and policy advocacy organization, CRL has played a major role in supporting successful consumer protections nationwide and in the states, saving consumers billions of dollars annually. 

By 2003, 16 states have used North Carolina's 1999 law as a model to pass strong laws to curtail predatory lending, saving lower-income families from paying millions of dollars on abusive loans.

When Firestone Credit Union (Wilson, NC) joins Self-Help, it marks the beginning of Self-Help’s full-service credit union services. In the years that followed, Self-Help merged with other credit unions around the state. More information on mergers here.

Self-Help and the Center for Responsible Lending open a joint office in Oakland. This brings our work directly to the West coast, where predatory lending and housing affordability presented major challenges.

CRL publishes a groundbreaking analysis that forecasts high rates of default for subprime mortgages. CRL and civil rights allies are invited to testify before Congress on multiple occasions, advocating for strong consumer protections. Mortgage industry leaders dismiss CRL's findings and Congress fails to enact reforms before the housing crash. The result: a crippling Great Recession that hits Black and Latino families disproportionately hard, wiping out hard-earned home equity and worsening the wealth gap. 

In 2008, Self-Help Federal Credit Union is chartered by the NCUA. Its first merger was with People’s Community Partnership Credit Union, which continues to be the only depository financial institution serving West Oakland.

During the financial crisis, Self-Help Federal CU merges with nine credit unions that were serving under-resourced communities. Today Self-Help Federal has completed a total of 12 mergers, including two historic banks based in the Chicago area. More information on mergers here.

CRL and partners fight hard for many of the financial reforms and consumer protections included in the landmark Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act. Pictured above: In 2020, we celebrate the 10-year anniversary with allies. 

In 2011, Self-Help hires its first Sustainability Director and strengthens its focus on lending to nonprofits and businesses dedicated to creating a cleaner, greener environment. Since then, we have lent more than $374 million to support sustainability.

Self-Help Federal merges with Second Federal Savings & Loan, which had served immigrants on Chicago’s South Side for more than a century. In 2017, we merge with another bank, Seaway, that had been one of the largest African American-owned banks in the nation. This merger spreads our reach throughout the Chicago area and into Wisconsin.

Self-Help has a long history of lending to food co-ops, and beginning around 2013 we ramp up our focus on building healthier and more sustainable food systems. Our food system work addresses health, economic and social disparities through targeted lending. To date, we have lent over $33.6 million to support this sector.

We merge with Community Trust Federal Credit Union, started by Catholic nuns on a mission to serve migrant farm workers in Apopka, Florida. We further expand in Florida by merging with Jax Metro in Jacksonville.

We expand our presence into South Carolina by merging with Palmetto Trust Federal Credit Union in Columbia and CommunityWorks Federal CU in Greenville.

By its tenth anniversary, Self-Help Federal CU had grown quickly, and now serves over 78,000 members in 30 branches located in California, Illinois and Wisconsin.

We kick off our 40th anniversary celebration with a Member Appreciation Day. In our 40 years Self-Help has delivered $9.3 billion in financing to help over 175,000 individuals, families and organizations.

Today and beyond we are continuing our mission with the help of our members, partners and friends. If you're a member, we deeply appreciate your support. If you're not, please consider joining us today.

In 2020 Self-Help lends $183 million in mission-focused Paycheck Protection Program loans to 1,700+ small businesses and nonprofits, helping to maintain 20,000 jobs. At the same time, we are providing relief to current borrowers and continuing to make loans to strengthen the communities we serve.