“PolicyMap has really helped me dig into specific areas [of data] to learn more about my communities, where [Rize] can really be making a difference, and how these communities are built.”
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Challenge
Rize Credit Union, serving Southern California and Southern Nevada, offers a wide array of financial products and services, prioritizing community-level needs and actively addressing systemic lapses in financial stability for Hispanic and immigrant groups. The United States’ financial system garners high barriers to entry for specific groups of people, including language differences, identification requirements, and documentation challenges. These barriers disproportionately disadvantage Hispanic and immigrant consumers, thus prolonging and complicating the path to placemaking and belonging. Rize proactively addresses these adversities from a financial services side, including employing bilingual staff and accepting alternative forms of ID, as well as from the social impact side through prominent community investment. To achieve financial empowerment and enable equitable community development, Rize needed a tool that could support their vision for a financially empowered future.
Solution
Rize uses PolicyMap to identify opportunities, understand community needs, and make a positive financial impact. By leveraging demographic, socioeconomic, and quality of life data, Rize decides where to offer its financial services in the cities and towns it serves. This geographic data helps Rize Credit Union branches understand their community presence and improve consumer services. PolicyMap's extensive data and multi-industry capabilities have been crucial for Rize's business growth and social impact, enhancing access to banking services for underserved groups and promoting financial equity and community development.Diana Cervantes, Vice President of Social Impact at Rize, says that when using PolicyMap, “I get to see census tracts for our low-income communities and really get to focus and put together where the resources are at, for example, nonprofits [and] community partners where we could be supporting and how we can best be supporting. That helps me develop innovative products and services to be able to help those communities thrive.”
Map example on left: The orange pin marks the location of Rize Credit Union’s Lynwood Branch. The nearby census tracts shaded in dark purple qualify under the CDFI Fund’s Median Family Income criteria (≤ 80%). Light blue points indicate local nonprofit organizations. CLICK HERE TO EXPAND
