Diversity and Inclusion in the Credit Market

Margaret Chamberlain, Vice President of Risk Management, OneAZ Credit Union

As a credit union, OneAZ prides itself on upholding values that put the needs of our membership and the community at the forefront. Among the key pillars of these values are promises to be equitable and inclusive in all our business operations, including our process for selecting vendor partners. That’s why we launched a vendor diversity database last year.

Our together is better committee saw the need for this initiative and helped launch the program. This committee was formed in 2020 with the goal of ensuring that every single part of the credit union’s business operations aligned with our principles of inclusion and equity. One thing we needed to do was examine and improve our process for selecting vendors and suppliers. We worked on identifying ways to be more inclusive when making purchasing and sourcing decisions.

Although we were ensuring that our vendors and suppliers share similar values of diversity, equity, and inclusion, we knew we needed to do more. We needed to make concerted efforts to partner with businesses that represent a diverse range of backgrounds. While there are publicly available databases with similar focuses, we’ve found them difficult to navigate and challenging to comprehend their vetting process. That’s why we decided to build our own database, where we could register businesses and obtain pertinent information about them easily.

"By Supporting locally owned vendors that represent our community is inspired by our mission to improve the lives of our members, our associates and the communities we serve."

Last year, after months of research, planning, and testing, we launched our vendor diversity database online to the public. Minority-owned, woman-owned, LGBTQIA-owned, veteran-owned and small businesses are encouraged to register as part of our database, so that as new vendor and supplier needs arise, our team has a single source to reference to find businesses that reflect our values.

Our application process is simple – businesses input their company contact information, the classification, goods, and services they provide and the diverse business classification. From there we create an internal database and share a report weekly with those involved in purchasing for the credit union.

While the program has been successful in helping us be more representative in the businesses we work with, the true benefit of this program is that we’re promoting equity and inclusionin the communities we serve. BySupporting locally ownedvendors that represent our community is inspired by our mission to improve the lives of our members, our associates and the communities we serve.

This commitment to our local communities can have wide-ranging effects on the local economy. As we support diversely owned business, they inturn help by employing individuals in their community.

As the credit union continues to expand its product offerings to businesses, we will also expand our outreach to local vendors that represent diverse perspectives.Our associates attend local business events throughout the state to engage business owners and encourage them to register for our program. We are already making strides. This past year we attendedaprogram organized by the Super Bowlhost committee in Phoenix which highlighted businesses that were providing goods or services to the various Super Bowl events. We met with business owners, shared our registration webpage and provided them with information to help promote our program with other diversely owned businesses.

With our vendor diversity database up and running, we want to help other organizations enact similar programs for their supplier needs. We have already shared our concept with other credit unions and offered our list as a starting point fortheir own programs. Our goal is to inspire other financial institutions. We knowit will take a collective effort to reach our common goals of being a more equitable and inclusive society. We hope our efforts are a positive force for progress, because together is truly better.

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