In America, 1 in 4 women (24.3%) and 1 in 7 men (13.8%) aged 18 and older have been the victim of severe physical violence by an intimate partner in their lifetime, according to the National Domestic Violence Hotline.
Shocking statistics for sure, but nothing compared to the physical, financial and psychological harm done to each one of those individuals. Thankfully, a group of credit union leaders are taking matters into their own hands. FI SAFE is developing a technology stack that will help credit unions help members in domestic abuse situations that won’t put them in any more danger. For example, very often a credit union might unknowingly tip off the abuser with a follow-up phone call about a credit card application.
FI SAFE Founder/Partner Jonathan Taylor and FI SAFE Founder/Partner Shirley Senn are long-time credit union community veterans who started the company after hearing of some of these instances. Finances are always in the center of domestic violence cases, so credit unions are perfectly positioned to assist. Watch the video and listen to what they share with our host and founder, Sarah Snell Cooke.
Read the Full Transcript:
Disclosure: Transcript is automatically generated
Sarah Cooke 0:00
All right. Hello and welcome to the 2025 GAC. I’m Sarah Snell Cooke, your host with The Credit Union Connection. I’m here today with two excellent credit union leaders. We have Jonathan or John, either way, either way. And Shirley said, who are with FI SAFE. Tell us what FI SAFE is.
Jonathan Taylor 0:20
Yeah. So FI SAFE has been a project that was led by a CUSO called CU Soul, and I was the CEO of that. CU Soul is no longer but really the goal of FI SAFE and the purpose of it is to address the financial abuse aspects of domestic violence, specifically, and using technology and empathy to make tempathy to create a bridge for survivors to be able to find resources to snip all the, all those threads of control that keep them held back from being able to move on. And so originally launched in Albuquerque, New Mexico, with U.S. Eagle, Federal Credit Union. And the CUSO that I ran really ran this program. And then as that CUSO was going down, we said, Okay, we need to keep this dream alive. And and we spun up myself and Shirley and two other gentlemen, Joe Wynn and Keith Wynn at Green Profit Solutions. And then Loriann Mancuso spun up FI SAFE with Purple Bridges, which is our charitable arm, our 501c3.
Sarah Cooke 1:32
Okay, yeah, that was a lot of information.
Jonathan Taylor 1:33
It is. I know. There will be a test later.
Sarah Cooke 1:38
Shirley. How’d you get involved? Why did you get…
Shirley Senn 1:40
Well, it’s kind of an interesting story, of course. You know my background being in the corporate arena, so I’ve had a chance to work with quite a few credit unions over the last 33 years, and in the last 10 in particular, I’ve been in the CDFI space with community development. So probably seven years ago, I was working with a credit union in the panhandle, and some of our research showed that there was a real problem, not just with divorce, but with domestic violence within some of these military areas. So we ended up helping this credit union write a grant for a women’s empowerment program in particular to help those that were going through divorce or domestic violence. But it really showed me that there’s a bigger problem. And so this was just the tip of the iceberg of a number of research geeks. So I started doing more research, just realizing what a big problem this was, and then also just having this background, being a military spouse and being an ombudsman when my husband was in active duty Navy, and just I probably had at least one call a week of some type of domestic abuse or violence that we were having to address. And so last year, it was actually Linda White that brought JT and I together.
Jonathan Taylor 2:48
Shout out to Linda.
Shirley Senn 2:49
I did not know JT. He did not know me, but she’s like, I need to put the two of you together to do a presentation at the cula conference. So that’s we actually met one year ago this week at GAC. So GAC does miracles for people, helping people, but we just realized that we both have this passion. When we think about the statistics, just in general, of domestic violence, we one in two people know somebody that’s gone through it, and one in three have actually been through it. So when we look around, you know, one of the three of us, statistically, would would be in that, in that realm. And so it’s really important, because, as JT was saying, when we think about, you know, finance, drawings, everything that we do, and without it, you know, we can’t buy groceries or or even the ID side. You know, there’s so many things that are are taken into control in these types of abusive relationships, that who better than credit unions to be the catalyst of that? But it needs more than just a counselor or a loan or a savings account. It does take some of these technology pieces to really capture some of those pieces that the credit unions don’t have in their ecosystem. So bringing this all together. It was just very dear to my heart. One, being a female, but two, you know, having some personal experiences when I was in college in this realm, and I wish I had had some of the tools to help me, even just from a counseling standpoint, but just seeing how far stretched these problems go that. I’m sure every credit union has employees that have gone through this, has definitely members that have gone through it. And just thinking about the power of collaboration, and if we take the sixth principle of cooperation among cooperatives, of how we can address this problem as credit unions. So that’s really, you know, the impetus for my wanting to be involved was just the the the impact that we need to have to make sure that that every person is safe first, but also has a pathway for financial empowerment.
Sarah Cooke 4:50
Yeah, and I would definitely want to talk about the technology, but I want to first though, like I’ve done some reading on it as well, and there’s so many things you don’t think about that are you’re affected by when you’re in that situation. And it especially has to do with money, a lot of the time, because that is a big controller. Talk about some of the some specifics that situations that really can get at the crux of it for a credit union who might be considering, you know, getting involved in that.
Jonathan Taylor 5:19
Yeah, we’ve, we’ve learned a lot, you know. And like with anything you start, you know, some things look great on paper, you know. And then when you when you put it into practice, you learn along the way. And you know, we use the term trauma informed in everything that we do, from the training, from the consulting, and then educating them about the world of Domestic Violence Resource Centers and everything they have to be mindful of, from the data to just the processes. And I’ll give you an example. You know, one of the credit unions was sending the welcome kit to the address that was provided when they start the new account. Well, that’s not good in most cases, because if the abuser gets that welcome kit, well, what are you doing? One of the first things that a survivor typically will need is a new account, right? Just to separate or just to create a place where they can start to scroll funds away. And so things of that nature, you know that are important, or can we do a soft pull up fronts with it isn’t an indicator on the credit, because the abuser may be watching the credit. Or one that we learned the hard way was loan officers reaching out over and over again to try and make contact after they had gotten that that lead from the from the Resource Center, and not being able to connect because the survivor was afraid of the abuser monitoring their phone.
Sarah Cooke 1:06
Right.
Jonathan Taylor 1:07
And so the phone is under attack, too. And so you know, if you control the money, if you control the credit, and if you control the phone, it’s very, very difficult to get out. And so my job, my role in this just kind of being a techie and, you know, loving the FinTech space is going, how do we take technology and empathy and make tempathy and, and just create that, that tech stack, that quilt that creates the very best experience for the survivor number one, but also for the Resource Centers number two, who are doing this work, and then for the credit unions as well, so it can be as smooth as possible. But our job is to speak Resource Center to the credit unions and get them to learn that dialect. And for the credit unions and for the resource centers to speak Credit Union a little bit and understand that dialect, because they’re two different worlds, all while showing the credit unions how they can do well while doing good with a program that highlights probably the strongest way that they can prove their purpose of people Helping people.
Sarah Cooke 2:20
Exactly. Yeah, I was just talking about that earlier. I referenced a credit union that is a CDFI, and just the work that credit unions do to prove to justify their tax exemption every day, correct? I mean, because that 21% or whatever it is that they’re saving right now is what they the funds they use to do these things, right? So surely, you got anything to follow up on that, as far as like examples that like praying, and I’m gonna say especially men, because men aren’t often the victim, but they are sometimes. But other experiences that women may have that we can, like, that’s gonna sell this to a credit union, essentially.
Shirley Senn 3:05
Yeah. I mean, I think one is that, you know, when we think about the right financial institution, we want to keep them away from the payday lenders, and in particular, when we look at low income single mothers and then those of color that is, like, the prime candidate for a payday lender or a predatory lender in general. So, I mean, I think, you know, we encompass the things that we want to do well, and you know what we’re trying to keep our, just our general membership and communities away from. Let’s dig a little bit deeper and realize that, you know, the communities that we’re looking at, you know, two out of three are being targeted that are single women, and most oftentimes these are our survivors or are in an abusive relationship that they don’t know where to go. As Jonathan was saying, I think part of what we need to do as a movement is that we are so good at being certified financial counselors, financial coaches, but I think it goes beyond that. We have to understand that we don’t want to retraumatize. And so when we think about the programs that are out there to kind of level up what we’re doing as financial counselors, to really take the opportunity to embed, you know, 1, 2, 3, people, however many in your in your ecosystem of counselors, that understand that somebody may come in and maybe they the first thing you need to talk to them about is not, hey, let’s do a budget for you, but having this understanding what we’re calling compassionate banking, right, being able to pick up on the terminology that that recognizes somebody may be going through something, and instead saying, hey, you know, maybe we have this resource over here, This community partner that you may want to talk to, and recognizing that. So I think that’s a big part of it as well. So you know, but also allowing the credit union to know when it’s appropriate when someone comes in and we’ve identified them potentially as a survivor, being able to immediately send them to the right partner, so that when the safety plan is developed that it’s the Domestic Violence Resource Center counselors and staffing that can say, okay, credit union, we’ve got them safe. This is the time that we need to come in and start helping them with their finances. So it really is taking that, that opportunity to work with your partners, not just sponsorships, not just volunteer, which are all great, but really understanding what your community partners are all about. And in this particular then this particular one really getting that, you know, momentum going and trust and and it, you know, it’s all it is. It is a whole new kind of under the carpet thing that we need to bring up and raise to the top sunlight, definitely, because you think about the vitamin D and how, how important it is to have that sunlight here too, having a partner that understands what you’re going through, and is there to take you along that journey and make you feel safe. That’s what we’re about is helping.
Sarah Cooke 6:10
I’m going to steal the final word from you all.
Shirley Senn 6:11
Okay.
Sarah Cooke 6:12
Okay. Contact these guys.
Shirley Senn 6:14
Yes.
Sarah Cooke 6:15
How do we contact you?
Jonathan Taylor 6:16
Yes. Well, you can go to fisafe.org, and you can reach out to us there. Jonathan@fisafe.org. shirley@fisafe.org. 207-653-8559, that’s my cell phone. Call me.
Shirley Senn 6:32
904-861-4477. We will take your calls because, like I said, we are here simply to help the credit unions do what they do and level it up and help them do the best. Awesome.
Sarah Cooke 6:43
Awesome. Thank you so much.
Shirley Senn 6:44
Thank you.
Jonathan Taylor 6:45
Thank you. Appreciate it.