Libro Credit Union's Social Purpose Assessment Tool assists credit unions in strategic planning, operations and management. Credit unions can use this social purpose scorecard to know where they stand against best, leading and next practices in social purpose, corporate social responsibility and values-based banking. More importantly, the scorecard also suggests practices credit unions can adopt to increase their positive impact and enhance their social purpose mission.

This baseline assessment will help you to determine where the majority of your efforts are, along a continuum from “basic”, through “advancing”, and “integrated” towards “social purpose”. It will improve your understanding of actions to be taken at higher levels of purpose and impact so that you can determine what areas you would like to pursue by when. Credit unions can review this tool and consider where their credit union is today and where they would like their credit union to be in three, five or ten years.

Download the Credit Union Social Purpose Assessment Tool

Objectives

The purpose of conducting a Social Purpose Assessment is:

• Current state: To understand your current “CSR” practice along a continuum of social purpose and impact – to find out how much you are currently doing
• Opportunities: To identify strengths, gaps and opportunities your credit union could prioritize in its CSR strategy
• Education: To educate functional leaders on the meaning and implications of CSR and social purpose with regard to their functions, the credit union, employees, members and other stakeholders

Completing this tool will provide you with the following insights:

• Governance: Your current core CSR philosophy, business model and view of profit generation, and the degree to which social purpose is embedded in your governance and management systems
• Members: How you engage members in your social purpose efforts and enable their financial resilience
• Communities: How you engage your communities in your social purpose efforts, enable their resilience and use your branches, products and services to foster sustainable growth
• Employees: How you engage your employees in your social purpose efforts, enable their health and well-being and foster an inclusive workforce
• Environment: How you reduce your direct and indirect environmental impacts and foster a sustainable economy
• Suppliers: How you engage your suppliers and business partners in your social purpose efforts
• Co-operatives: How you support the growth of a strong and resilient co-operative sector

Appendix A includes a list of tools and resources produced by Canadian Credit Union Association, which can be used as references in the pursuit of CSR and social purpose. Appendix B describes the methodology used to develop the tool.