Making it permanent Berkshire Busk! has grown each year since its inception in 2021. Now its founder believes the festival is ready to become an annual summer tradition. Page 2
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MARCH 2024 I VOL. 3, NO. 3
Homeward bound
BEN GARVER
Hope Dillard, a proud first-time homeowner, beams in front of her three-bedroom, two-bath house in Pittsfield. She was able to purchase the home with the assistance of Greylock Federal Credit Union.
Greylock Federal, Westside Legends partner to boost home ownership among historically underserved communities By Jim Therrien PITTSFIELD — Greylock Federal Credit Union’s community approach to lending has followed a natural progression toward helping minority applicants pursue their dreams of home ownership. “Forever, we were a financial cooperative,” said Greylock President and CEO John Bissell. “We’re not-for-profit, and our job is to provide access to financial services for the whole community. And we are especially focused on people who aren’t well-served through traditional banking services.”
That approach dates to the Great Depression with General Electric employees, he said, after the institution formed in 1935 as the Pittsfield G.E. Employees Credit Union to assist employees in saving and with low-cost loans. As GE’s presence in Pittsfield waned during the 1990s, the institution was renamed the Greylock Federal Credit Union, and has since expanded its membership range to include all of Berkshire County and beyond. “We just keep looking at what is happening in the community,” Bissell said, “and how can we respond to what the needs
are. And as the community has changed, our product shelf has changed with it.” Today, Greylock has just over 100,000 members, having reached that milestone in 2023, and has 14 locations throughout Berkshire County and Hudson, N.Y., with a total of 340 employees. THE UNDERSERVED In 2013-14, Bissell said, “we recognized we needed to do a much better job of addressing the needs of the new Americans immigrating here from Central and South America, West Africa, Eastern Europe, and people
in the Black community that have been here for generations.” He said Greylock Federal received CDFI (Community Development Financial Institution) certification through the U.S. Treasury Department in 2015, which allowed the credit union to, in a sense, look in a mirror, as well as offer expanded services to low- and moderate-income families. “That brought us into deep contact with our own data,” Bissell said. “Who are we, who are we lending to, and how are we filling gaps that exist. “These were the demograph-
ics that we had not been doing a good job of delivering for,” he said, referring to minority groups. “And we were not happy with what we saw. Frankly, we knew that we could do a better job of helping people achieve home ownership especially.” PROGRAMS LAUNCHED “In 2016, we really thought about how we were making an impact within the community,” said Jodi Rathbun-Briggs, senior vice president and chief lending officer at Greylock. “And we formally launched
GREYLOCK FEDERAL, Page 12