Business View Magazine | April/May 2022

151 BUSINESS VIEW MAGAZINE VOLUME 9, ISSUE 4 DOVER FEDERAL CREDI T UNION pandemic, finding ways to meet the needs of employees and members, while still serving the community. “It has been mind blowing to see the changes that have taken place in the last year,” says Cinnamon Elliott, Chief Talent Officer, “from our efforts with diversity, equity and inclusion to our ability to continue to work with the community through the pandemic in a safe way. Our ability to be flexible, and to change on demand is really impressive, and as an employee, it makes you really proud to work with the organization.” PPP loans were a major focus for the credit union, with loans totalling $35 million. Rzewnicki recounts, “That is not a huge amount for most financial institutions, but most of ours were smaller – we had some that were about $1,000. So, it takes a lot for those to add up. One of the cool parts about our statistics is that over 50% of our PPP loans went to women and minorities, which are statistics that you just don’t see out there.” Members were also given the option to skip loan payments during this uncertain time. “We did probably another $25 million in skipped loan payments, some of them for three or six months at a time to help individuals get over those humps,” he adds. Adapting was part of the job for the credit union’s 150 employees, with staff taking on different roles during the pandemic. Elliott reports that this created new opportunities for employees, noting “We definitely were flexible in our skill set. We had our frontline staff that was working in the back office, which actually led to promotion opportunities once we went back to business as usual, because they were able to cross train and learn new aspects of the credit union industry. It really was positive for our staff.” In order to keep everyone aware of what was happening, Dover Federal had weekly