B.U.I.L.D Verity

In Washington State, October 10th is Indigenous Peoples’ Day, a day to celebrate the cultures, contributions, and resilience of Native peoples.

Due to the day being a federally-recognized holiday (under a different name), many financial institutions are closed for the day. At Verity, we do it a little differently. Each year, while we are closed for operations for the day, we intentionally dive into topics of importance to our communities so we can continue to partner and co-create solutions.

This year, we are focusing on the theme of BUILD – Belonging, Unity, Inclusion, Learning, and Discovery—as these are the actions that drive our work and community impact.

Filene Fellow Dr. Mai Thi Nguyen is our keynote speaker this year. Dr. Nguyen is a Professor of Urban Studies and Planning and Director of the Design Lab at the University of California, San Diego. She is an award-winning public scholar, researcher, and teacher. Her research focuses on social and spatial equity and examines planning and policy topics related to land use, housing, community and economic development, and climate change adaptation. She is passionate about designing cities that are just and equitable. We are extremely excited and honored to have Dr. Nguyen join us, both because of her professional experience, and also of her connection to Filene Research Institute, a credit union and consumer finance think tank. Verity is partnering with the Lab at Filene through 2023, to help develop and test innovative ideas to help credit unions across the country make positive impacts on their members and communities. 

Staff will also be hearing from two organizations:

• Civic Commons,. a Seattle nonprofit committed to changing the systems that don’t work for everyone through community and cross-sector partnerships. They are a new initiative of the Seattle Foundation that shares the commitment of inclusion through seeking solutions that bring together community members and institutions. Because of the set policies that exclude people to this day, Civic Commons helps seek solutions for the people who are presently excluded. We will be hearing from the Executive-in-Residence for Community Partnerships with Seattle Foundation and the Chief Architect of Civic Commons, Michael Brown.  He will be sharing how Civic Commons is able to develop solutions in collaboration with community leaders across all sectors, changing the way we can take action to address the needs of our neighbors
• Seed Commons,  a national community wealth cooperative that imagines an economic structure that brings the power of big finance under community control. By spreading the guidance and sharing capital and resources to support local businesses, they are able to help build an infrastructure for a new sustainable economy. Credit unions came from a similar mission, so it will be exciting to hear how a modern day community cooperative operates. We will be hearing from Dr. Kate Khatib who is a co-director and founding member of the Seed Commons cooperative and its Baltimore peer, the Baltimore Roundtable for Economic Democracy. She will share how community wealth cooperatives like Seed Commons are able to provide alternatives to conventional corporate finance.

We also recognize that October 10th is a day to honor and recognize the past, present, and futures of Native peoples through the US. We celebrate the cultures, contributions, and resilience of Native peoples. We acknowledge that as an organization, we benefit from Indigenous land, the traditional territory of Coast Salish people and specifically the Duwamish, Muckleshoot, Puyallup, Snohomish, Stillaguamish and Suquamish tribes.