Alpha Kappa Alpha (AKA), the United States’ oldest Black sorority, is launching a groundbreaking new credit union and placing ownership in the hands of its members.
For Members Only (FMO), which celebrated its grand opening Wednesday, is the nation’s first sorority-based financial institution to be owned and led by Black women, according to ABC 11.
FMO membership will be available to the nearly 500,000 AKA members across the globe, as well as their immediate families, sorority staff, and employees of the credit union, per the report.
“Every member will be an owner of the credit union,” Terri Bradford Eason, executive director of FMO, told ABC 11.
An idea several years in the making, FMO was created to foster greater financial prosperity for women of color, which is one of the AKA’s six core initiatives.
“Everyone doesn’t understand the impact we make financially, so you have to start doing things so folks know we know how to control our money,” Danette Anthony Reed, international president and CEO of AKA, told the outlet.
Founded 115 years ago in 1908, the AKA’s are a part of the Divine Nine, or the National Pan-Hellenic Council, which consists of the nine major African American Greek-letter fraternities and sororities, as previously reported by theGrio.
Launched during an AKA leadership conference at the sorority’s Chicago headquarters, FMO will offer banking services including loans and primary savings accounts.
The National Credit Union Administration will charter, insure and regulate FMO operations, ABC 11 reported.
“It’s just awesome to know we’ll have the opportunity to actually do something financial,” Monica Teal, a member of AKA, told the outlet while waiting in line to open an FMO account.
“We want to invest in what we own,” said FMO board member Deadra Hayes-Whigham, who has subscribed to the credit union along with her family members.
theGrio’s Keydra Manns contributed to this report.
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