VCU Financial Success Center by Virginia Credit Union wins top award from Association for Financial Counseling & Planning Education® (AFCPE®)
By Sarah Murphy
The VCU Financial Success Center by Virginia Credit Union received the 2024 Outstanding Financial Counseling or Planning Center Award from the Association for Financial Counseling & Planning Education® (AFCPE®). The award—which goes to a financial counseling or planning center that has demonstrated its effectiveness in its local community—comes just five years after the Center first opened its doors to VCU students in 2019.
Executive director of the Center Amy Pridemore attended the 2024 AFCPE® Symposium in Columbus, Ohio last month to accept the award. Other award winners from recent years include Kansas State University and Texas Tech University.
“It is incredible to be recognized for all of the hard work we have put into this program,” said Pridemore. “We are a team of one full-time staff member, one graduate assistant and eight student coaches. Sometimes, it can feel like we’re being stretched in a million different directions. This award is exciting because it demonstrates that what we’re doing here is working and paying off.”
“This award represents the culmination of years of work and collaboration,” says Cherry Dale, Senior Vice President of Financial Education at Virginia Credit Union. “It’s also the realization of the Virginia Credit Union Board’s vision for the Center to be a model, leader and innovator in helping the broader VCU community achieve financial well-being.”
The VCU Financial Success Center by Virginia Credit Union was created to help both the VCU and Richmond communities achieve financial success. This includes their primary program, peer-to-peer student counseling about budgeting, saving, credit, student loan repayment, career transitions and more.
“We found that the peer-to-peer model works really well because these students are going through the same life events and situations,” says Pridemore. The student counselors—or financial success coaches, as they are referred to in the Center—go through an entire semester of training before starting to work with other students. They learn about credit, insurance, debt, savings goals, budgeting, investing and more.
Since Pridemore joined in August of 2022, the VCU Financial Success Center by Virginia Credit Union has also expanded beyond peer-to-peer coaching. They now go into the classroom as part of the Freshman Year Experience and UNIV 191 courses; they developed a student-athlete program complete with a 2.5 day personal finance conference called VCU SUMMIT; they expanded to work with military services students, RecWell, the Office of Student Advocacy and more.
“We are such a new Center, and yet we are offering really amazing, comprehensive programming,” says Pridemore. “It’s an honor to have won this award.”
“We view the creation of the VCU Financial Success Center as an extension of our credit union’s mission to help people live confidently by ensuring they have the knowledge, tools and resources necessary to make informed financial decisions,” says Dale. “The Center’s leadership, staff, and student financial success coaches are also connected to and committed to that mission, and we are so proud of their efforts, impact and success.”
As for the future of the Center, Pridemore says she has her eyes set on expanding offerings to the graduate student population, as well as the medical campus.
Visit the VCU Financial Success Center by Virginia Credit Union website to learn more about the center and make an appointment.
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