This is what showing up looks like.
Everything you'll see on this page — the homes, the scholarships, the volunteer hours — started with members who chose to bank somewhere that does more with what it earns.
Our 4 Philanthropic Pillars
Education. Housing. Health. Economic inclusion.
Four areas where showing up with intention (and resources) actually change what's possible for people.
Education
Sharing the knowledge and skills our communities need to dream bigger.
Housing
Creating pathways to homeownership and thriving neighborhoods.
Health & Well-Being
Improving quality of life and ensuring access to essential care.
Economic Inclusion
Investing in workforce development and opportunity for all.
2025 Impact by the Numbers
The numbers don't tell the whole story. But they're a pretty good start.
"Each year, I'm more grateful to lead a team of over 1,700 people who genuinely care. When curious minds and collaborative hearts work together, something real happens. The stories and photos ahead are proof of that, and none of them would be possible without our members.
Here at LMCU, we don't just talk about improving everyday life: we roll up our sleeves and make it happen. But don't take my word for it — let the stories and photos ahead speak for themselves."
Volunteerism
Volunteer Impact
Programs with Impact
14,000 hours. That’s not a rounding error. That’s what happens when 1,700 people look forward to using their paid vacation day to go out, show up, and give back.
LMCU Day of Impact
Four times a year, LMCU's Impact Crew trades their desks for something better. In blue shirts, they chop vegetables, pack dinners, bake cookies, frame homes, pull weeds, and generally make themselves useful across Michigan and Florida. One paid volunteer day a quarter. No shortage of ways to use it.
Transformational philanthropic gifts
The return on these investments is more than financial. It's the healing in a new hospital wing, the door a scholarship opens, the security of owning a home. These are the gifts LMCU made in 2025.
Mary Free Bed
Mary Free Bed and Helen DeVos Children's Hospital are building the new Joan Secchia Children's Rehabilitation Hospital. And LMCU is proud to be part of it. Our gift goes toward something we think every kid who finishes therapy deserves: a moment worth celebrating.
Amplify GR
Amplify GR's new HUB 07 community center needed a place where financial empowerment could actually happen. LMCU helped make that space real.
Young Money Finance and Project Green — two organizations we've worked alongside for years — will call it home. They'll use it for programming, one-on-one financial guidance, and the kind of hands-on help that actually changes how people relate to money.
West Michigan Hispanic Chamber
LMCU contributed $1,000,000 to the West Michigan Hispanic Chamber toward construction of the Center for Latino Economic and Talent Development — one of the most significant investments we've made in a single community institution.
Through education, inspiration, and celebration, the center is designed to be exactly what its name implies: A place where the Latino community builds real economic power.
Boys & Girls Club of Lee County
Our support of the Boys & Girls Club of Lee County's Park Meadows Club goes beyond the building itself. LMCU contributed a capital gift to their Academic Center. Plus, throughout the year, our team members showed up as board members, mentors, and program facilitators.
This is what sustained investment looks like. It’s not a check and a handshake. It’s a year-round commitment to the kids and families who need it most.
Education
A stronger community starts in the classroom. These are the programs and investments that help make education more possible for more people.
Celebrating classroom champions
Roots in Education
Celebrating classroom champions
Our founder Lloyd F. Hutt was a teacher first. In his honor, LMCU awards $1,000 grants to educators nominated by the people who know them best — students, families, and peers.
Hutt Scholarship
Empowering tomorrow's achievers.
Since 1990, the Hutt Scholarship has been helping students take the next step toward higher education. Some traditions earn their place on the calendar.
Educators Rising
LMCU sponsored the 2nd annual Educators Rising Conference and Competition, co-hosted by Wayne State University and the Michigan Education Association. It’s an event built to get more students excited about becoming educators. We're glad to keep showing up for it.
Competitive Readers Coalition Antonio Barbershop
The Competitive Readers Coalition has a simple idea: transform neighborhood barbershops into reading hubs. LMCU gave $2,500 to fund 24 free books, 24 free haircuts, and three home libraries. Turns out a great time to start a reading habit is while someone's doing your fade.
West Michigan Teacher Collaborative
The West Michigan Teacher Collaborative exists to bring more good teachers into the profession, without lowering the bar to do it. LMCU continued its support of their work this year because that balance matters.
We contributed to an emergency stipend fund for educators in financial strain because people who dedicate their lives to teaching shouldn't have to choose between their calling and their bills. We also helped underwrite their Teacher Resident Certification celebration.
Housing
Homeownership changes everything for families, for neighborhoods, and for communities.
Here's what LMCU did in 2025 to make housing more possible for more people.
Opening Doors to Homeownership
In 2025, 405 first-time homebuyers got into their homes through LMCU's HomeAssist program this year. $4.6 million in down payment help, and a $12 million commitment to keep going.
Habitat for Humanity
Our work with Habitat for Humanity goes from writing checks to swinging hammers. In 2025, LMCU showed up through philanthropy and hands-on volunteer builds across both Michigan and Florida, to help more families get into homes they can truly call their own.
ICCF
The ICCF does something specific and important: they develop affordable for-sale housing so that homeownership is more than a possibility — it's a real option for more people.
LMCU showed up for this mission in just about every way we could: originating mortgages, providing capital, volunteering, teaching homebuyer education classes, and helping fund the conversion of a mostly vacant building into actual homes.
Jubilee Ministries
It's one thing to help people buy homes. It's another to build homes they can actually afford. Our support of Jubilee Ministries goes toward exactly that: Developing housing for first-time buyers in West Michigan who need a real entry point, not just a helpful nudge.
Northwest Michigan Housing Summit
LMCU served as the keynote sponsor for this year's Northwest Michigan Housing Summit, themed "Rooted in Community: Housing Solutions for Collective Impact." We also had a table in the room. Because showing up means more than just putting your name on the program.
Health & Well-being
Healthy communities don't happen by accident. These are the organizations, events, and programs LMCU supported in 2025 to help people live better.
Helping people live better
Band Together
Caring for our littlest heroes
Every August, Band Together pulls LMCU members, employees, and communities into one, unified effort to fund pediatric care at hospitals across Michigan and Florida.
American Heart Association Grand Rapids Heart Walk
Our team members fundraised, volunteered, and laced up for the Grand Rapids Heart Walk alongside the American Heart Association. LMIA’s Ken Jansen went further, serving on the event's executive leadership team. Because walking the walk sometimes means leading it too.
Lee Health
In 2025, LMCU's relationship with Southwest Florida's Lee Health System continued to grow through financial support, volunteer time, and real participation. We showed up for their radiothon, the Lee Health Residency Program, and the Caring for the Cape healthcare fundraiser.
Bronson Health Employee Campaign
LMCU sponsored Bronson Health's Little Help, Big Difference employee giving campaign, putting more resources toward the special assistance and services that make a real difference for patients in their care.
Holland Hospital School Nurse Fun Run
Holland Hospital's School Nurse Fun Run has raised over $432,400 since 2013, with all of it going directly to the school nursing program. LMCU sponsored and volunteered at the 2025 run, adding to a community effort that's been showing up for over a decade.
Economic Inclusion
Economic opportunity shouldn't depend on your zip code. These are the programs and partners LMCU invested in to help more people build skills, access capital, and get ahead.
Helping others build skills and capital
West Michigan Construction Institute
The West Michigan Construction Institute helps people earn skills, credentials, and a real shot at meaningful work. LMCU underwrote their graduation and award ceremony this year. Because the moment someone crosses that stage deserves to be celebrated properly.
WMCAT
WMCAT turned 20 this year, and LMCU had to be part of that. We also shifted our support toward something new: their Cybersecurity Adult Career Training pathway, which gives Kent County adults access to tuition-free career training in one of the fastest-growing fields around.
National Black and Latino Summit
MCU joined 400 organizations at this annual summit focused on closing the racial wealth gap through affordable housing development and small ownership in Black and Latino communities. We didn't just show up and sponsor. Our experts were at the table as panelists.
Mentoring Monday
Allee Farris, Jessica Barr, and Dawn Fuzell joined 160 local leaders to mentor Central Florida businesswomen at the Tampa Bay Business Journal's annual Mentoring Monday event. LMCU served as the title sponsor, with President & CEO Julie Leonard delivering open remarks.
Grand Traverse Industries
Grand Traverse Industries offers job training, employment, and day programs for people with intellectual and developmental disabilities. LMCU contributed financially and sent volunteers to their Adaptable Art program — because showing up means more than writing a check.
Financial Education Programs
These are the programs and partnerships that brought real financial education directly to students, educators, and communities in 2025.
Getting right with money starts early.
Financial Reality Fairs
At a Financial Reality Fair, teens get a fake salary, real decisions, and a fast education in how money really goes. Spoiler: it goes faster than they expect.
Community Financial Education Workshops
Our LMCU staff took financial education on the road. We went into schools, community organizations, and everywhere in between. The goal was simple: meet people where they are and give them the tools to feel less lost when money gets complicated.
West Michigan Personal Finance Conference
Alongside the Michigan Council on Economic Education, LMCU hosted 30 educators for a day focused on one thing: making personal finance easier to teach. Local professionals and LMCU experts shared tools and strategies they could take back to their classrooms.
Junior Achievement
LMCU team members across Michigan and Florida spent the year bringing Junior Achievement's hands-on financial education to life — in classrooms, at Finance Park, JA in a Day, and inside a student-sized LMCU branch at BizTown.
Community Engagement
From blood drives and bridge runs to shred days and stadium nights, here’s how LMCU and its members showed up in the communities we call home in 2025.
LMCU in the community
Spotlight on Michigan
Whether it was Grand Rapids or the lakeshore, here's a look at the events, partnerships, and moments that made 2025 worth showing up for across Michigan.
The Bridge Run broke its attendance record again, with 2,819 participants (including over 275 LMCU employees) hitting the streets of Grand Rapids to run, walk, cheer, volunteer, and go the extra mile to make this an unforgettable race day.
LMCU sponsored the Waterfront Stage for the duration of the Coast Guard Festival. And our local teams didn't stop there. They showed up at community events throughout the week alongside the people who make this festival worth attending every year.
LMCU's Meg Dunn and Grand Rapids Rise Coach Cathy George cohosted this event, as 1,800 middle-school girls in attendance heard uplifting stories from Rise athletes' own experiences growing up as young women.
Focusing on Florida
From St. Petersburg to Cape Coral, here's a look at the events, partnerships, and moments that made 2025 worth showing up for across Florida.
Artist Sara Salem and a crew of volunteers turned the west wall of our St. Pete branch into a colorful heron. Throughout SHINE, LMCU also hosted networking events on digital innovation, construction, wellness, and women's leadership.
Consider it the most important meal of the workday. LMCU returned to sponsor FutureMakers' Breakfast of Champions, bringing together 130+ CEOs to mark 10 years of progress on education and workforce issues that shape what's possible for communities here.
The Cape Coral Art Festival turned 40 this year, and LMCU was proud to be the presenting sponsor. With over 200 artists and craftsmen from around the world, and over 140,000 attendees, it’s one of the biggest weekends in Lee County every January.
Advocacy
When policy decisions affect our members' financial lives, LMCU shows up in the room (and at the table) to make sure their interests are part of the conversation.
LMCU in DC
When the rules that govern banking are being written, LMCU's leaders are in the room. Because those rules directly affect the people we serve.
Federal Government Shutdown Support
When the 2025 federal government shutdown left federal employees in a tough spot, LMCU didn't wait for someone else to act. We partnered with Yesterdog (one of our own business members) to bring 200 meals to affected employees at Gerald R. Ford International Airport.
LMCU Young Leaders Hike the Hill
Joined by their peers from across the credit union industry, young leaders from LMCU traveled to Lansing for a day of learning focused on effective advocacy and the importance of representing our members.
Athletic Partnerships
Sports have a way of turning strangers into neighbors. That's why LMCU invests in athletic partnerships. Because shared experiences are part of what makes a community worth belonging to.
Detroit Tigers Spring Training
This year, LMCU became the presenting partner of Detroit Tigers Spring Training at Joker Marchant Field in Lakeland, Florida. This means our name is now officially attached to one of the best ways to spend a warm February afternoon.
Lakeland Tigers & West Michigan Whitecaps
Congratulations to the West Michigan Whitecaps and Lakeland Flying TigerLs on their championship season!
Campus Events
College campuses are where many futures are decided. LMCU shows up there because connecting with students early (before the big financial decisions hit) is exactly where a credit union should be.
Wayne State University Finals Treats
We sponsored a beverage and snack station at Wayne State's SEAL Lab to keep students fueled and hydrated during finals week!
Calvin University International Students
Arriving in a new country and not knowing how banking works is more stressful than it sounds. To help, LMCU partners with Calvin University's international students’ program to offer a Banking Basics session at orientation and helps students open accounts before classes start.
Campus Events
University of South Florida (USF) Homecoming
Alumni awards, parade beads, a photobooth, pom-poms at the pre-game tailgate — LMCU went all in on USF.s Homecoming this year. Some things are just worth showing up and showing out for.
GVSU Career Fair
How do you find a job in banking that you'll really love? You start by talking to people who already have one. LMCU team members tabled at career fairs and career services events at colleges and universities across Michigan and Florida to help students figure that out.
2025 Awards
These honors belong to everyone who makes LMCU what it is — our members, our team, and the communities that trust us to show up for them.
MCUF Community Enrichment Award
For addressing homeownership barriers through HomeAssist.
Habitat Kent Opportunity Award
For furthering Habitat's mission of growth through collaboration and innovation.
Bank Innovation Award at National Black & Latino Summit
For pursuing economic justice by advancing affordable housing solutions.
Carol Van Andel Angel of Excellence Award
For embodying the Van Andel Institute's mission through volunteer service and philanthropy.
None of this happens without our members.
Download the full 2025 Impact Report to see the complete picture — and thank you for being the reason there's a story worth telling.
