The Vision and Strategy of HEAD Corporation

HEAD began as a grassroots organization in 1974. The organization’s progressive evolution led management to consider strategies to expand its presence in commercial lending. Although this is a challenging arena, the willingness to transition the lending activities to larger scale ventures yields benefits for the service area and the organization. Larger projects typically offer greater employment opportunities. These ventures have the capacity to provide living wages, fringe benefits, health insurance and retirement plans for a broader spectrum of people than do smaller micro enterprises. Larger projects offer opportunities to combine the resources and services of HEAD’s affiliate organizations with those of the revolving loan fund. This uniquely positions HEAD and its affiliates as a community development entity that creates employment opportunities through business lending, access to fair and reasonable credit through its credit union services and promotes improved living conditions through housing services. All of these services are now provided under one corporate umbrella, Appalbanc.

HEAD Corp. is now positioned to create an upward spiral of financial services reaching every facet of people’s lives. HEAD focuses on the small and mid-size business lending with the goal of creating employment opportunities for low-income people. Without jobs and steady income, the self-sufficiency needed to make economic development work cannot be achieved. Job security is the first step in eliminating persisting poverty.

Employment then creates a multiplier effect leading to affordable housing, consumer credit, savings, and retirement and provides an incentive to advance educational goals.

Historically, HEAD has started several affiliate organizations which address many of the needs created by employment growth. Hence, HEAD focuses on creating employment opportunities to use existing services and financial resources offered by its affiliate organizations. This direction consolidates HEAD’s priorities with that of its affiliates and offers broad-based community development.

HEAD focuses on lending as a way to create jobs which impact the whole community. When HEAD began its loan fund in 1987, the focus was to provide micro-loans to individuals. While this was successful, HEAD began reviewing the impact this made in a community. Even though individuals were positively affected, this type of lending did not bring about a greater community wide impact. In 1995, HEAD’s affiliate the AFCU, began lending to micro-businesses, thus allowing HEAD to move in the direction of financing larger businesses whose scale of employment offers greater opportunities for communities or communities as a whole. HEAD has successfully moved into the arena of larger business lending. During the past five years HEAD has financed businesses that provide more employment opportunities than are achievable through micro enterprises. Many more jobs have been created through HEAD financing in the past five years then were created during HEAD’s first ten years as a micro-lender.

HEAD finances companies offering living wages, fringe benefits, health insurance retirement plans and direct membership into AFCU. The credit union provides federally insured retirement accounts and, in coordination with its representatives, individual development accounts.