2023 Year in Review

Keeping our members’ money safe and secure is top priority at First Tech. With new cyber and real-life threats emerging almost daily, it’s imperative to remain vigilant and forward-thinking to keep our members, their funds and our community safe and secure.

That’s where our Cyber Security and Information Technology teams come in. Grant Gaines, VP of Cybersecurity, his team, and many other employees across the Information Technology and Risk divisions work tirelessly to stay at the leading edge of cyber awareness and security to keep information and funds safe from criminals.

“First Tech remains a very safe place to bank, in a world that consistently sees organizational breaches daily,” said Grant. “That is a huge win for all of us. Our employees and members should be very proud they bank with an organization that cares and wants to ensure the safety and soundness of its members’ assets.”

Assessing ongoing risk is no easy task, and we’re fortunate to have Grant and his team helping to ensure the credit union, our members and funds remain safe and sound.

In 2023, First Tech provided over $3.6 million in charitable giving to over 130 organizations, and 97.4% of employees participated in community engagement, directing dollars and time to nonprofit partners, ensuring that children have the tools they need to learn, be healthy, and succeed.

*$3.663,692 includes funds raised on behalf of Credit Unions for Kids at the NW Classic.

**includes Other & Out of Focus Board gifts

For more than 35 years, First Tech has led the way in fundraising efforts for Credit Unions for Kids (CU4Kids), which benefits Children’s Miracle Network Hospitals (CMN) across our footprint. Supporting the youngest members of our community has always been a top priority for First Tech. In 2023, First Tech employees and members, business leaders and credit unions from across the region raised nearly $1.6 million dollars as part of the annual Credit Unions for Kids fundraising campaign.

With over 95,000 youth (ages 13-17) in the foster care system nationwide, First Tech is committed to ensuring that foster youth are well-prepared for their financial future. Through First Tech’s partnership with Youth Villages Oregon, a nonprofit that works alongside young adults as they move out of foster care and into adulthood, an exciting program emerged thanks to an employee idea.

First Tech launched the Youth Villages Foster Youth Savings program in 2023. Through this program, youth affiliated with the nonprofit between the ages of 13-17 can open a First Tech Start Up Checking and Start Up Savings account, along with a Membership Savings account. For those who are 18 and over, they can open any of our other great checking and savings accounts. First Tech is proud to be the first credit union to allow foster care children under 18 years of age in Oregon and SW Washington to open an account without requiring an adult co-signer.

At First Tech, we believe in a workplace where employees feel they belong and where they can be their authentic selves. For employees like Jorge Perez, Human Resources Recruiter, he’s passionate about diversity, equity, inclusion and belonging (DEIB). Today, his passion and experiences drive his purpose.

As a recruiter, Jorge plays an integral role on the Human Resources team to find qualified talent who support our mission and core values. In 2023, he helped launch our newly formed Inclusion Networks, which are employee-led groups that focus on providing a supportive platform for communities across shared identities and experiences.

“I have a passion for fostering an inclusive and diverse workplace, and it starts with the people we hire,” said Jorge.

Just outside Hillsboro Corporate sits the First Tech Community Garden. This is home to 16 gardens beds where a variety of vegetables and crops are growing. In May 2023, nine departments came together to plant their seeds in team garden beds in the hopes of an abundant harvest.

From the beginning, the teams had one goal in mind – to give back. All the crops harvested from the garden are donated to Centro Cultural de Washington County, a non-profit which provides culturally specific free food to families and individuals in the local community.

“The experience brought a lot of First Tech’s values together from building our teams to helping the environment and others. When we were out in the garden, we’d often see people walk up to us and ask about the garden. It was a proud moment to share that with others,” said a First Tech employee volunteer.

From what started as an employee idea to now, the community garden has flourished into a sustainable way to give back to our community for years to come.

In 2024, we will continue to deliver the product and service experiences that our members have come to expect and appreciate from us, placing our members at the center of all that we do. For the year ahead, our focus will be on continuing to make things easier and better for our members through a variety of innovations. Investments will be focused on our digital banking platforms and branch locations, ensuring that we are digital first, but not digital only. To make all of these advancements possible, we’ll continue cultivating our strong culture of compliance and safety to ensure regulatory and financial soundness in all that we do.