History & Philosophy

The noble spirit of “people helping people” is the philosophy that inspired the formation of Interra Credit Union more than 75 years ago. It is the same philosophy the credit union proudly upholds today.
 

Interra Credit Union, founded in 1932, is a wonderful result of a difficult time in our history.  As those who remember the Great Depression will attest, life was hard and better days seemed hopelessly distant.  Banks were closed, money was scarce, and those who could borrow money paid outrageous interest rates.

In January 1932, the township Farm Bureau members and Farm Bureau Co-op employees met in a Goshen business establishment.  Together with Edward Filene, father of American credit unions, they discussed the formation of their own credit union.  

Seven charter members each pledged five dollars to establish the credit union, but not every member could pay the whole sum at once; some had to pay the balance in installments. Despite this shortage of funds, they were determined to create a financial cooperative that could provide resources to help one another.  So on February 23, 1932, the founders applied for their charter with a balance of only $19.50.

In 2008, members of the credit union approved a name change to reflect our growing membership, and we became Interra Credit Union.  Times have changed — but our values have not.  Interra Credit Union, headquartered in Goshen, has grown from a credit union with only seven charter members and $19.50 in assets to a credit union that serves more than 44,000 members from nine offices in Elkhart County — with assets of more than $450 million.  But the commitment to serve members and our communities remain our culture.

Interra Credit Union Financial History         

YEAR	ASSETS	SHARES	LOANS
1932	$1,125	1,058	$1,052
1935	7,308	6,821	6,787
1940	29,542	27,611	29,416
1950	811,929	692,044	771,210
1960	1,769,045	1,558,785	1,544,366
1970	5,309,992	4,764,550	4,075,969
1980	26,680,810	24,369,270	17,041,302
1990	98,097,786	84,777,576	55,798,447
1995	160,603,903	137,658,854	92,733,777
2000	244,752,408	210,230,940	163,563,506
2001	293,747,446	255,894,923	177,568,648
2002	321,743,549	280,819,358	190,315,976
2003	347,388,764	302,821,990	204,986,063
2004	354,927,554	306,406,249	231,269,221
2005	370,000,738	317,688,468	259,857,319
2006	402,006,911	344,943,639	281,694,064
2007	430,808,347	369,673,158	287,349,985
2008	459,765,147	394,667,493	293,645,337

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