The National Credit Union Foundation, an affiliate of the nation’s credit union trade group, has award 14 innovation grants to various firms.

One grant is of particular note. Fairfax County FCU got a $99,900 innovation grant from NCUF to attract members from the Hispanic community to its fold. Fairfax, in turn, made a deal with several Spanish media outlets to leverage the grant into in-kind ad time.

CBS Spanish affiliate El Zol Radio, Cox Cable en Espanol, and Entravision–including Telefutura, Univision, and WJAL–are contributing a combined $430,000 worth of in-kind media for the $223.1 million asset, Fairfax. Va.-based credit union to use throughout 2009. The in-kind media include radio and TV commercials, public service announcements, long-form interviews, news segments, banner placements and literature distribution at Hispanic community events.

“The launch of our media campaign has already resulted in 17% of our new members coming from Hispanic origins and 60% opening checking accounts,” said Fairfax Chief Marketing Officer Matthew Kaudy. “I am forecasting the trend to continue upward as the frequency of our message continues to increase and we continue to expand our messages through additional channels.”

That’ll work.

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