When Frank Magaña was a student at BYU, he remembers walking by the sign “Enter to learn; go forth to serve” every day when he entered campus.
“I was inspired by it,” he says, “and I thought it truly should be the reason behind why we do what we do as humans. We enter whatever institution we’re part of to learn, with the purpose of serving others.” That motto has become a guiding principle in Magaña’s life, both professionally and personally, and it has provided a focus that has made him a force for change in low-income and underserved communities.
Magaña grew up on Chicago’s west side, part of a community of Hispanic immigrants who worked long hours at low-paying jobs just trying to make ends meet. He knew that people in his area were struggling—but that things were even worse in the neighborhood just across the tracks. “I would look out the car window and wonder why there was so much blight,” he recalls. “I think that was the beginning of my interest in trying to find ways to help.”
Magaña took that interest to BYU, where he earned a BA in history in 2007. He was drawn to the major because he wanted to understand, as he says, “who I was, where I came from, why the world functioned the way it did, and why some folks were left behind while others weren’t.” After graduation, he worked as a legal assistant for a corporate litigation firm in Washington, DC. He soon realized that what truly interested him about the job was the pro bono work, especially cases that involved helping refugees seek asylum and defending women who were victims of violence.
With confirmation that his future lay in helping underserved communities, Magaña entered the MPA program at BYU Marriott to hone his skills. After completing his studies in 2013, he became director of operations for a nonprofit in Salt Lake City that focuses on helping Latino students graduate from high school, enroll in college, and prepare for careers.
The position proved pivotal. It was there that Magaña gained expertise that led to his appointment in 2015 as a board member for Wallace Stegner Academy, a top-notch charter school on Salt Lake City’s west side that serves an ethnically and economically diverse cohort of students. He also learned about the community reinvestment space within banking; impressed with the impact it had on low-income communities, he entered the field in 2015.
Magaña is now a community reinvestment credit manager for Ally Bank, an online bank headquartered in Sandy, Utah, and is responsible for investments in companies that help build affordable housing and revitalize low-income neighborhoods. Through the bank, he also has opportunities to reach out directly. In 2020 he helped create a financial literacy course for The Other Side Academy, a nonprofit residential program that helps formerly incarcerated individuals transition back into society. During the yearlong course, bimonthly classes are paired with a savings-match program from Ally Bank. Now a volunteer instructor, Magaña is seeing the fruits of his labors firsthand: his students leave the program not only with money to help them obtain an apartment, buy a car, or pay college tuition but also with newfound confidence in their ability to manage that money.
In the relatively few years since he left BYU Marriott, Magaña has become a champion for struggling communities, just as he envisioned as a youth in Chicago. Where does he go from here? “I’m not exactly sure,” says Magaña, “but I know I want to continue to create impact in low-income areas. My objective is to use everything I’ve learned to increase that impact and increase my quality of service. Whatever the future holds, I want to be ready for the opportunities that come.”
