WASHINGTON–While recommendations related to CUNA’s structure and its board size have gotten most of the headlines out of the trade association’s board meeting last week, the CUNA board also recommended enhanced cooperation and interdependence with the leagues in the delivery of advocacy for credit unions, which the CUNA board said it is acting upon.
Those actions have already included a reorganization within CUNA. The trade group previously had four different advocacy function areas reporting into three different people; those function areas are now one and report into Chief Advocacy Officer Ryan Donovan. Those four function areas were regulatory and legal advocacy, which reported to the general counsel; regulatory affairs, which reported to the EVP of government affairs, and state regulatory affairs, which reported into league relations.
“The second thing that we’ve done is establish six issue-based teams so that teams that work in (one of the four areas) are working more closely together and we are able to dig deeper into the areas we are working on,” said Donovan, noting those issues include payments, housing, tax and budget. “This allows us to coordinate our efforts. What we all know is that the issues are not simply legislative or regulatory. Member business lending, for instance, doesn’t just manifest itself in Congress, it also manifests itself at NCUA. And are also legal issues related to some of these.
“So what we tried to do over the last nine months is reorganize our team to meet the advocacy needs of credit unions even better than we have over the past 80 years,” continued Donovan. “It’s more than just a name change; what we are putting under all that is a subcommittee structure that reflects those needs, and internally aligning everything.”
Donovan said the “more holistic approach” has also allowed CUNA to attract “some really great talent.”