BEAVERCREEK, Ohio—After seven successful years, Wright-Patt CU is retiring its annual Savings Race campaign, which has had a huge impact on the community and on the credit union.
Over the years the program has boosted annual membership growth, student loans, brand recognition, consumer lending, mortgage lending and non-mortgage lending, to name some of the benefits, according to Tracy Fors, VP-marketing and business development, who arrived late in 2007 and was asked to assemble a marketing campaign for the next year.
“This has been bigger and better than we ever expected, and gone on much longer than we expected,” said Fors, who explained the CU decided it was time to move onto another offering since Wright-Patt felt the program had already gone through enough annual changes and tweaks to keep it fresh. “Plus, we wanted to go out on a high note.”
The program ends in 2015 following the winner of the current Savings Race “Retirement Edition.”
The Savings Race, similar to several other savings challenges run by credit unions, is a “reality show,” said Fors, who explained that each year five teams are formed from local families—all credit union members—who compete against each other to achieve their financial goals.
Improve Financial Skills
The team that best improves the household bottom line is the winner and receives $10,000. The eight-month progress plays out twice a week on local TV stations’ news broadcasts, which run regular updates on the contestants.
The goal, overall, is to improve financial skills leading to reduced debt and greater savings. Two “coaches” from the CU work with the families to create budgets, strategize, and hold each team accountable. A rigorous financial counselling program is included, as well.
For the first three years the $2.9-billion Wright-Patt let each family determine their goal, before the credit union changed the rules to create a single focus for the teams each year. This past year retirement is the target goal; in 2013 the objective was health and financial fitness, the previous year addressed saving for college, and in 2011 saving for a home mortgage was the goal.
Fors said there is a direct correlation between member, market share and loan growth, as well as the growth of WPCU products and the respective race seasons. She noted that WPCU’s member growth has outpaced population growth in the Miami Valley since the inception of the Savings Race n 2008—65% growth for WPCU versus 1% for the Miami Valley area.
“Wright-Patt has grown by 102,200 members, the area has only grown by 14,716,” said Fors. “We are taking members from other financial institutions.”
Since 2009, the CU’s deposit market share in the area increased from 7.62% to 11.46%. Prior to the start of the race, WPCU’s loan growth was consistently below that of the credit union’s ALM First peer group, explained Fors. “Since the Savings Race, the credit union has been consistently outperforming the peer group in terms of loan growth.”
The “Home Edition” of the race in 2011 helped to generate an increase of $134 million in mortgage applications that year, compared with the same time period in 2010.
The “College Bound Edition,” said Fors, helped to generate an increase of more than $600,000 in student loans disbursed during peak student lending season following the race, compared with the same time period a year prior.
Final Race
Fors said the final leg of the race is expected to generate approximately 300 new financial planning clients and more than $250,000 in gross broker dealer commissions.
But Fors said the biggest impact has been on the community. The race has boosted the credit union’s name recognition in the area from 53% to 70% and improved the collective household net worth of 30 families by nearly $845,000.
“Residents of the Miami Valley have indicated that the Savings Race has helped them and made a difference in their financial lives,” said Fors, who said the race also has a community financial education element. “Many people have told us they would lose a valuable model for helping increase their financial stability through reducing debt, increasing savings, and achieving personal financial goals. The race, overall, is about teaching people how to manage their money instead of having their money manage them.”