By Frank J. Diekmann
Forty-one! In just one week 41 credit unions have signed up for the first-ever “CUToday for a Better Tomorrow” initiative.
Just seven days ago I used this space to introduce something brand new, although the root idea is as old as credit unions themselves. To mark CUToday.info’s first anniversary in October, we challenged credit unions to join us in what we’re calling the “CUToday for a Better Tomorrow” initiative in which we are asking CUs to do a single, simple thing: just help one extra member per month during October, November and December.
It’s free, it’s easy, and yet it has such powerful potential.
All you need to do is to agree to be a part of the initiative, and then every month at the end of October, November and December, CUToday.info will send you an email as a reminder. Just hit reply to share your story—it doesn’t need to be more than one-paragraph. Perhaps you helped a member refinance out of a high-rate credit card. Get out from under a payday loan. Maybe a branch manager or member service rep took a half-hour to explain to help a member put together their first savings plan. Or get a loan for a car that will get them to a new job that will help to get that member back on their feet. You know the kinds of work you d better than I do—we’re asking you to just take a moment and share it.
It is frequently observed that credit unions don’t do a very good job of telling their story. But it isn’t one story—it’s 100-million stories, all small threads woven into one very large, connected, cooperative quilt. Send us your threads and we’ll do the weaving; we plan to assemble all the stories into one pdf that will be free to everyone.
Forty-one CUs are now onboard. We’d be delighted to have you help us make it 42! Just drop me an email at Frank@CUToday.info.
Items Still Lingering In the Notebook
Paul Economy of Member One Credit Union recently shared that for the past 18 months his credit union has supported a Community Engagement Plan that specifically focuses on younger generations. “It’s important that they see what the credit union is doing. They want to be part of any business that supports their values. Environmental. Sustainability. Health. Youth; all areas where we get involved.”
At the same discussion a similar theme was expressed by Orion FCU CEO Daniel Weickenand, who observed, “A lot of kids today want to save the world and they believe in the things we’re going. They want to be involved in organizations that give back.”
Some You-Had-To-Be-There Moments
*Meanwhile, enough time has passed to share a couple of you-had-to-be-there moments from NAFCU’s annual meeting in Montreal. At that event one NCUA executive was talking about technology when—from The You Can’t Make This Up Dept.–his PowerPoint presentation went all cease-and-desist-like and he didn’t know what to do. “I need help,” he admitted as audience members walked him through how to recover his presentation.
During another session on cooperatives, a speaker was reading from a slide on which the following bullet point was highlighted: There are 40,000 co-ops in the United States. With that slide still on the screen, there was this actual question from audience: “How many co-ops are there in the U.S.?”
And yet that moment from the Planet Oblivion was not even Exhibit #1 in Audience Disengagement, for it was topped just a moment later when the speaker put up a new slide that showed Navy FCU on a list of the Top 100 co-ops in the U.S. Actual question 2.0 from audience: “Why is Navy Federal on that list?”
*Finally, the Headline of the Month goes to the News Tribune, which announced “Credit unions, nude recreation advocates to greet national legislative delegates in Seattle.”
Frank J. Diekmann is Cooperator in Chief at CUToday.info and can be reached at Frank@CUToday.info or @FrankCUToday.