WASHINGTON–Ryan Donovan shared a couple of examples of how credit unions were working for him years before he ever worked for credit unions during CUNA’s GAC.
Donovan, the trade group’s chief advocacy officer, recalled first moving to Washington to go to work on the Hill when the office manager on his first day at work told him to get down to Congressional FCU so he could get paid.
A few years later, enjoying life in Washington, he said he found himself over his head with credit card debt. Once again, he went to his credit union to get assistance.
Three Lessons
Donovan told attendees they should take three lessons from those stories:
- First, “it’s a pretty common story among the congressional staffers you are going to meet with this week.”
- Second, “a good CU story doesn’t have to be complicated.”
- Third, “these stories humanize the work you do. There is certainly a place for facts and figures, but everybody has numbers and too often Congress gets bogged down in those numbers. Credit unions are in a better position than other financial services providers to humanize their impact.”
Donovan said a key part of the message on Capitol Hill must be how credit unions are there for members in good times and bad.
A Reminder on Data Security
During his remarks he also urged credit union leaders, when meeting with members of Congress, to highlight that data security and privacy is the “top issue for credit unions in 2020 and it is a top issue for Capitol Hill – it impacts everyone. And we need a national data security standard that applies to everyone. You can’t have data privacy without data security.”