By Frank J. Diekmann
Attention, Crashers! Hold off on the selfies for a minute, because you need to make 2018 the year you individually and collectively crash a really consequential issue that involves your futures. And if you don’t, it’s going to crash right into you.
I’m talking to you, the younger people within the credit union community who are so often referred to as the “future of the movement.” Well, the future’s sending a text, and it’s a bunch of emojis that say you need to get moving if you have any hope of seeing that future.
Lost in all the caroling and cranberries during the holiday season was a story that appeared on CUToday.info reporting there will be fewer than 3,000 credit unions in the U.S. in just 20 years, according to a new projection. Three-thousand! That’s down from the approximately 5,800 credit unions today, and a long way from the one-time high of around 23,000.
If you’re a Crasher or just fall into the demographic and think two decades sounds like a long way off, ask someone older than you if 1998 seems like a long time ago to them, or if they remember when Saving Private Ryan and The Waterboy were playing in theaters. (Then give them a little space as they turn away and try to hide their tears.)
The forecast for the number of credit unions is drawn from CUNA Mutual’s latest Trends Report, which in the always page-turning prose of economists declares, “If we apply this exponential ‘decay’ rate to the current number of credit unions, 5,815, we should expect another 203 credit unions to exit the financial system in 2018. If we forecast out a little further, according to the laws of exponential decay, there will only be 2,955 credit unions in 20 years, half as many as there are today.”
Half.
Stop the Decay
This isn’t some nostalgic screed sadly lamenting the change that is occurring. Change has to occur for the CU community to grow and prosper. But the operative word in the CUNA Mutual analysis is “decay,” and although it isn’t the definition the report’s authors had in mind, many of those CUs are disappearing due to internal decay thanks to decrepit, stale thinking and leadership—including at the board level.
And this is where the Crashers need to step it up and put the delay in the decay.
According to their website, the once informally organized Crashers (who at their inception were content to just “crash” (meaning not pay to attend) the GAC but who have now gone corporate and are formally known as The Cooperative Trust, have a logo and brand, and operate under the auspices of the Filene Research Institute) were founded in 2010 to “connect and enable those fighting for the future of socially-responsible finance.”
“Our goal is simple,” the Cooperative Trust says of its mission. “While we can’t predict the future of business, credit unions, or cooperatives, we want to help build it…We want to make a difference. Together.
This Is Your Chance
Here’s your chance to apply that youthful energy, get building and make that difference, Crashers, because as much as you need credit unions, credit unions need you even more. The Tough Love Fact is the current leadership in credit unions and their trade groups aren’t really all that concerned about the state of affairs in 2038: they are all going to be retired by then with more than a few, ironically, collecting Lifetime Achievement Awards on the way out. It’s too bad a criterion for those awards isn’t contributing to the lifetimes to come.
If you’re at a credit union that isn’t growing, don’t just ask why--at the very least ask what you can do. If the plans for the years ahead are carbon copies (Google it) of mediocre plans of years (maybe decades) past, challenge them. If the board hasn’t seen a new member since Luke Skywalker was the young guy in a Star Wars movie, press the issue. If the members joining the credit union don’t look like you, work to give them reasons to join. And if no one really knows what the new members look like, that would be a good place to start.
Crashers, right now you’re primarily best known for showing up at meetings in dazzling colored shirts as you move about like a school field trip visiting the dinosaur exhibit. But if you don’t take action it won’t matter how bright and flashy you are, as the message emblazoned across everyone’s chest is going to read, “I Got Involved in Credit Unions & All I Got Was This Lousy T-Shirt.”
Frank J. Diekmann is Cooperator in Chief at CUToday.info and can be reached at Frank@CUToday.info or @FrankCUToday.