By Frank J. Diekmann
Is your credit union ready to help just one extra member—and in the process help your credit unions and the larger credit union community itself?
I hope so. And that’s why I want to personally invite all of CUToday.info’s readers to be a part of the CUToday for a Better Tomorrow initiative, and exciting, promising, affirming—and did I mention free and easy?—initiative we are organizing to celebrate CUToday.info’s first anniversary in October.
CUToday For a Better Tomorrow is our challenge to participating credit unions to do one simple but powerful thing: provide some type of help to just one extra member each month during October, November and December, with a goal of ensuring those members have a better 2016—and beyond.
All credit unions are being invited to participate—and not just in the United States--and more than a dozen CUs have already signed on even before the effort has even been formally announced.
It's Hard To Believe, But...
I have to admit, it’s hard to believe CUToday.info has grown into the number-one digital news platform in credit unions as quickly as it has. The launch of any business always comes with a healthy dose of optimism, but we never projected the kind of site traffic, sign-ups for our daily e-newsheadlines, and response would be as strong as it has been in just our first year.
For all of that we want to do more than just say thank you; we want to live that gratitude by working with credit unions to help their members and collect those stories. That’s what CUToday for a Better Tomorrow is all about.
We’ve made it easy to be a part of this. First, we contacted the CFPB to get their assistance in designing a form credit unions could use to collect their various stories of helping members to have a better 2016. Then we threw out the 2,427-page form the CFPB created for us in favor of one very simple email that will ask this: who did you help, and how. That’s it.
Every month at the end of October, November and December, CUToday.info will send all participating credit unions that 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.
We'll Do The Weaving
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 103-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.
This isn’t just about CUs walking the talk. Imagine for just a moment credit unions heading to Washington or a state capital not to ask for something, but simply to share all those stories in one document. Imagine the power of Hiking the Hill not to demand some of the pie—like every other interest group with their hands out on the Hill—but to instead say we’re here to show you how we made the pie bigger. Imagine being asked to defend the tax exemption, and responding with powerful evidence of just where how that tax exemption is earned. With CUToday for a Better Tomorrow, there’s no need to imagine—you can do it.
Join the more than a dozen CUs that are already onboard even before the formal launch of CUToday for a Better Tormorrow: Community Choice CU, Ventura County Credit Union, Guadalupe Credit Union, Tallahassee-Leon Federal Credit Union, Pyramid Credit Union, Northeast Family FCU, Garden Savings FCU, Democracy FCU, Greater Abbeville FCU, Spartan FCU, and Hanscom FCU.
Credit unions that are interested in helping one extra member per month as part of this initiative can me at Frank@CUToday.info. Let’s make for a better 2016 for as many members as possible. I look forward to hearing from you.
Frank J. Diekmann is Cooperator in Chief of CUTodayinfo and can be reached at Frank@CUToday.info and @FrankCUToday.