By Frank J. Diekmann
Like some sort of financial services eHarmony world, there’s no shortage of “love” around credit unions, especially as International CU Week kicks off (CUToday.info will have coverage all week).
That includes the second annual “Love My Credit Union Campaign,” which is now underway. Hosted by the Michigan league’s CU Solutions Group and CUNA, The Love My Credit Union Campaign will award $122,500 to charities nationally on behalf of votes cast for videos submitted by credit unions and other industry organizations. Winners are being announced each month of the campaign from October through Dec. 16, 2016.
Just like relationships, first loves may never be forgotten, but second loves often last longer thanks to lessons learned, and that’s true with this year’s effort.
“I think we gained some good experience last year that we have built on this year,” said Michigan League CEO Dave Adams. “We want to build deeper engagement this year.”
What The Winners Did Well
Adams said the Love My Credit Union Campaign is expecting between 150 and 200 video entries this year; it attracted 132 videos in 2015.
“There were 20 to 30 last year that really got employees, board members, credit union members and the charity involved,” said Adams. “The winners were very effective at using social media. We got 426,000 votes last year; I believe we can get that to one million this year.”
Among the changes in 2016 is the addition of state level prizes, as long as there are a minimum of five entries from the state. With all the various ways to win, as much as $21,000 can be generated for the winning charity.
“What I’m most excited about is the opportunity for this to be a catalyst for credit unions to talk about the good things they do,” said Adams.
Adams noted CU Solutions Group could have taken the $122,000 that will ultimately be awarded through the contest and simply given it a charity such as Children’s Miracle Network. But the goal was to do more than just give money away, to get the “engagement” Adams referred to earlier, not to mention awareness. By the way, that $122k is in addition to the charitable contributions the CUSO has always made, such as to BizKids.
The Secret Sauce
“We wanted to push this out to credit unions to make donations to the charities of their choice,” explained Adams. “It’s a fun campaign. There are the typical charities, but there are also some others that you might not have heard of, such as Secret Meals for Hungry Children.”
So what lessons were learned in Year One that a credit union and its charity might learn from in Year Two?
“The quality of the videos run the gamut, as you might expect,” said Adams. “But it’s not about the quality of the video, it’s about the effort to drive engagement, especially when the credit union gets the charity involved. Last year, the winner was Ronald McDonald House, but what really works is when you get the charities such as hospitals involved. That’s really the secret sauce here.”
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Frank J. Diekmann is Cooperator in Chief at CUToday.info and can be reached at Frank@CUToday.info or @FrankCUToday.