By Frank J. Diekmann
It seems there are some—correction, a lot of–credit unions waiting for Superman.
If you’ve ever seen the film of the same name—or actually lived through the more deeply frustrating experience of what the movie documents–then you witnessed families desperate and praying that they might win a lottery and get their kids into better schools in order to give them a shot at better futures—any future.
As I’ve discovered, there is no shortage of credit unions equally eager to improve the odds of their own future survival. And even if there isn’t a lottery to play, for many credit unions it can feel that way and they are just as eager to improve their own odds.
Two weeks ago CUToday.info announced a special promotion tied to our one-year anniversary in which we partnered with MacKinnon Marketing & Branding to tap the expertise of one of credit unions’ most decorated and successful executives to help one credit union reignite its growth.
So we asked: who could use the help?
And credit unions answered—and answered and answered and answered: we could.
No, I didn’t quite used to have beers with Ed Filene, but I have had the pleasure of covering credit unions for some time and believed I had that whole finger-on-the-pulse thing down pretty well. And then we extended the invitation to work with Roy MacKinnon.
The responses make clear I need to recheck the patient’s pulse. I knew there was a line out the door and down the street of small and medium-size CUs struggling with growth; you need nothing more than the topline data to see that. But I didn’t realize just how passionately and strongly and simultaneously excited and nervous the CUs in that line are about their own futures.
If you’ve just been assuming many of these same CUs are led by CEOs looking for some sort of an employment package in a merger, you’re wrong. Here is a fraction of what we heard from credit union CEOs:
- “With everything that is going on, we would love your help to ensure we maximize the opportunity that we have created for ourselves.”
- “We have worked to increase our loans, but without a better marketing strategy, we will not continue that growth. Our marketing is what we can produce ourselves in-house inexpensively. We would love to have a true marketing campaign.”
- “We need to grow our loans and our checking accounts, but we struggle with how best to do it as well as having the time and talent to do so. We sincerely want to remain (in business), and NOT merge with another credit union) but it is proving to be a real challenge.”
I could have continued to reach into the e-mail bag and pull out quotes from the leaders of America’s small and medium-size CUs, but I was nearly overwhelmed by the response, and I don’t want you to be. In the end, CUToday.info and Roy MacKinnon selected the $54-million Vision Financial FCU in Raleigh, N.C., which operates not only in a state with a major banking presence, but in the shadow of the nation’s second-largest credit union and several other billion-dollar CUs.
“Although our financials are strong and by all accounts we are considered a healthy CU, I realize we must continue to grow and attract younger members to be here 30 years from now,” wrote Michael Waylett, president of Vision Financial.
Do you want your credit union to be here 30 years from now? If so, I’d like to invite your thoughts on how CUToday.info can do more to get you there. What can we do to help? Perhaps a monthly webinar series in 2016 featuring expertise such as that of Mr. MacKinnon and many others that would be free and would be part of a cohesive year-long series to help every credit union that is seeking to grow.
I very much want to hear from you at Frank@CUToday.info. Because Superman may not be coming, but if we work together we can do something super for credit unions and their members.