What Movement?
Posted by Brent Dixon on October 4th, 2006
If you’ve been reading this blog for any length of time/listening to the podcast/heard me speak you’ve probably heard me talk about the imprisoned qualities of “The Credit Union Movement.”
If not, here’s a quick breakdown:
At every credit union event or conference I attend, and without a doubt when talking with clients about “the credit union difference,” an unreal amount of passion will surface for credit unions as a social movement. Those that have been in credit unions for long enough sometimes just refer to credit unions as “The Movement.” At the last conference I was at, people were in tears at an awards dinner because of the change they and their credit unions had made happen in the community. Employees of credit unions are passionate about this stuff, man.
But that’s where it stops, and that’s a problem. How many members think of credit unions as a social movement? How many members actually see themselves as a part of a movement? How many members actually have pride in the fact that they are a part of something that is working to change the consumer finance landscape?
These questions are only partially rhetorical.
And here’s another question to all of you credit unioners - Do you actually, really and truly, see yourselves as a part of a movement? This question is definitely not rhetorical.
I’ve heard both sides of the coin. Yes, industry folks get jazzed about “The Movement” (on a side note, I don’t think “industry” and “movement” have to be mutually exclusive). But some of the smartest CU people I’ve spoken to have said “No. Credit unions are not a movement, and they need to stop tossing that term around. It’s a feel-good claim that they aren’t living out. ” And you know what? I’m sorry, but there’s some validity to this.
Credit unions, if you’re a movement, why do 90% of you communicate yourselves as a commodity? Why have I never seen a single piece of consumer-side credit union marketing that mentions your movement? And more importantly, what are you doing to fuel that movement? What are you afraid of?
I submit this: You are a movement. But the movement has been hijacked by those who are afraid to polarize, who are afraid to be too movementy because movements cause opinions, and not all opinions are good.
One of Boom Creative’s clients is a credit union that refuses to give loans for Hummers. Vancity offers clean-air auto loans, among other things. George Hofheimer sent me a case study of a cooperative bank in the UK that refuses to lend money to companies who, among other things, oppress the human spirit (I’ll be writing more on this case study soon, its awesome).
I’m just asking questions here, but what if more credit unions out there decided to stand for something besides “Value, Service, and Convenience”?
Bottomline: if you’re going to be a movement, claim it. If not, stop flippantly throwing that word around.
Brent—
I love long blog posts because it shows the passion the author has for the subject, so great job there.
I completely agree with your assessment of our “movement”. CU employees, namely the boomers about ready to retire that have been in the CU industry for ump-teen years, love credit unions and the CU movement. But if you ask any joe on the street, they won’t know what the difference is between banks and cu’s.
One of my favorite posts of OSCU is http://www.opensourcecu.com/articles/2006/06/13/seth-mis-speaks. CU industry people get upset about being called a bank, but if our members/customers don’t know the difference, then it doesn’t matter at all.
Nice provocative post. I’ve been involved in credit unions for more than 20 years, first as a customer and now as an info supplier, but never as an employee.
I’ve never thought of my credit union as being part of a “movement.” I’ve always thought of the ones I’ve used and studied, as great customer-focused businesses.
Maybe it’s just me, but I’m not sure I want the place where I do my banking to use my funds to further social agendas. Personally, I prefer a hybrid, but I am a bit put off by the notion that a CU is deciding what kind of car its members should own.
If would prefer to fund my pet causes directly, and let the folks at the financial institution concentrate on service, convenience, and value.
It will be interesting to see what others think.
Wow, what great thought provoking . . . well thoughts! I have to agree with Jim, that we should not be making decisions for the consumers. However, I think it is a great idea to offer incentives that might guide them in that direction. I cannot see refusing to finance a certain kind of car, or anything of that sorts. I’m not sure that is in the best interest of our members, passing judgement as to what kind of car they should or should not be driving. However, offering a lower interest rate or some sort of incentive for buying a more “environmentally friendly” (if you will) vehicle is one way of showing that we do care about our community. And I am awakened to the idea that this is a movement. And part of being a movement is taking action and standing for something. Like Robbie said, many of our own members/customers don’t know the difference between credit unions and banks, even though they are members. So, if we’re not doing anything to educate our members, then we most likely are not doing anything to inform our potential members. What kind of movement is that?! This was a great motivation for me to dig deeper and see what we can do on a bigger scale to show that we are a movement in the community, and to be heard throughout the community. Thanks Brent for your inspiration. :)
Great post Brent. The facts speak for themselves in support of your points, when we consider customer loyalty, and customer satisfaction surveys for CU’s vs Banks.
Instead of focusing on words such as “industry” and “movement” should credit unions instead focus our resources on simply being relevant to both today’s and tomorrow’s members? If we are relevant and making a difference in the lives of our members then the rest will take care of itself. If we are truly a “movement” then our members should call it out, not credit union employees. In all of the things I consider “movements” throughout history, the participants were the “movement” and the participants were not caught up in the naming of their actions, but instead focused on the outcome of their actions.
Keep asking this question. It is the right conversation to be having.
Glad to see you stirring the pot this way.
After having finished a presentation to an annual meeting of CU folks I wrote a blog post of how I felt the CU world was burying its treasure.
So I am a bit biased.
Great post Brent.
CUs claim to be “democratically controlled”. Unlike your local sewer district, water district, or city council, CU board meetings are not open to the membership. Similarly, CU Board minutes aren’t available to members, and CU members are not given advance notice of any major Bylaw changes contemplated by the Board. For 364 days of the year, CU members have no right to participate other than as customers.
Why can’t CUs have at least a quarterly Open Forum meeting for members, where the Board and executive team can outline what’s on their plate in terms of general policy?
Ron, In response to your concerns, we are democratically controlled in the sense that members do have a vote on board members. Similar to citizens having a vote in the president and other elected officials, members of the credit union get to vote on board members to make sound decisions. Unlike banks, each member of the credit union gets an equal vote, not based on how many shares of stock you hold.
As for the other issues you brought up, I can only speak for my credit union and how we operate. But we do send out a statement by mail letting members know of any major Bylaw changes contemplated. And why we do not have a quarterly Open Forum meeting, our annual meeting is open to members. We also take member concerns VERY seriously. If there was something you had an issue with, you would be heard, even by the President/CEO himself. We do send out an annual report after the annual meeting that is available to all members, and most of the finance information is available on our website as well. Feel free to check it out at www.llcu.org
Thank you for your thoughts. If you have any other suggestions, I would love to hear them and take them back to our management team. That is what I am here for, to gather information on what everyone wants and where we can improve our services. :)
Ron—
I like your idea of the quarterly “town hall” type meeting. That could be a good way to get additional feedback from members. CU’s could also use blogs to get real-time feedback from their members, but I think you can still count the # of CU’s who blog on two hands and a foot.
Have you guys had many member requests for a “town hall” type quarterly meeting? I mean, I think it is a good idea if people are actually going to take part in it. But I’m not sure how many of our members would actually go quarterly. And after doing some research yesterday (thank you Ron for sparking my need for more knowledge), I was informed that there are some things in the Board meetings that can not be open to all members, simply for confidentiality issues, as well as keeping the competetive edge on our rates and promotions. I am all for a quarterly meeting, if it is something that members want and not just a waste of time. However, 99% of our members know that if they have a question or concern, they can come directly to us, and we will address that. That is part of having a personal relationship with each of our members.
Jessica and Robbie: The idea of having a “Quarterly Town Hall Meeting” would be a nice compromise between the theoretical ideal of having all monthly board meetings open to the membership (like your typical sewer district – water district – fire district – city council) and having only a single annual meeting.
I think it’s crucial to increase opportunities for interaction between the elected officers and members-at-large, particularly as many CUs face growing pressure for CU-to-bank charter conversion or other changes in management policy.
Similarly, I think having the board produce a quarterly summary of the minutes from its board meetings – focusing on general policy issues – would really help strengthen the cooperative identity of our CUs.
The vast majority of CUs I’m acquainted with have drifted away from involvement by members-at-large except at the once-a-year annual meeting. In most CUs, only a tiny number of folks would attend a Quarterly Town Hall meeting – but communication within a co-ops membership ranks is absolutely vital to avoid embarrassing management mis-steps such as poorly-conceived CU-to-bank conversion proposals, poorly thought-through CU brand name changes, etc.
Thanks for writing! Many of my items are at Chuck Bruen’s blog, www.cbruen.com/blog
Ron,
I appreciate what you have to say. It’s really good stuff. I am here for exactly that, to find out what people want. And if that is a quarterly meeting open to members, I will be more than happy to suggest it to our management team. If I get anywhere with that, I’ll let you know.
As for publishing a quarterly summary of the minutes from board meetings, I think that is a definite possibility, with the understanding that it would be exactly that . . . a summary. To publish the actual minutes and make them available, I have been informed, is just not in anyone’s best interest due to confidentiality issues, as I mentioned before.
Let me ask you this . . . is there a way, do you think, that we could build personal relationships that would better communicate our willingness to listen to member concerns? If I am understanding correctly, a quarterly meeting would be to help keep members involved. Is there a way that you can think of that we might be able to do that on an everyday basis through personal relationships?
Thanks again for your thoughts. You have really sparked an area that I need to dig deeper into and research.
It is a little deep for me, but take a look at the Harvard Business Reviews take on “Know Why” vs “Know How”. We have to find ways to get the “Know Why” to our members without being pushy. http://hbswk.hbs.edu/item/5627.html