Dec. 27, 2007 at 1:56pm

Dick Ensweiler and I love credit unions

Posted by Jamie Chase in Differentiation is Key, Elections, Talking to Members
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Here’s a theory I’m pondering. Would you agree that people have more difficulty understanding what they haven’t experienced? I am much more likely to learn something if I do it. For example, I’m more likely to remember how to get to a new restaurant if I’m in the driver’s seat, paying attention to each turn, rather than simply enjoying the ride as a passenger.

Maybe this explains why Dick Ensweiler and I so passionately love credit unions while consumers aren’t that jazzed.

Last June, Ensweiler, president of the Texas Credit Union League posted some thought-provoking questions in a Credit Union Journal article about his chairmanship of CUNA’s Membership Growth Task Force. The task force, comprised of leaders who are “passionate” about credit unions, is trying to figure out why most Americans are not.

“As credit union leaders, here we are, believing in service to members and in the credit union difference,” Ensweiler told the Credit Union Journal during America’s Credit Union Conference. “But 70% of Americans don’t belong. Why are we so passionate and they’re not? Where are we missing the boat? There seems to be this huge disconnect.”

Why are we passionate? So many great credit union leaders like Dick Einsweiler, Carol Schillios and Lois Kitsch have experienced the credit union difference as participants, not just receiving the great service but actually creating it.

Beyond the friendly service and low rates that many banks tout, how do members participate in the unique credit union difference? My answer is voting. The credit union difference is our unique structure of each member, one vote. After all, it’s the member-as-owner giving direction to the board with their vote, which is the reason for the low rates and great service and partial tax exemptions, right?

So here is a questions for your credit union and maybe something for the task force to look at: Do credit unions with uncontested board elections, thus no membership vote, have a lower growth rate than credit unions with highly engaged members voting for their board of directors?

It also begs an interesting look at credit union election trends compared with membership growth decline.

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