If you disappeared tomorrow, would your community re-create you?
The institutions highlighted this week on CreditUnions.com work the cooperative network to turn the role of financial services provider into integral community partner.
by: Rebecca Wessler
Wright-Patt Credit Union CEO Doug Fecher has a question he poses to his staff: If the credit union disappeared tomorrow, would our members re-create us? If they did, what would we look like?
It’s through this lens that Wright-Patt determines whether it is offering the products and services and participating in the activities that its members find most important. This framework also helps the credit union determine whether it is living the cooperative values and operating differently from the bank down the street.
The credit unions profiled this week on CreditUnion.com are doing all sorts of things to differentiate themselves in the market. And it’s no coincidence that two of the seven cooperative principles — cooperation among cooperatives and concern for community — play a major role in their strategies.
International travel is the perfect medicine for curing cultural tunnel vision, and Amplify FCU is applying that type of experience to the professional and personal lives of its employees. In early 2014, senior training specialist Terry McCoy and marketing specialist Taylor Richardson participated in a two-week international employee exchange with Sicredi — a Brazilian conglomerate of more than 100 credit unions operating under the same name. This week, they share a few best practices they brought back.
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