Tips for a successful Youth Month Savings Challenge

There’s less than two months to go until National Credit Union Youth Month™, when credit unions from coast to coast will urge kids to “Give a Hoot About Savings” and discover the life-changing power of credit union membership.

As your celebration planning gets underway, don’t forget about one of the most powerful business development opportunities that Youth Month offers: the National Youth Savings Challenge.

Running through April, this increasingly popular initiative is co-hosted by CUNA and Greenpath Financial Wellness. Participants are tasked with opening as many savings accounts for youth members as they can before the month is over. By submitting your final account and deposit totals by May 12, 2017 you’ll be entered into a drawing to win $1,000.

Approached strategically, the Savings Challenge can be a powerful engine for growth: Since 2014, participating credit unions have netted $52.5 million in new deposits. But what strategies generate the greatest impact? We asked past participants and found three common denominators:

• Rewards

Kids love prizes, so providing them with more incentive to deposit is a great approach. “I think making it fun for the kids is the most important part,” said Karen Tegeler of DuTrac Community CU in Dubuque, Iowa, who recommends offering a promotional giveaway item or a drawing for bigger prizes such as tickets to the movies or a hockey game.

Joelle Hahn of Herndon, Virginia-based Northwest FCU agrees. “We have a lot of success encouraging deposits by advertising a simple giveaway,” she notes, citing CUNA’s Youth Month items as particularly effective prizes.

• Events

Many top performers in the Savings Challenge generate leads through community outreach and events. Michael Murdoch of NW Priority CU in Portland, Oregon recommends hosting Financial Reality Fairs, financial education classes, movie nights and other activities that get the community engaged. “The most important component of a successful saving challenge is hands-on engagement,” he says.

Charity events that tie the challenge to a humane cause can also be highly effective. Tegeler recommends hosting drives to collect food and clothes for people in need.

• Awareness

Obvious as it may seem, all of our experts agreed that raising awareness for the challenge was vital. Traditional and non-traditional channels can both lead to conversion; Rachel Carrick of Ascend FCU in Tullahoma, Tennessee recalls that her credit union “promoted Youth Month via direct mail, radio, email, statement insert, website, and multimedia screens in our financial centers” which led to great success.

Whatever approach you choose, don’t lose sight of the kids and the value that saving has for them. As Murdoch puts it, “When your credit union invests in Youth Month, you’re investing in the courage to change poor financial habits so that the world may have a brighter future.”

For more information on Youth Month and the Savings Challenge, visit cuna.org/youthmonth.