Volunteers pack an impressive advocacy punch
Initiatives aim to mobilize directors and members to speak on credit unions’ behalf.
Often, the credit union delegations Ryan Donovan hosted during his days as a congressional staffer consisted entirely of directors.
“That was really cool because then you knew you were talking to folks in the community,” he says. “It drove home the point that credit unions have a strong connection to the district.”
That experience explains why, in his present-day role as CUNA’s chief advocacy officer, Donovan gets energized by the prospect of growing board members’ role in credit unions’ advocacy efforts at the national, state, and local levels.
“Volunteers can be a very important voice for us,” says Donovan, who will present CUNA’s 2018 advocacy agenda at the upcoming CUNA Volunteer Conference. “One of the advantages of credit unions’ structure is that volunteers come from the membership, and the membership comes from the community. So you’ve got real people representing credit unions in advocacy—as opposed to banks, whose shareholders might not have anything to do with community.”
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