I received an interesting email after GAC from a woman at acredit union in New York. She asked a question that got me thinkingof age old questions and commentary in the credit union movement. Her question was:

“We all want to be “people helping people” so why not pull thecommunity together and allow anyone that joins any credit union tobe able to use any credit union anywhere. Banks do not considerother banks as part of their community and never will. I know thepower of joining together would bring the banks to their knees andmembers would benefit greatly. Banks have branches all over becauseof their size, well we have many different credit unions everywhereso why not use our “credit union” community the same way.”

The first thing that came to mind was a pet peeve of mine. I had the opportunity last year to judge the CUES GoldenMirror Awards. Part of the judging last year was givingfeedback. One of the questions on the application was toexplain your market and competition. The majority of answersto this question on competition in their market… another creditunion. We have all seen the market share numbers. Areother credit unions really our competition? Are communitybanks really our competition? My guess is there's a Bank ofAmerica or Wells Fargo in the community that is truly ourcompetition. With the back lash toward banking in Americaover the last few years are we all missing an opportunity byfocusing on the wrong “competitor”? Are we afraid tocollaborate with others in our community? Why not worktogether as credit unions in the same market? Is it fear oflosing independence or as basic as sibling rivalry?

The second thought that popped in my head was the never endingdiscussion of a national branding campaign. This discussioncomes up every time you get a group of CU people together. Iseducation to the general public a good idea on what a credit unionis and how we differ from banks? I think we can all agree itis. I have the opportunity to travel a lot. I have hadcountless discussions on planes with people about credit unions. We all know the common misconceptions. Break down thewords Credit Union: Place for people with bad credit, in the northyou have to be part of a labor union to join, in the south… wellpeople just don't like the word union, I can't join, they'reinconvenient, I have an auto loan through there. And on andon the list of misconceptions goes.

So how do we spread the word? I know we are all out theredoing it every day on an individual basis both personally andthrough our credit union. The people in this industry and thepassion here is second to none. Let's take a step away from thenational level and stay in our communities. Can we work withother credit unions to promote a common message? Can we poollimited resources for marketing, financial education and so on tospread the word? How can we expect a national campaign whenwe view the credit union down the road as our main competition? Collaboration is always the buzz word in the movement. What scares us What can we do to take advantage of thecontinued anti-bank opportunity?

More questions keep coming as I think about this. Can wetake the questions and turn them into action? At conferences suchas the GAC the community comes together for a common goal. The conversations flow. Now that we're back in ourcommunities how about reaching out to our fellow people in the CUmovement and make things happen where we live and work. Change the perception one community at a time.

Randy Smith is one of the founders and the publisher/managingeditor of CUinsight.com. He can be reached [email protected]