After CUNA's announcement Wednesday morning that it may rebrand and restructure itself, the $6.3 billion, Tampa, Fl.-based Suncoast Credit Union's president/CEO, Tom Dorety, who is the chairman of CUNA's System Structure and Governance Task Force, shared more details with CU Times about how the change could affect agreements with affiliate leagues, create more league accountability, establish an advocacy fund and even rebrand leagues.

The trade association is considering changing its name to America's Credit Unions, retaining credit unions' league choice and changing its governance structure, including reducing the size of the CUNA board.

Dorety said the shrinking number of credit unions, size differences in credit unions and what he called “lack of visible success that the trade associations have had” led CUNA to make the move. The organization surveyed members in February.

“The survey tells us that credit unions as a whole, while they're not totally disillusioned, they're not thrilled with what CUNA and the leagues are doing,” he said.

League consolidation is also a factor.

“We want a more unified structure,” Dorety explained. “You now have leagues or associations and all sorts of different names. It would be nice to have 'America's Credit Unions in Florida,' 'America's Credit Unions in Michigan.'”

One of the priorities is to amp up advocacy efforts, he said.

“Advocacy was clear in surveys, focus groups and discussions – advocacy is what people want from the trade association, especially if you go into a room with large-credit-union CEOs,” he said. “Now, there are certainly other things that leagues and CUNA does that are helpful to some credit unions, and so we don't want to ignore that. But the overriding theme here is advocacy.”

League choice is also a priority, though a nuanced one because of concerns about its effects on advocacy.

“We are at this point in time reluctant to say anybody can have any choice they want, because we don't want to harm the system right now and pull resources out of the system at a time when resources are pretty dear,” he said. “And by the way, we really didn't get much pushback on dues in the survey.”

“I want competition; I want choice, but in this arena, it's not necessarily a good thing,” he noted. “We don't want leagues particularly competing heavily against each other to attract credit union dues.”

Dorety said the NCUA also plans to create more accountability among state and national trade associations.

Read more: Dorety would like to see a strong structure and cooperative agreement between states …

“I'm not saying anything bad about leagues, but we all know that when you've got that many different groups and that many different people, it's difficult to have accountability,” he noted. “What we would like to see is a strong structure, a cooperative agreement between the states, and between the states and CUNA, to institutionalize accountability to where there are things that are affected and things that are delivered.”

The reforms also call for a change in thinking about dues.

“We would like for every credit union to know that all of its dues are going to advocacy,” he said. “We think that's a strong statement; we think credit unions would be very favorable toward that.”

Dorety said establishing a national advocacy fund likely wouldn't mean a change in dues anytime soon, however.

“If this idea gets traction, then the leagues in the states need to work together to determine what level of funding is acceptable,” he said. “We're not going to go to credit unions and say, 'Oh, by the way, we're going to create this great new system and you need to put in another $10 million. In today's world, that's not going to work.”

Dorety said he'd rather create the system and prove it works first. Stronger bills with more co-sponsors introduced in Congress and more press on credit union efforts are examples of signs of success, he said.

Getting the leagues on board is still a big part of the road ahead, though.

“The CUNA board can come in and say, 'It's all or nothing; if all the leagues don't approve it, then we're not going to do it,'” he said. “I don't think they have to do that. I think you can get a substantial portion of the system to say, 'Yes, we like this model. Let's move forward with it. I think we've proved it's a success,' and I think the rest of them will come along.”

Leagues that opt out, however, might figure out they're not as effective or have effective communication, which could complicate member relationships.

The System Structure and Governance Task Force has been meeting since last fall and commissioned several focus groups, as well as a national survey of credit unions in February, Dorety said. It will meet again in the next month and intends to present a formal recommendation to the CUNA board by the end of 2015, he said. Bylaw changes at the league and CUNA level would follow. The whole process could take three years, Dorety said.

Instant Insights /

Dorety Sheds Light on CUNA Reboot

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