PONTIAC, Mich. — Tom Miller knows all about the challenges involved with running a small credit union. Trying to maintain return-on-assets and maximizing scale are things he deals with everyday as president/CEO of the $35.5 million Affinity Group Credit Union. That's why Miller is such a strong advocate of small credit unions collaborating to share resources to achieve scale, and why the credit union is one of eight owners of CU Partner Solutions, LLC.

Like Affinity Group CU, the other seven owners of the multi-owned CUSO are also small CUs. They include Clawson Community CU, $25.6 million; Birmingham Bloomfield CU, $40 million; Crestwood Community FCU, $30 million; Kensington Valley Community CU, $23 million; Rome CU, $18 million; Southeast Oakland Community CU, $42 million; and Unity CU, $45 million.

"In the past, we could afford to come to work in the morning, turn on the lights and wait for our members to come to us. We can't do that now, our members have too many alternative sources for financial services. If you're sitting around and just running your business without reaching out to build it, you're going to miss a lot of opportunity," said Miller, emphasizing that when it comes to offering members alternatives, "scale does matter." Miller's credit union is also an owner of data processing CUSO CU*Answers and the Xtend shared branching CUSO. He was the founder and is the current vice chairman of another CUSO, Mortgage Center, LLC, that originates and services mortgages for 64 CUs.