PHOENIX -- Work for a nonprofit organization and you may get alot of satisfaction, but few resources.

In the for-profit sector, you might enjoy a large budget andstaff, but little sense you are helping people.
When Jason Meyers started pondering a career shift, he wantedstructure and resources combined with a sense of mission. Theresult was about five months ago he joined Desert Schools FederalCredit Union as public relations manager.

Meyers was the first person to hold that job. He agrees it wassurprising to realize an operation that large didn't have somebodyspecifically assigned to public relations until he came onboard.

"The majority of growth at Desert Schools has occurred in thelast five years," he notes. "Prior to my arriving here the PRfunction was really done at random. Whoever needed to write a pressrelease kind of did it. There was no strategy. As the credit unionapproached $3 billion, they decided they needed this function.

"What really attracted me to the credit union industry ingeneral was it has a mission-focused, not-for-profit philosophy.But it also has a corporate atmosphere, which I enjoy, and theresources and processes to get things done."

Meyers describes his career before coming to Desert Schools as anontraditional path. He started in radio as a production directorand on-air personality. He eventually shifted more to the marketingside.

In the mid-90s he went to work for the Arizona Republic as asenior editor and copywriter in the marketing department.
After seven years he decided he wanted to try the nonprofit sector.So he went to the Heard Museum, where he was director of marketingand communications.

"That's actually where I got a lot of hands-on experience doingeverything a marketing department does," he explains. "What I foundis there was a lack of structure and resources. So I began lookingat options to get back into the corporate world but with a companyor industry that has held onto a nonprofit philosophy. The creditunion industry fulfilled all those requirements."

One of his first jobs was to rein in the Desert Schools publicrelations activity and become a central point for media relations,interviews and on-air contacts as spokesman for the creditunion.

Public relations is handled in-house as part of a 20-personmarketing department, with no outside agency involved. Fromcreative to media buying, and now public relations, the mediadepartment handles it.

Meyers soon discovered most people have no idea what a creditunion is and how it differs from a bank. He also learned even manyemployees didn't really understand the difference.

"Explaining the credit union difference, not only to the mediabut internally, has been one of my major tasks initially," he says."I also had to sell the value of the position. I began working withthe training department and our quality department on internalcommunications."

Meyers believes Desert Schools has indeed increased itsvisibility. The credit union is receiving more coverage in localpublications, and Meyers wants to get exposure for human-intereststories, not just information about products and services.

He cites an example. The operations manager and lead cashier inthe employee cafeteria is blind. Meyers is pitching to local mediaa story based on the fact that employee breaks down stereotypesabout the blind.

"I'm trying to dig below the surface and find the kind ofstories the credit union simply didn't have time to explore,"Meyers says.

In addition to issuing four to seven news releases a month,Meyers is working on a media training program for seniormanagement. He believes reporters are becoming more interested incredit unions, and are calling Desert Schools more frequently for aquote when a story involves financial issues.

For instance, the Arizona Republic has been working on thesubject of mortgage fraud. Desert Schools is now more top-of-mindso a reporter is likely to call for a credit union viewpoint on thetopic.

"The public relations initiatives have brought a lot of ourdepartments together," Meyers says. "There's a new synergy."
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