There are many board members who've been serving on their boards for multiple decades. That historical knowledge is useful to a point but if most or all of your credit union board has 30 years in, it's time to shake things up.
The best reason for getting new blood on the board is that the credit union board where each member has served a lengthy tenure is not likely to be representative of your membership, and if it is, you've got even bigger problems.
The best way to accomplish shuffle the deck is not by setting term limits but actually marketing to ferret out potential candidates as well as marketing the balloting process when the time arrives. Burying an announcement on your Web site or putting it in a statement stuffer is not enough. Posters in the branches and placing an announcement prominently on your homepage would be a start. Local radio and cable would be nice too but possibly cost prohibitive for some credit unions. For SEG-based credit unions, the strategy behind marketing elections should be a low-cost no-brainer.
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Additionally, the requirements for overseeing a credit union have dramatically changed over the years. Some board members may be educated, savvy and interested enough to keep up and that's great, but honestly, how many board members continue to serve on the board just because they always have? The financial services marketplace and credit unions have become much more sophisticated and complex, continuous and verifiable education efforts are a must. NCUA proposed basic education for beginning board members at its meeting today; that's a start. Credit unions must set their own as well.
I was glad to see the Filene Research Institute is performing a survey through March 24 with support from CUES on strengths and weaknesses of credit union boards. The results will hopefully shock credit unions into action. We're only talking about the safety and soundness of your institution.
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