At the American Association of Credit Union Leagues conference last November, Diana Dykstra, John Bratsakis and Greg Michlig had a long talk about a topic they care deeply about — league collaboration.

The three CEOs decided to see if their idea would work: To combine and standardize the back office operations of the California Credit Union League, the New Jersey Credit Union League and the Maryland District of Columbia Credit Union Association.

They wanted to find out whether standardizing information technology, human resources, accounting and financing processes would produce substantial cost reductions, enabling the trades to plow more resources in to what member credit unions value most−advocacy, education, compliance and business services.