RALEIGH DURHAM, N.C. — The National Center for Member Trust, the independent organization that some credit union CEOs founded to advocate for and support the credit union charter, has begun to run a series of advertisements in papers read by many in the federal legislative community on Capitol Hill.
Jim Blaine, one of the founders of the NCMT and the CEO of the $13.7 billion State Employees' Credit Union, headquartered in Raleigh, described the ads as "low key" and "designed to spark questions and inquiries" about the credit union charter and credit unions.
The NCMT plans to make the 24 advertisements available free of charge to CUs across the country for them to brand with their own information and use in their own local markets, Blaine said.
The first ads began to run in Roll Call, a Capitol Hill paper read by many legislative office staffers, but Blaine said the Center was looking for other possible venues.
The ads are timed to really begin to flow in February, Blaine said, timed to help lay the ground for the CUNA Government Affairs Conference scheduled for Washington at the end of the month.
Blaine said the ads were designed to be non-confrontational and to help legislators understand that credit union members own their credit unions as cooperatives that are meant to help them better their lives economically.
"At credit unions, people cooperate with others like themselves. Trusting their financial affairs to other members shows their support of one another as peers, not profit centers."
"Credit unions–we have a gentler way of doing business," one of the ads reads.
"Credit Union members save money because they are part of a cooperative," reads another. "A credit union is a financial community owned by its members. Outside stockholders don't decide our fate. A credit union is greater than the sum of its parts."
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