Advocacy means telling our story

This is a unique year for advocacy.

With America on the road to recovery, credit unions must claim their territory in a post-pandemic economy. And like so much of what we do, it’s through CUNA, league, and credit union advocacy that we’ll get it done.

We have a new administration and a host of new legislators inside the beltway and in statehouses across the country.

That means many policymakers may not be aware of just how the credit union model—putting people over profit—differs from other financial institutions.

We need to continually tell our story. We may be competing with many voices, but we were heard at the onset on the pandemic.

My team and I spent a lot of time listening last year. As someone who has spent more than six years fully immersed in the day-to-day of the credit union movement, I was blown away by what you’ve accomplished.

I know that credit unions are at their best when things are at their worst—but does your representative?

Does your senator know how you changed operations, rolled out new products, and responded directly to members’ needs to get them through this crisis?

You know about the life-changing differences you made for members last year, but we can’t assume policymakers do.

Those are the people who need to hear our story and know what we’re capable of. That’s a story no one else can tell.

When you meet with officials this year, they need to hear how you’ve shifted operations to help members make ends meet or how you’ve launched new products to help businesses keep the lights on.

Those stories are so important for lawmakers to hear, and we can never get tired of telling them.

We launched our new CUNA/league initiative, Advancing Communities, to highlight the many ways credit unions improve the financial well-being of their communities.

It has first-person accounts of credit unions going that extra mile, putting members ahead of profits, to remind lawmakers what sets us apart as financial first responders.

This is our opportunity to leverage our good work from last year into an opportunity to shape the credit union movement’s destiny in the 21st-century economy.

We can’t afford to have a single story left untold, and neither can our members.