This week, CreditUnions.com celebrates International Women’s Day with lessons in leadership, finds a credit union helping its members do more than survive, puts a wrap on the 2010s, and more.
Here are five can’t-miss data points:
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International Women’s Day is recognized every year on March 8. That fell on a Sunday this year, with people and organizations around the world planning to celebrate the social, economic, cultural, and political achievements of women, according to internationalwomensday.com. The day’s organizers call on everyone to challenge stereotypes, fight bias, broaden perceptions, improve situations, and celebrate women’s achievements Studies have found companies that have women holding executive leadership roles are more creative and innovative. As well, more women in corporate leadership correlates with stronger profitability even more so than when women serve on boards. So, in the spirit of helping the next generation of great credit union leaders, some 15 of the industry’s top women offer their thoughts on the following three questions:
Read: 15 Leaders. 3 Questions. Insights For All.
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Three years ago, Affinity Federal Credit Union was looking for a holistic way to grade member engagement. Traditional models namely, the Net Promoter Score (NPS) metric reflect a moment in time in the member experience, and Affinity wanted more regular, meaningful feedback. In its search, the credit union learned about a member engagement score developed by Gallup, an analytics and advisory company. Gallup, unlike NPS, offers analysis on the moment of truth which aims to understand the psychology behind a purchasing decision. In the spring of 2019, Affinity traveled to Omaha, NE, to attend a champions workshop at Gallup’s operational headquarters. During the two-day workshop, Gallup representatives outlined how its research works and gave a detailed introduction to its wellbeing concepts.
Read: Help Members Soar, Not Simply Survive
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In the past 10 years, TwinStar Credit Union has more than doubled in asset size. It also has added 55,000 members and crossed the state line into Oregon. But as the credit union changed in ways both big and small, its senior leadership structure stayed the same. We basically had the same organization structure in place since we were half our size, says Scott Daukas, the credit union’s chief strategy officer. As we started to evaluate where the world was going and where the credit union needed to be, we realized our structure had holes in it. TwinStar first considered a reorganization in November 2018 and spent the next four months strategizing different concepts. The Evergreen State cooperative wanted to modernize its structure to create a nimbler decision-making process; however, it didn’t want a streamlined leadership structure to come at the cost of development opportunities. The leadership team agreed on a new framework in February 2019 and implemented it on May 1. Out was a flat leadership team that consisted of 10 senior managers; in was a three-tiered team of 16.
Read: A High-Level Shake Up Supports Credit Union Success
76.8%
Building on momentum that began in the depths of the Great Recession, credit unions wrapped up 2019 by extending the most credit in the form of $158.2 billion in loan production in a single quarter in the movement’s century-long history. In fact, that record was set and extended each of the past three quarters. Overall, in the decade following the Great Recession, cooperatives nationwide expanded assets 76.8% to $1.5 trillion as of year-end 2019. Over that time, membership grew 33.6% to 121.8 million, loans were up 93.1% to $1.2 trillion, shares surged 75.1% to $1.3 trillion, and the number of full-time equivalent employees expanded 36.3% to 316,623.
Read: A Landmark 2019 Puts The Wrap On 10 Years Of Growth
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Based on February traffic (and our editorial instincts), here are the top 10 articles and blogs that appeared on CreditUnions.com.
Read: Best Of February 2020
Happy Reading!