NORTH ANDOVER, Mass. -
Merrimack Valley FCU's John MacDonald will be sharing with the Credit Union Journal's upcoming Business Development & SEG Conference just how the $448-million credit union has managed to keep all of those balls in the air.
"Technically, we no longer have SEGs because of the conversion, but we have kept up a very close relationship with them," MacDonald explained. "There was definitely some separation anxiety, so it took time and effort to explain to them that we could still serve their employees."
Even before the move to community charter, Merrimack was making changes to how it dealt with its SEGs. "When I started at the credit union about five years ago, we had 80 SEGs," he related. "We built that up to 250 SEGs and then slowed down. What we realized was that we didn't want to add so many that it diluted who we were and how we served them."
Instead, Merrimack focused on growing by penetrating existing SEGs, rather than recruiting new SEGs. "Sometimes I think people really need to go back to the basics," MacDonald suggested. "You hear all the time that you have to 'get out there' but I don't think people really understand what that means. It means being out on the road every day visiting your SEGs, or, in our case, our former SEGs."
When some of those former SEGs would cancel appointments set up in advance for just this purpose, Merrimack launched "Operation: Cookie Drop." "It was an opportunity to just drop in and say, 'hey, we're not here to sell you something, we're just here to say "hello."' It's about building a relationship."
Once the credit union changed its charter and started getting more involved in the community, it discovered that the face of the community was changing.
"We already had a radio show in English, but we quickly realized that the growing Hispanic population called for a radio show in Spanish," he offered. "We created a new position, cultural business representative, and we hired Dalia Diaz. We get a lot of calls generated by the show."
All 'Credit Unioning' Is Local
The credit union also learned that being part of the community means more than just participating in community events. As former Speaker of the House Tip O'Neil said, "all politics is local," and that means politics is part of the equation, too, MacDonald advised.
"Credit unions need to understand that business development and political advocacy go hand in hand," he said. "We've tried to take our political involvement to the next level."
In keeping with the cooperative spirit of the movement, Merrimack also wanted to help other credit unions-especially smaller ones that couldn't afford to travel to Boston for "hike the hill" events-so it started holding "Legislative Days" at the credit union, so other CUs in the area could meet with lawmakers instead of having to make the trek to the statehouse.
