While it looks like credit unions will dodge the taxation bullet again this year ("CU Tax Status Safe, For Now," CU Journal, March 3, 2014), bankers won't stop attacking their not-for-profit status. It's a fight that still has a long way to go. But CUs have a secret weapon: telling their stories of helping members, including small-business owners, when no one else will.
Credit unions are good at telling their stories; the question is, are they being told to the right audience?
Our message isn't just for members or potential members; it's also for lawmakers. When a senator or congressman faces the decision on where to find more tax dollars, will they really know how CUs are different from banks and why they deserve the exemption?
Many credit unions minimize the fact that they are credit unions, dropping that phrase from their signage and marketing materials. They focus messages to "customers," highlighting what makes credit unions convenient and just like every other financial institution. What's missing from that message is how credit unions are different — and that omission gives bankers ammunition in their tax fight.
The best way to show that credit unions should retain their status is to send the message about how the financial cooperative model benefits member-owner consumers — helping small businesses succeed, driving local economies and jobs, and improving the financial wellbeing of ordinary Americans. By design, dollars invested in credit unions are passed to future generations for the betterment of members and the communities in which they live. For-profit institutions can't say that. While banks drive profit back to stakeholders, credit unions create financial stability for people, their families and their future.
That's why there is a tax exemption. Not an "entitlement," our financial model is fundamentally different from for-profit banks — a key message point every CU should share.
Margaret Blankers President, MJB
Public Relations Group, Lenexa, Kan.
