PayThink

During the recent National Directors Conference I presented a lot of data and analysis in a very short period of time and perhaps this made for a lack of clarity in your Aug. 27 report.

The headlines tell us that thousands of families across the nation are headed to foreclosure each month- some parts of the country are hit harder than others. Why is this happening now and how could credit unions be an important part of the solution?

Peter Duffy, the self-appointed expert on charter options, has spoken once again about the horrific limitations of the credit union charter. In the article "Outside Perspective: Takeovers Not Issue" that appeared in the Aug. 27 issue of the Credit Union Journal, he cites his usual array of statistics that indicate, at least in his for-profit world, the insignificance of credit unions in the financial service sector. According to Mr. Duffy, credit union growth is abysmal and, of course, he knows the cause - it's our outdated, onerous charter. But he doesn't stop there. No, he wants us to know who the culprit is - "the serious constraints upon the credit union business model are not being addressed by leadership."

The considerable turmoil in the credit markets this summer, especially with respect to residential mortgage-backed securities, has sent ripples virtually throughout every aspect of our economy and captured the full attention of the financial services industry, legislators, regulators and the world at large.

It is said that in polite company there are several things you don't bring up at dinner, chiefly politics and religion. If it's a dinner of credit union folks there's a third topic that comes around about as often and dependably as the meter reader that is also supposed to be taboo: "member vs. customer."

There is near unanimity among industry experts that during the next five to 10 years the number of credit unions will shrink from 8,400 to around 5,000. But what will it take to survive and flourish during the next decade?

From Boston to Santa Fe, Seattle to Key West I've crisscrossed the country working with CUs and CUSOs in rebranding and renaming their organizations. After attending countless BOD, annual meetings and staff meetings and working with CEOs, marketing staffs and board of directors here's what I've learned about protecting, changing and growing your brand:

So what would you do in this scenario? You're about to take the stage before more than a 1,000 people and you're following a speaker who has turned an already pro-credit union crowd into a group of rabid CU cheerleaders, half of whom would have agreed to an Ed Filene tattoo right then and there if asked. Yet you don't completely agree with the previous speaker's message. Indeed, some of what you're prepared to say, if you actually go through with saying it, is going to feel like being the prohibitionist at the National Brewers' Convention, the tax proponent at the Libertarian picnic, the anti-needle guy at Barry Bonds' house.

I just read Jim Blaine's piece on the "Dust up in DC" and his thought-provoking comments about Martin Luther King Jr. and his memorial. Coincidentally, the night before reading this I watched (for the seventh or eighth time) the movie "Mississippi Burning." It is the story of the FBI's solving of the 1964 murder of three student activists (two white and one black) by the KKK in Neshoba County, Miss. If you haven't seen it, I highly recommend it.

In a recent issue you asked whether the future for CUs is "reserved for the Big Dogs." Well, my answer is "Surely Not"