By Jim Drake
A recent post on LinkedIn by Scott Butterfield, titled “One Movement: Are We Acting Like It, Yet?” is thoughtful, experienced, and clearly motivated by a sincere commitment to the credit union movement. On that much, there is no disagreement. His decades of service, particularly to small credit unions, deserve respect.
However, good intentions do not eliminate structural realities. And while the article calls for unity, it too often frames opposition or alternative advocacy as misunderstanding, disengagement, or pride—rather than as rational responses to real and persistent power imbalances within our system.
If we are truly committed to acting like one movement, we must be willing to name those imbalances plainly.
Small Credit Unions Are Not “Disengaged”—They Are Overextended
A central theme of the article is that many small credit unions fail to “show up”—to league events, governance opportunities, and advocacy structures—and therefore share responsibility for marginalization.
This framing overlooks a basic reality: capacity is not equally distributed across asset sizes.
A $50–$150 million credit union CEO is often also the compliance officer, the HR director, the IT point person, and—in some cases—the collections manager. Governance participation, travel, committee service, and conference attendance are not neutral choices; they are tradeoffs that come at real operational risk.
When small credit unions do not engage in legacy structures, it is often not apathy—it is triage.
Calling this a “shared problem” without acknowledging who controls the agenda, the pacing, and the format of engagement risks mistaking exhaustion for disinterest.
A “Single Voice” Has Too Often Meant a Loud One
The article expresses concern that emerging small‑credit‑union advocacy groups may “dilute the message” to regulators by working outside traditional trade structures.
But for many small institutions, the message has already been diluted—inside those structures.
A single voice is only legitimate if it is representative. When policy priorities are driven—intentionally or not—by institutions whose scale insulates them from compliance costs, vendor pricing pressure, or examiner subjectivity, the system voice inevitably reflects those realities more than others.
The creation of parallel advocacy groups is not fragmentation; it is feedback. It is what happens when existing channels are perceived as insufficiently responsive, even after years of engagement.
Unity imposed from the top is not cooperation. Unity earned through equitable influence is.
Vendor Accountability Is Not a Side Issue—it Is an Existential One
Butterfield correctly calls vendor pricing abuse “real” and “genuinely horrific.” Where the article falls short is in its conclusion that existing system partners are better positioned to solve this problem than emerging groups.
Experience suggests otherwise.
Large institutions often negotiate bespoke pricing, custom integrations, and service terms that are simply unavailable to smaller peers. Vendors optimize for revenue concentration. That is rational behavior—but it is not cooperative behavior.
When vendor accountability is discussed primarily as an issue to be solved “at scale,” too often the definition of scale excludes the institutions most harmed by current practices. Collective bargaining models, CEO‑led buying cooperatives, and external pressure campaigns arise because traditional vendor-management channels have not delivered relief proportionate to the burden.
This is not pride. It is survival.
Consolidation Is Not Neutral Just Because It Is “Board‑Driven”
The article argues that most small credit union mergers are board‑initiated responses to stagnation, not predatory actions by large credit unions.
Even if we accept that description, it avoids a harder question: why stagnation is tolerated for so long before merger becomes the only perceived option.
Boards do not operate in a vacuum. They operate in an ecosystem shaped by examiner expectations, compliance costs, vendor dependency, and diminishing optionality. When those pressures disproportionately affect smaller institutions, a “voluntary” merger can still be a constrained choice.
Pointing to board votes without interrogating the forces narrowing those choices risks mistaking process for fairness.
Leadership Development Is Necessary—but Not Sufficient
The article places heavy emphasis on leadership development, especially for boards, as the central solution for struggling small credit unions.
Leadership matters. No one disputes that.
But leadership cannot compensate indefinitely for structural disadvantages. You cannot train your way out of a cost curve designed for institutions ten times your size. You cannot govern your way past a core conversion price that exceeds your annual operating margin. You cannot “engage harder” with regulators whose expectations increasingly assume economies of scale.
To suggest otherwise risks placing moral responsibility on leaders for outcomes shaped by systemic design.
One Movement Requires More Than Empathy—It Requires Redistribution of Influence
Butterfield ends with a compelling reminder of our shared origins and common mission. That reminder is welcome.
But cooperation is not just a feeling—it is a structure.
If we want one movement, then:
- Governance representation must reflect not just headcount, but impact of policy decisions by asset size
- Advocacy agendas must treat small‑credit‑union survivability as a core issue, not a subset
- Vendor negotiations must produce enforceable, transparent, small‑institution pricing protections
- Regulatory relief must be targeted, durable, and structural, not pilot programs or temporary accelerators
Emerging small‑credit‑union organizations are not rejecting the movement. They are insisting that being part of it must mean more than being heard—it must mean having leverage.
Final Thought
Unity cannot be asked of those who are disproportionately carrying the cost of the system without commensurate influence over it.
If we truly believe we are one movement, then the burden of preservation must fall most heavily on those with the greatest capacity to carry it—not on those fighting hardest just to remain relevant.
That is not division. That is cooperative responsibility.
Jim Drake is president and CEO of the $55 million Blue Mountain Credit Union in College Place, Wash.
The CU DaIly welcomes and encourages reader views. Contact Frank J. Diekmann at [email protected].
