By Frank J. Diekmann

A significant change occurred among this country’s credit unions on Jan. 1, 2024, but just how powerful the repercussions would become really couldn’t be seen until about a week ago.

Although few have paid that much attention to it, it’s a brand new logo that has presaged a historic shift in U.S. credit unions—and I think many would agree it hasn’t always been for the better.

Even today, not many would win any money were this new logo the question to a Jeopardy answer—even though it accompanied last year’s official new year’s merger of CUNA and NAFCU.

Instead, the branding focus was on the combined trade group’s new name—America’s Credit Unions, which to their credit is about as fitting a name as could come out of the brainstorming session, as it doesn’t require any explaining, especially in respective capitals where there are almost more trade groups than alphabet combinations. (Just spitballin’, but apparently there were no votes in their respective board rooms for what I was sure would win the day, “CUNAFCU”).

Kicked to the Curb

Also kicked to the curb was CUNA’s long-time logo, colloquially known as “the hands” or later, the “hands and globe.” A stalwart for nearly a century, many credit unions also used it as their own logo. (Ironically, most U.S. CUs washed themselves of the “hands” as they sought to “modernize the branding” in order to grow, but imagine for a moment the awareness boost the entire CU movement would have gotten and still have today had all CUs retained it in some fashion. But that’s another column.)

The hands and globe become the symbol for the World Council of Credit Unions in 1966, and some CUs in other parts of the planet still use it. So, I’m sure you recognize it, but do you really recognize what it symbolized? And how many people understand what it means now that it’s gone?

Not many, I fear. 

The Future

This isn’t some weepy nostalgic tribute about Ed Filene and the (mostly) boys. Instead, it’s just the opposite. It’s about the future of credit unions, if there is to be one, and a “movement” moving in lockstep without anyone ever really asking any questions about where they’re headed.

The “hands” were inspired by the ideal of mutual self-help and cooperation, the very foundation of not just credit unions, but the entire cooperative community, about people helping people and credit unions helping credit unions. You may have heard of it.

That shouldn’t have been binned along with the logo.

A New Symbol

When the two largest trade groups merged, they did so with not just a new name but with this logo, at right. Perhaps you know what it represents. Although some have said it looks a lot like the logo used by Clear—the biometric identity solution used at airports—it’s meant to symbolize the windows that are part of the U.S. capitol building dome. 

What it really symbolizes is a move away from the historic mutual strength of credit unions toward becoming just another Washington trade association, what some might call a “special interest” group. That’s a big change from when members and that “little guy” who could be found beneath an umbrella were the “special interest.”

As last week’s GAC demonstrated as loudly as the Marine Corp band’s brass section performing inside a rental car bus, credit unions are all about Washington now. (Yes, I do know it was the Governmental Affairs Conference.) But if a Bitcoin were generated every time “advocacy” and Hill Hikes and the PAC were mentioned, every GAC attendee would have gone home a crypto-millionaire.

Heard Again and Again

There was another word that came up again and again and again in Washington last week—and it wasn’t “uncertainty” over the administration. It was “grassroots,” in this case, how can “grassroots” members be tapped to demonstrate their collective strength in Congress? 

From the cavernous convention center’s main stage to the smaller breakout sessions, there were so many countless references to how credit unions benefit consumers it was as if it were set on auto-repeat. And then, without missing a beat, there were the usual pleas to collect “credit union stories” from those same grassroots. 

Why should it be necessary to work to collect those stories? The members should be walking, talking testimonials. Why aren’t they? 

Maybe, just maybe, it’s because a capitol dome turned upside down full of money is being spent on the wrong things.

What Would Dwight Say?

Dwight Eisenhower wasn’t able to make it to GAC this year to warn everyone about the lobbying-industrial complex, but let’s face, it, inside the beltway it’s one big mutual benefit club. The CU trade groups need the bank trade groups, the bankers need the CU trade groups, and Congress needs both to keep the grease flowing and the checks cashed.

There’s no way to know just how much credit unions invest in that whole oily pool, but it’s in the tens of millions of dollars. At GAC alone, there are all the credit unions and vendors and others filling those overpriced hotel rooms and eating meals that make the price of eggs look reasonable. There are expensive trade show booths (full disclosure, the CU Daily was among them.) .Travel. Six-figure keynote speakers. Millions of dollars for political action. 

America’s Credit Unions announced it was allocating $2 million to remodel Credit Union House on Capitol Hill. LEVERAGE, the wholly-owned holding company of The League of Credit Unions & Affiliates, said it would provide a total of $600,000 to the Credit Union Impact Foundation, to “fund strategic priorities aimed at advancing the operating environment for credit unions.” 

And so many other monetary commitments that it turns out to be a very good time to be in the oversized check-printing business.

Imagine This

Now, and stick with me here, imagine for just a moment that credit unions had opted to spend all that money—which belongs to members, by the way—on helping them. Imagine a year-long national campaign in which every CU rolls up its sleeves to help members in a very meaningful way. Imagine if that Grassroots Task Force announced during GAC that its real function it to turn those grassroots a little greener. Help people refinance debt. Dig out from under credit cards or an auto loan with a rapacious APR. Get a good start in life. Maybe get into a home that is no longer even a dream for so many. Help people lead better lives in real, measurable ways.

Think of the value of the media coverage alone.

Imagine what that could do for the grassroots, and what the grassroots could really then do for credit unions. America’s Credit Unions wouldn’t need to collect stories. America’s members would be shouting them at their representatives in Congress. ACU wouldn’t have to educate members on what the loss of the tax exemption would mean; they would know all too well, and the grassroots would be damned if they would allow Congress to take that away.

Imagine the trade group doesn’t launch a “Don’t Tax my Credit Union” campaign, but members do. 

Imagine. You shouldn’t have to.

Moving Away

There was no bigger signal last week over just how far credit unions have moved from comforting people in the collective “hands” than the announcement by NCUA that it will no longer publish data on how much the largest credit unions are collecting in NSF/OD income. The announcement that the owners of the so often-cited “member-owned” credit unions—as the lobbyists like to remind the Hill—will no longer have access to data from their own credit union, was actually met by applause! 

That’s not so much about the hands as it is a certain finger, as was so powerfully addressed in an op-ed in the CU Daily by former CU CEO Ed Speed that was published here,

To Excel, It’s Not About Excel

My thoughts turned to another former credit union CEO as I spent time at GAC: Tony Budet, who was leading University FCU in Austin at the time he had something pretty powerful to say.

When he was chairman of what was then CUNA, Budet told a GAC audience of thousands of people that as a former CFO he appreciated a good Excel doc as much as anyone. But then added, “With all due respect to accounting and finance, which are critical, we are in the people business. We are not in the numbers business. We have to focus on the human impact we are having through these not-for-profit platforms we are leading. Perhaps you’ve heard the expression, ‘No margin no mission.’ I suggest we reverse that: ‘No mission, no margin.’”

Like so much about work, maybe when it comes their own growth and their effectiveness in Washington, it might be best to start with some hands. What a mission that could be.

Frank J. Diekmann is Cooperator in Chief at the CU Daily. He can be reached at [email protected].

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