Looking for deeper peer context behind performance trends? Power up your performance analysis with a free 30-day Peer Suite Premium trial from Callahan & Associates. Learn more today.

The post Cost Pressures Are Changing Member Behavior appeared first on CreditUnions.com.

Top-Level Takeaways

• Advancial FCU encourages employees to help shape policies, perks, and priorities.
• Recognition fuels purpose and retention and reminds employees why their work matters.
• Systems of accountability, with multiple feedback mechanisms, builds culture.

Advancial Federal Credit Union ($2.4B, Dallas, TX) believes success starts from the inside.

“There’s no way you can deliver amazing service to members if you’re delivering bad service internally,” says president and CEO Brent Sheffield. “We’ve got to have the same standards for both.”

The Texas cooperative wants members and employees leaving credit union interactions wanting to tell someone about it. Extraordinary gestures aren’t required. Listening, empathy, and responsiveness are enough.

Over the years, Advancial has turned this philosophy into something it can measure and celebrate, fueling innovation, employee engagement, and a memorable member experience.

An Owner Mindset

Sheffield says a key part of Advancial’s company culture comes down to an owner mindset, where employees feel invested in the credit union and contribute accordingly.

“By having owners, we make sure everyone lives the culture,” Sheffield says. “But part of being an owner is you get a say in what’s happening.”

During the COVID-19 pandemic, senior leadership took a page from the Shark Tank playbook and put together an initiative inviting ideas from all levels of the organization.

“We called it ‘Think Tank,'” Sheffield says. “We broke everyone into random teams, so employees got to know people they don’t normally work with. We gave them one of four categories to think about how we can wow our employees or how we can wow our members.”

One of the most notable suggestions was a timeshare-style vacation home employees can use on their own or with their families. Today, the credit union has two — one on the beaches of Florida and another in the mountains of Colorado.

Advancial also introduced a suggestion box program called Bright Ideas. The credit union shares submissions with subject matter experts who review the ideas, provide feedback, and determine what’s feasible. The credit union’s President’s Circle, composed of the year’s top-performing team members, also weigh in on employee feedback.

“I share the ideas we approved during our all-employees meetings,” Sheffield says. “From there, we move them into our project list for implementation. It’s a great way to give visibility to people’s ideas, give them credit for coming up with things.”

Rate The Experience

Perhaps the most significant tool Advancial uses to encourage and recognize employee excellence is a simple survey program in which respondents can rate service interactions by providing a happy face or sad face regarding three basic statements:

1. They showed me respect with their professional, friendly, and positive attitude while assisting me.
2. They showed sincere interest and cooperation in understanding my request and helping me.
3. They resolved/completed my request and made it easy for me.

For example, if marketing requests a report from finance or if operations helps a branch solve a problem, the person receiving the service can evaluate that experience. Members can do the same based on their own external interactions with credit union personnel.

If the experience rises above satisfactory to truly exceptional, participants can flag the interaction as such and provide a written explanation detailing how the employee went above and beyond and why the experience exceeded expectations. These responses remain anonymous to everyone except senior leadership.

The surveys feed into a broader peer recognition program that allows employees to recognize coworkers by awarding points that can be redeemed for gift cards, cash, or items like Bluetooth speakers and TVs.

Momentum Requires Effort

Today, Sheffield hosts monthly all-staff meetings to encourage transparency and communication. Sometimes, that means being frank about what isn’t working or going well, the CEO says, although he remains intentional about praising exceptional stories as often as he can. For example, a couple of H-1B visa members recently sent edible arrangements to the staff that assisted them.

“When you have a certain culture and hold people accountable, when people own it, it makes a difference,” Sheffield says.

What works today might not work tomorrow. Expectations change just as strategic priorities do. That’s why Advancial treats its approach to culture as an evolving, ongoing initiative rather than a static playbook.

“The effort is constant, it’s ongoing,” Sheffield says. “That allows us to improve incrementally. That’s our way forward.”

The member experience starts well before the member arrives. Gallup research confirms that emotionally connected employees deliver interactions that build trust and drive lasting engagement. The Member Engagement & Financial Wellbeing Consortium, developed by Callahan and Gallup, helps credit unions activate that internal shift from the inside out. Learn more.

The post When Employees Own Culture, Service Follows appeared first on CreditUnions.com.

Top-Level Takeaways

• Members want digital convenience for everyday banking but still seek human support for major financial decisions and problem-solving. Affinity Plus’s strategy centers on seamless service across all channels.
• The cooperative intentionally invests in underserved communities where branches, products, and financial guidance can fill meaningful gaps.
• Practical member needs, from self-service tools to financial education and subscription management, drive digital transformation.

Digital adoption is rising, but branches still matter. To win members over, Affinity Plus Federal Credit Union ($5.0B, St. Paul, MN) is building an experience strategy around both.

“We’re pushing hard to have this goal where anything you want to do in a branch or call in for, you can do digitally,” says CEO Dave Larson. “Yet members still like that they can go into the branch and talk to someone face to face about a problem or question.”

Data supports this idea, according to CFO Brian Volkmann.

“We did research last year as part of our strategic planning process,” he says. “It confirmed our approach of continuing to build branches.”

A Mission-Driven Expansion Strategy

Branches are still the largest driver of new memberships at Affinity Plus, with more than 65% joining in person. However, there’s a shift in member behavior. Volkmann describes members as increasingly self-sufficient. Increasingly, they are using branches less for everyday transactions and more for complex needs like fraud, first-time lending assistance, and financial advice.

“They’re coming in to talk about buying their first home, getting a car loan, or opening a new checking account,” the CFO says. “They want that personal service.”

Member behavior might be predictable, but when it comes to prioritizing where to put new locations, Larson describes Affinity Plus’ strategy as anything but.

“When it comes to what traditional data would tell you about where to put a location, we often don’t focus there,” he says. “We often go into communities that others are leaving.”

Larson says the credit union makes the decision to expand its branch footprint on a case-by-case basis, weighing whether each individual location makes sense from a credit union, member, and community point of view.

“We look at where we think we can have a bigger impact,” the CEO says. “And we want to go places with strong community pride.”

For example, Affinity Plus opened a branch in the small city of Hopkins, MN, in 2025. The city’s total population is less than 20,000; to date, more than 4,500 are credit union members.

“They are a very tight-knit community driven by small businesses,” Larson says. “Residents want to work with businesses that share similar values, and we have received a warm welcome since opening.”

Digital For Daily, Human When It’s Hard

Of course, branches are only one part of the member experience puzzle. It’s a digital age, and consumers overwhelmingly demand convenient, reliable service. That’s why Affinity Plus has also invested in its online banking capabilities.

As of April 2026, the cooperative’s digital banking platform logged 191,530 monthly active users — those who signed in at least one time during the month. That’s approximately 65% of its total membership, a rate that appears to be holding steady even as more members join.

“What’s just as encouraging is the depth of engagement,” Volkmann says.

Affinity Plus averages 21.37 sessions per active user per month. Mobile accounts for approximately 90% of all sessions. Younger members are especially active, with millennials and Gen Z representing roughly 60% of sessions. The credit union’s youth banking platform has also quadrupled its registered members in the past two years.

“Our members and potential members want digital for daily, but they want a human for when it’s hard,” Volkmann says.

To improve the member experience and help drive growth, the credit union converted its digital banking platform to Lumin Digital in January 2025.

“We were looking for a more up-to-date system that we could develop on and that had regular updates,” Volkmann says.

Within four months, the credit union completed more than 40 product improvements, including more than 10 in a single month.

“That cadence is a direct result of why we converted,” Volkmann says. “To be able to respond faster and, more importantly, to respond to what members are telling us.”

Features like better transfer tools and streamlined access for joint accounts came directly from member feedback. The new platform expanded self-service capabilities such card activation, card replacement, and travel notices. In the first eight months alone, members generated more than 20,000 loan payoff letters and completed more than 6,000 certificate maturity changes digitally.

The technology investment also allowed Affinity Plus to offer something it couldn’t before: a dedicated business digital banking experience.

“For the first time, our business members have a digital home with role-based access through authorized signers, sub-user entitlements, and self-service capabilities built specifically for how businesses operate,” Volkmann says.

Since the launch, business users have increased 6% to 10,756 business authorized signers and 580 sub users registered. The most used features include spending analysis, direct deposit letters, card management, and CD maturity changes.

A Long-Term Vision For Member Satisfaction

Affinity Plus’s approach to branching and digital banking is all about achieving channel parity.

“We talk about it as an industry, the friction around making banking easy,” Larson says. “Right now, there still are some things that require you to come in, so we’re talking a lot about how to ease or remove more of that friction.”

The CEO says he envisions a future where members may complete most transactions through a branch, contact center, or digital channel without receiving a different answer or experience.

“I want to get to where we can say to our members: ‘No matter how you want to bank with us, we can do everything for you,'” Larson says.

The moments that matter most to members are the human ones. Affinity Plus has built its strategy around that insight, and Gallup research confirms it: members who feel emotionally connected to their credit union stay longer, hold more products, and trust their institution as a financial advisor. The Member Engagement & Financial Wellbeing Consortium provides the tools to make those moments count at scale. Learn more.

The post Members Demand Digital, But They Want Branches, Too appeared first on CreditUnions.com.

Top-Level Takeaways

• A new approach to mortgages at 7 17 Credit Union includes no fees, low rates, and refinance incentives.
• Data and regional challenges shaped the strategy, with programs addressing specific community needs rather than broad national trends.
• Partnering with employers and targeting underserved urban markets helped 7 17 make the connection between stable homeownership, employee wellbeing, and long-term community growth.

The national conversation about housing affordability tends to focus on inventory, home prices, and mortgage rates. But for many would‑be buyers, the upfront costs that make a mortgage possible in the first place present an insurmountable hurdle to homeownership.

At 7 17 Credit Union ($2B, Warren, OH), addressing affordability started with questioning whether many traditional mortgage costs needed to exist at all. In response to feedback from some of its workplace partners, the cooperative launched a series of mortgage-related initiatives in 2025 aimed at supporting broader regional housing needs, including zero-fee home financing and refinancing and rate reductions. But rather than simply introducing a competitive cost structure, the new approach underscores how a credit union approach can look fundamentally different.

“It’s not enough just to talk about the difference between credit unions and banks,” says John Demmler, CEO of 7 17 Credit Union. “We wanted to create a suite of products that give clear examples of the differences. We started with the idea of housing affordability because that was a major issue in our region.”

A Mismatch In The Market

The need for more affordable housing emerged against a backdrop of broader economic pressures shaping Northeast Ohio. Demmler says household incomes in many communities the credit union serves lag state averages, leaving families particularly vulnerable to inflation, higher energy costs, and other rising expenses. At the same time, many local housing markets face aging inventory and limited availability.

The Eastgate Council of Regional Governments commissioned a housing study conducted by the Greater Ohio Policy Center to better understand housing needs in Mahoning and Trumbull counties. The study identified two significant trends.

First, demand was concentrated around one- and two-bedroom units, whereas excess capacity existed in four-bedroom homes, reflecting a shift in demographics toward smaller household sizes. Researchers also identified substantial need for housing in the $500 to $1,000 per month range, aligning with what households earning approximately $25,000 to $35,000 annually could reasonably afford.

The findings revealed another notable tension — families were increasingly seeking homes in the $300,000 to $500,000 range with access to safe neighborhoods, quality schools, and newer housing stock.

“There’s a need for attainable housing, but there’s also a need for quality housing,” Demmler says.

The housing study reinforced what 7 17 had already discovered through conversations with employers and community partners and hinted that its previous investments might not go as far as planned.

“We had made a $100 million commitment to affordable housing starting around November 2024,” Demmler says. “We thought that commitment would carry through 2030. I think we’ll blow through that $100 million several years before 2030.”

“Your Keys, No Fees”

The need for affordable housing isn’t just a family issue; it shows up in the workplace, too. Demmler says employers are starting to connect a stable home life with workforce performance, turning housing affordability into an employee financial wellbeing issue.

“Owners want employees with a financially secure home life,” he says. “When they’re not worried and stressed, they’re more productive at work.”

Armed with this understanding, the credit union considered how it could meaningfully address regional housing needs, household budgets, and homeownership barriers. The answer was a mortgage with no out-of-pocket closing costs, available exclusively to workplace partner employees.

7 17 launched “Your Keys, No Fees,” roughly a year ago. Although eliminating many traditional mortgage fees sounds counterintuitive to ensuring sustainability and long-term financial health, the math tells a different story.

“We earn all of the fees back in about three months through normal interest income,” he says. “If we’re holding a mortgage for 10 years, it’s not too much to ask to give up three months of interest income to break down barriers to homeownership.”

The CEO takes the argument a step further.

“I would challenge every bank, every mortgage company, every financial institution to realize they don’t need to charge these fees either,” Demmler says. “If anyone is getting a mortgage, they should demand they pay zero closing costs, because it’s not needed.”

A Broader Play On Affordability

Interest spread quickly, bringing new energy to the cooperative’s SEG program and allowing it to recruit larger workplace partners.

“Our average workplace partner has maybe 75 employees,” Demmler says. “But recently we’ve brought on some really large ones: Akron Children’s Hospital, Stark State College, Youngstown State University, and Kent State University.”

And, today, 7 17 has expanded its strategy beyond eliminating fees.

“In Northeast Ohio, a lot of urban markets were supported by industries that don’t exist today,” Demmler says. “These cities have been hollowed out over several decades, but we know cities represent the lifeblood of the region. We wanted to do something to strengthen our cities.”

The cooperative expanded its housing initiative, offering a 1% reduction on qualifying mortgage rates to borrowers purchasing homes within the city limits of Warren, Youngstown, Canton, or Akron.

It also expanded into refis to give families more room in their household budgets.

“Mortgage rates went from below 3% to closer to 7%,” Demmler says. “If you bought anytime from 2022 to today, that’s a more challenging monthly payment.”

Homeowners refinancing with 7 17 today can take advantage of a 1% reduction from their existing mortgage rate, down to a floor of 4.99%.

“And we’re not going to charge you a nickel to do it,” the CEO adds.

For Demmler, these offerings are less about growing mortgage volume and more about changing expectations.

“If we can make every bank in Ohio stop charging fees to get a mortgage, then that would be an incredible accomplishment,” he says.

A Holistic Approach

Housing affordability served as 7 17’s starting point, but Demmler says the credit union never intended the strategy to operate in isolation. Instead, it became part of a broader “Ohio Strong” campaign, which includes products that help members navigate household pressures, from auto expenses to savings behaviors. The common thread is less about individual products and more about designing solutions around the financial realities members face every day.

“It’s not enough to have one gimmick product out there,” Demmler says. “You have to look at the whole need of your membership and make sure what you’re offering is relevant and meaningful.”

That philosophy influences how the cooperative thinks about success. Traditional metrics such as loan growth and membership expansion still matter, but Demmler says the credit union’s larger objective is to create products that change the conversation about what financial institutions should provide.

“When the products and services that we put out fundamentally change the expectations of what people want out of banking and moves the needle for other financial institutions to offer better products, then we know we’ve had meaningful change,” the CEO says.

Ultimately, 7 17 built this mortgage initiative to solve a public need first and allow business growth to follow. For credit unions considering similar efforts, Demmler suggests starting somewhere other than product design.

“Seek out first the public need that you’re trying to address,” he says. “Seek that first, and all the rest is stumbled on.”

Member engagement begins with employee empowerment. When employees feel financially secure at home, they show up differently at work — and credit unions like 7 17 are building products designed around that reality. The Member Engagement & Financial Wellbeing Consortium helps credit unions activate the internal shift that turns mission-aligned strategy into measurable member outcomes. Learn more.

The post Keep The Mortgage. Ditch The Fees. appeared first on CreditUnions.com.

St. Cloud Financial Credit Union ($430.0M, Sartell, MN) has quickly evolved from early adopter to advocate when it comes to digital assts.

The Minnesota-based cooperative has built a core-integrated digital asset vault, connected to multiple blockchain networks, and even launched its own stablecoin. But CEO Jed Meyer is quick to clarify this isn’t about chasing crypto because it’s new and buzzy.

“We never set out to be a trailblazer,” he says. “We always start with our member and work outward.”

This time, it started with a market penetration problem.

In 2019, the credit union had roughly 23,000 members in a market of 200,000 people and nearly 40 competing financial institutions. Through strategic planning sessions, two priorities emerged: to better serve underserved populations through customized products, and to understand where member money might be going next.

That second priority led the credit union to digital assets.

“We were seeing some deposit outflows,” Meyer says. “Not a ton, but enough to ask, ‘what are we going to do?’”

In 2023, approximately $1 million in deposits flowed from St. Cloud Financial to exchanges. In 2024, that number jumped to $15 million.

“That’s a 15x trend of liquidity outflows,” Meyer says.

Across the industry, the CEO estimates roughly 3% of deposits might already be leaving for digital asset platforms with no guarantee of return.

“With every innovation in the past 100 years, we were still needed at some point in the lifecycle of the dollar,” Meyer says. “This is the first time that might not be true. When a dollar leaves me for the DeFi space, there’s never a need for a centralized ledger ever again.”

According to Gallup, one in seven Americans reported owning cryptocurrency in 2025. For St. Cloud Financial specifically, Meyer says 16% to 25% of its members either already have or are showing interest in digital assets.

“Relevancy always equals ROI,” he says. “I’m more interested in plugging the hole in the bottom of the income boat than I am worrying about future dollars.”

Education Before Execution

Before building anything, St. Cloud focused on understanding the space.

The CEO says it’s difficult to find education materials, so the credit union helped foster the Minnesota Crypto Council, a nonprofit focused on education for members, staff, and the broader community. For four years, the organization has hosted quarterly sessions, developed training materials, and brought in subject matter experts.

That education-first approach proved critical not just for adoption but also for addressing skepticism.

“When you launch something like this, you have to speak to the 50% of your membership that doesn’t want it,” Meyer says. “This is optional. We’re not forcing anything.”

Industry peers might be even harder to convince. A fall 2025 report from American Banker found the majority of the banks, credit unions, and payments companies it surveyed remain in the discussions and learning phase. The uncertainty around regulations has slowed adoption, and one of the most common arguments against digital assets is its association with volatility and fraud.

Meyer flips that framing.

“What risk have I actually taken?” he asks. “Other than human capacity and time spent, what risk have I taken?”

In his view, the greater risk lies in waiting.

“I actually think people who say, ‘I’ll get to this in five years,’ are taking the risky position,” he says.

What Came First — The Vault Or The Coin?

Although much of the industry conversation has centered on stablecoins, St. Cloud Financial took a different path with the launch of its CU-Digital Asset Vault in March. Initially envisioned as a digital version of a safe deposit box, it quickly evolved into foundational, core-integrated infrastructure. Rather than building a single product, the cooperative deployed a core-integrated digital asset framework developed by DaLand CUSO – Coin-2-Core – capable of operating across multiple financial rails, from traditional payment networks to blockchain-based systems.

“The vault acts as a vault, but really it’s a switch,” Meyer says. “It turns my core into the wallet. It turns my core into the node. It allows me to plug into any DLT [distributed ledger technology] money network.”

At a structural level, the credit union designed the vault around member ownership, employing a self-custody model where members retain control of their digital assets while the credit union facilitates storage and movement. This is in line with the current regulatory environment, where full custody authority remains an area of ongoing clarification. Rather than push ahead in a gray area, Meyer says St. Cloud Financial has spent years engaging regulators at both the federal and state levels, including ongoing dialogue with the NCUA and the Minnesota Department of Commerce. In the meantime, the vault serves as both a practical member tool and a strategic bridge, connecting digital assets back to the cooperative’s core system without overstepping regulatory boundaries.

With the infrastructure in place, launching a proprietary stablecoin became possible. Although that was not originally a main objective of the strategy, a use case convinced the credit union to proceed. Two national food co-ops approached St. Cloud Financial looking for a settlement solution aligned with cooperative principles.

“We offered them USDC,” Meyer says. “They said, ‘We’re a cooperative, you’re a cooperative. We want a cooperative stablecoin.’”

Thus, St. Cloud Financial introduced the Cloud Dollar ($CLDUSD) in late 2025, making it the nation’s first credit union-issued stablecoin.

Still, Meyer cautions against overemphasizing this aspect of the technology.

“In five years, we’ll look back and say that was a small sliver of what we were actually talking about,” he says.

Don’t Stop Here. Stablecoins and digital assets have moved beyond “wait and see” into active development. For a look at both the risks and the opportunities in this next phase of financial services, read “What Should Credit Unions Know About Stablecoins?” only on CreditUnions.com.

Slow Rollout, Strong Signals

St. Cloud Financial has taken a measured approach to rollout.

Following an NCUA audit in late 2025, the credit union launched a friends-and-family pilot in December and expanded to full membership in March. Today, the credit union holds approximately 15 Bitcoin in its system and between 50 and 75 vaults in progress.

So far the most notable insight isn’t volume, Mayer says, but member behavior, especially among younger demographics.

“When they open a vault, they bring everything with them,” he says, indicating it’s been a way to deepen relationships and increase products per member. “We’ve been told, ‘Finally someone is listening to our generation and what we believe our wealth will be.’”

Consumers are already in the cryptocurrency space, and Meyer urges industry peers not to outsource those members.

“You worked hard for those relationships,” he says. “You cannot continue to give your relationships away to third parties.”

An Uncertain Timeline

Crypto is only the beginning for St. Cloud Financial. The same infrastructure that supports digital assets today could eventually handle tokenized financial instruments, identities, and other forms of value.

“This is going to be bigger than a product,” Meyer says. “It’s going to be bigger than one innovation.”

The CEO expects the traditional finance and digital asset ecosystems will coexist and, ultimately, St. Cloud’s strategy is less about predicting the future and more about preparing for it.

“If this takes another seven to 10 years, I’m okay with that,” Meyer says. “If this happens tomorrow, I’m okay with that.”

For credit unions, the question isn’t whether to launch a stablecoin or offer crypto trading. According to Meyer, it’s whether they will have a role in a financial system where money can move, store, and grow entirely outside of them.

“Our only play is to establish ourselves as the access point, the aggregator point, and the trusted advisor point,” he says.

The post A Credit Union Journey Into Cryptocurrency And Stablecoins appeared first on CreditUnions.com.

Top-Level Takeaways

• Outcomes, not good intentions, better determine where work belongs in an institution.
• Narrowing focus areas can help a foundation gain clarity without sacrificing purpose.
• Financial education has a greater impact when people have access to tools and real-world application.

Financial education initiatives aren’t neutral. The credit union industry rarely talks about it this way, but balance sheets and data do.

At Wright-Patt Credit Union ($9.6B, Beavercreek, OH), leaders identified a clear pattern across its financial learning programs. Members who participated in that learning engaged more with the credit union. Deposits grew, loan balances shifted, and relationships deepened.

“Intentionally or unintentionally, financial learning became a pipeline into the credit union,” says Ivy Glover, director of community impact and development and executive director of the WPCU Sunshine Community Fund.

This created an opportunity for additional clarity and cohesion. Foundations are designed to give without expectation of a return. Credit unions, on the other hand, want to responsibly grow. So, what happens when a product or service does both? To answer that, Wright-Patt examined what it offers as developmental and what it offers as philanthropy.

“There’s overlap that should exist,” Glover says. “But there’s also overlap where we can provide more clarity.”

3 Questions To Rethink

Internally, the WPCU Sunshine Community Fund Board, senior leadership team and community development staff began examining the credit union foundation through a new lens.

“We started talking in terms of swim lanes rather than driving lanes, meaning there’s some fluidity,” Glover says. “Where does it make sense for the foundation to operate in a way that flows into the credit union and vice versa?”

To build cohesion and clarity as well as make a greater community impact, the credit union considered three essential questions:

1. 1. What do we want the foundation to represent or achieve over the next five years?
   2. Why would the foundation need to be a passthrough for nonprofit partners and neighbors?
   3. How can the foundation support execution of the mission and purpose for the credit union?

Ultimately, the group settled on a shared outlook.

“Programming should live under the credit union, and giving should live under the foundation,” Glover says.

Today, the credit union is figuring out how to make that outlook a reality.
Don’t stop here. While Wright-Patt Credit Union works to clarify the line between philanthropy and development, Marine Credit Union is intentionally blending the two. Read more in “How Marine Credit Union Shifted Its Foundation From Siloed To Symbiotic.”

From Strategy To Operational Changes

New strategies tend to take time to come to fruition. After WPCU clarified its outlook for the credit union and the foundation, however, it made some immediate changes. It narrowed the Sunshine Community Fund’s eight wellbeing focus areas to four and stopped pursuing major external funding to avoid competing against the very community partners it seeks to support.

“Our primary revenue resources come from are our employees, our members, and the credit union itself,” Glover says.

Today, a new model is emerging where the foundation functions as a funder, whereas the credit union increasingly handles delivery and engagement.

In three years, Glover envisions the credit union’s community development specialists and coordinators engaging with community partners, SEG organizations, and business partners while the foundation focuses on providing grants, investments, and funding for nonprofit partners. It could also support scholarships, housing initiatives, and, potentially, cover the costs to develop and distribute tools like the Pocket Money Mentor, a self‑paced workbook that helps build practical money habits around spending, saving, borrowing, and planning.

The Effect On Financial Education

The new approach means neither Wright-Patt Credit Union nor the WPCU Sunshine Community Fund has to eliminate programs. However, programs might evolve or move.

This is especially true when it comes to financial education.

In the past, the foundation handled WPCU’s Money Magnifier curriculum, a K-12 financial literacy program that aligns with state standards. After the credit union hired a community development coordinator to work directly with schools to manage student educational engagement, it blended the model. Today the foundation funds the development and provision of the curriculum and resources in community, and the credit union partner-employees use the resource to teach students directly.  The new structure takes into account the increased likelihood students will want to access WPCU products, such as checking accounts or auto loans, and provides an environment in which the coordinator can talk about it.

“We want to have the flexibility to pair the educational tools with real-world application and resources,” Glover says.

A Little Gray Is A-OK

Balancing purpose and impact for the credit union versus its foundation can be difficult, but this duo views the work as just another way to serve their community more effectively and efficiently while giving each organization a clearer role.

WPCU’s shift remains a work in progress, and given the diversity of missions and intended outcomes among credit unions and their foundations, Glover says there’s no one single structure that translates cleanly across institutions.

“No matter what structure you choose, there’s always going to be some gray area,” Glover says.

Glover doesn’t see that as a problem, however, because the core of the movement doesn’t change.

“At the end of the day, both entities exist to fulfill WPCU’s purpose and mission,” she continues. “The approach to making impact might look different, but helping people and the community live financially well and being there for them at every step is what we’re all here to do.”

The post The Line Between Growth And Impact Was Blurry. Wright-Patt Decided To Redraw It. appeared first on CreditUnions.com.

Top-Level Takeaways

• Differentiation comes from thinking beyond traditional banking norms.
• Credit unions can systematically create wow moments, but it must be part of the cultural.
• AI and engagement data is changing how credit unions measure emotional experience.

It’s a typical day at the office for Mike Dobbins when he picks up the phone to make a call.

“My name’s Mike Dobbins,” he says. “I’m the CEO of Alliant Credit Union, and I just wanted to call and wish you a happy birthday today.”

A voice on the other end pauses for a moment then replies, “Are you serious?”

“I am serious,” Dobbins assures.

“Are you really the CEO?”

“I am really the CEO.”

What follows is a brief conversation between the cooperative’s leader and one of its nearly 1 million members. At its conclusion, Dobbins is sure to tell the member that their relationship with Alliant Credit Union ($20.3B, Chicago, IL) matters to him and wishes them well.

Dobbins says he makes these calls as often as possible, not just for birthdays, but for other life events, too.

“As someone who started my career as a branch manager, I always remember the power of that personal touch,” Dobbins says. “Standing there when people come to the door, shaking their hand, learning about them — those things are powerful. We are digital-only in the sense that we don’t have branches, but we want to have great humanity.”

Indeed, as an early adopter of a digital-only model, Alliant has learned that removing branches doesn’t remove the expectation for connection. It’s a challenge that has pushed the cooperative to rethink everything from product design to staff training to how it uses data. Ultimately, it aims to not only serve members but turn them into advocates.

“You’re probably not going to tell a friend, ‘Here’s my debit card.’ But you might tell your friend, ‘I bank somewhere where people call me on my birthday,’” Dobbins says.

Putting “Wow” Into Practice

According to Dobbins, to succeed as a digital-only institution, two things must be true.

“Your digital can’t just be good, it has to be pretty much everything,” he says. “But the most important piece is delivering ‘wows’ every time you get a chance. I use the term ‘beautiful’ in our strategy document because that’s what it has to feel like. You want that Tiffany bag experience.”

It starts with creating compelling products. The goal is to provide a seamless, visually appealing experience that consistently delivers quality.

“Customer expectations are shaped by experiences like opening an iPhone,” Dobbins says. “Everything is intuitive right out of the box. That’s the baseline. It has to be reliable.”

After onboarding, Alliant focuses on guiding members toward the ways they can use those products.

“Give members the tools and everything they need,” Dobbins says. “Then, use those high-value interactions, such as when you’re giving advice, to over-index on the wow factor.”

In fact, one of Alliant’s five strategic pillars is “Wow Servicing.”

“We have things like a Wow Lab with about 20 people in it every day experimenting with different ways to deliver high-touch experiences,” Dobbins says, “We experiment a lot, figure out what works, and when we come up with good ideas, we push them back out across the organization and encourage people to adopt them.”

For example, one employee who manages desktop computing suggested sending branded tennis balls with handwritten notes to members after hearing barking regularly in the background of calls. It’s exactly the kind of unexpected moment Alliant seeks to create. Employees also routinely make note of things like birthdays, anniversaries, illness, and other life events and then send physical greeting cards out to those members.

“If you walked into our contact center today, you’d find a mini Hallmark store,” Dobbins says.

For Dobbins, that kind of attention to detail must permeate the culture.

“You want people thinking about how to do things better and how to delight members,” the CEO says. “I’m just trying to lead by example.”

Data-Driven And Delightful

Of course, it’s not all just good vibes. A strong data architecture and a data insights team supports Alliant’s strategy.

“We measure everything,” Dobbins says. “If something doesn’t look right, we dig into it, figure out what’s wrong, and fix or improve it.”

Today’s advanced tools have only helped Alliant double down on insights. For example, it uses AI to examine contact center call transcripts.

“If we have 10,000 calls tomorrow, AI can analyze all of them, identify sentiment, determine how many were great or delightful interactions, and detect patterns or recurring issues,” Dobbins says. “We don’t have to wait to understand where we need to step in and improve.”

That discipline has helped Alliant turn insight into action. Today, net promoter scores are high, membership grew 2.48% from year-end 2024 to year-end 2025, and loans increased 4.11% during the same period.

“My objective for Alliant is to become one of the most recommended financial institutions,” Dobbins says. “Recommendations come from emotive experiences. I like to experiment. I’ll call people on their birthday to see if it creates a powerful reaction. I’ll call when someone opens a new account. If someone reaches out on LinkedIn or sends me an email, I respond to it myself because I want to learn.”

The CEO says the key is to look beyond financial services for inspiration and embrace unconventional thinking.

“Little things — things that bring joy and humanity — make a difference,” he says.

The post No Branches? No Problem! Alliant Delivers The Cooperative Difference Digitally. appeared first on CreditUnions.com.

That realization landed with force for Tracy Verner, community development manager at Alltru Federal Credit Union ($392.5M, Wentzville, MO). After years of watching members absorb financial education but remain boxed out of the system, she began pushing the cooperative to rethink what real progress looks like — what financial empowerment looks like.

“Financial empowerment is information combined with access,” she says. “Many financial institutions offer well-meaning financial literacy — workshops, gamified apps — but it’s still just information. We’re doing an injustice if we provide information without the tools to apply it.”

The philosophy has changed the way the St. Louis cooperative operates, from product design to employee training. The result? Stronger culture, deeper partnerships, and helping more people who otherwise might have remained unbanked.

Gaps And Barriers

To truly empower members, it’s necessary to understand the barriers they face and examine who the credit union is not yet serving.

“If you’re truly committed to empowerment, it’s your responsibility to provide access,” Verner says. “Credit unions were built on inclusion, so ask: ‘Who’s being left out, and why?’”

An early experience in Verner’s credit union career underscored to her the importance of doing things differently. Speaking with a workshop attendee after an event, Verner learned the woman couldn’t open a checking account.

“I was floored,” Verner says. “She had steady income working for the city of St. Louis but couldn’t access a checking account. This was before fintech tools like Venmo or Cash App. She was receiving paper checks, and when the city stopped issuing them, she was forced onto a prepaid card with fees.”

Verner met with her boss and learned the woman had an incident in her ChexSystems report that barred access to checking. In these kinds of screening systems, even a single overdraft charge can easily turn a short-term issue into a multi-year obstacle. At the end of 2025, approximately 6% to 7% of U.S. households were unbanked, according to Bankrate, largely because of prior banking problems.

So, Alltru turned ChexSystems off.

“This was before the Bank On movement even reached St. Louis,” Verner says. “Altru was already questioning those barriers. Leadership was already asking why.”

Don’t stop here. The community development manager at Alltru FCU turned in her barbells for bank accounts and is building access one account at a time. Read more in “Tracy Verner Is Breaking Barriers In St. Louis Finance.”

Expanding Access Without Increasing Risk

Opening access at scale shifts responsibility inside the institution and can raise questions about risk management, making effective collaboration with finance and compliance teams essential.

“Our compliance manager tracks outcomes closely,” Verner says. “We’ve found people flagged in ChexSystems do not show higher fraud or delinquency rates. The data simply doesn’t support the perceived risk.”

Alltru regularly evaluates programs and purposefully keeps guardrails flexible. For example, the credit union noticed an issue involving fraud through ATM deposits among its youth workforce program. So, it pivoted.

“Instead of shutting it down, we increased our fraud education efforts, reduced ATM withdrawal limits, and added monitoring,” Verner says. “We didn’t stop the program. We refined it.”

Alltru takes the same creative approach to lending. Traditional secured loans tend to rely on upfront cash or collateral. That’s a barrier for members without savings. Alltru’s credit builder loan removes that requirement, although it doesn’t release funds immediately to reduce risk while still helping members build credit. In practice, however, early usage indicated Alltru needed to recalibrate the loan.

“Initially, it was $1,000 over 12 months,” Verner says. “We realized some members couldn’t handle that.”

Today, the Missouri cooperative offers loan options as low as $300 because even $30 every month can help members without creating excess financial strain. Alltru has also gradually leaned into relationship lending, and half of its first-time auto loan borrowers don’t have a credit score.

“You start with good intentions,” Verner says. “Then you refine based on real needs.”

Empowerment As An Organizational Mindset

Financial empowerment starts with understanding the consequences of credit union decisions. Verner spends time in the community working alongside nonprofits and listening to members outside the branch to identify where well‑intended policies still limit access.

“Being in the community, working with nonprofits, seeing real challenges brings up more questions,” she says. “It forces you to ask why.”

Of course, asking why only matters if it changes how people make decisions, which is why financial empowerment at Alltru also rests on a shared understanding of what it means to struggle, how strain shows up in everyday life, and who needs support.

“The rising costs of housing, groceries, and auto loans have impacted everyone,” she says. “This isn’t someone else’s problem. This is about our neighbors, families, and even our coworkers.”

That awareness changes decisions, from product design to flexibility at the margins. As a credit union focused on empowerment, Alltru is willing to look for ways to preserve access instead of restrict it.

Forward-thinking credit unions are leading with financial wellbeing. Alltru FCU’s evolution from education to true financial empowerment reflects a broader shift across the industry. The Member Engagement and Financial Wellbeing Consortium, led by Callahan & Associates in collaboration with Gallup, helps credit unions embed financial wellbeing into strategy, product decisions, and culture. Through shared insights and peer collaboration, participating credit unions are aligning around what drives real member confidence, engagement, and long-term growth. Learn how the Consortium is helping credit unions turn empowerment into measurable impact.

The post Why Financial Empowerment Matters More Than Financial Literacy appeared first on CreditUnions.com.

Most young people don’t choose their first financial institution. They inherit it from their parents, walk into the branch down the street, or choose whatever account is easiest to open at the time.

Six years ago, Excite Credit Union ($618.1M, San Jose, CA) decided not to leave that relationship to chance. Instead, it set a goal that every child would have a savings account, reshaping how it approaches youth banking and even establishing Excite Foundation to realize that vision.

“A foundation makes a lot of sense,” says John Hogan, executive director of Excite Foundation. “It allowed us to expand our reach, create a vehicle for external funding, and work with automatic enrollment opportunities.”

In 2020, the foundation launched its signature program: College in My Future. Every year, it automatically enrolls approximately 600 incoming first graders in San Jose’s Franklin-McKinley School District in a savings account they can access after turning 18. The program aims to start building college savings early, particularly among underserved families who might otherwise delay or lack access to those tools.

Inspiration For Early Wealth Building

The foundation modeled College in My Future in part off a playbook published by Prosperity Now, a nonprofit focused on economic equity and wellbeing, and the City of San Francisco’s Kindergarten to College program.

“This ties into the broader children’s savings movement, which has been around for more than 15 years,” Hogan says. “Learning from others is key. You don’t need to reinvent the wheel.”

Upon enrollment, the program includes a $50 seed deposit from the foundation. There is also an annual deposit match, which is typically $25 or $50, depending on funding. Importantly, these are not bank accounts; they are ledger accounts, internal records the foundation holds to track balances on the student’s behalf until they access funds later.

“We don’t collect Social Security numbers or tax IDs,” Hogan explains. “That’s one reason you can’t scale this model with traditional bank accounts. You need more information to open those.”

This method removes certain barriers to access that identity requirements can present. It also reduces regulatory friction and protects the credit union from housing hundreds of dormant, inactive accounts.

Excite Credit Union also supports early savings through its Step Up Savings program, which matches deposits at key milestones. Whereas College in My Future focuses on broad access and automatic enrollment, Step Up Savings offers a more traditional, opt-in pathway for families. Read more today.

Inclusion Is Easy. Engagement Takes Work.

A primary measure of success for the program is parent engagement, determined by how many parents have claimed their child’s account or whether they’ve started contributing on their own. According to Hogan, engagement is 20%-30%.

“With automatic enrollment, the benefit is inclusion, but the downside is that parents don’t always know about the account,” the executive director says.

The foundation has introduced incentives to encourage stronger engagement  this. For example, parents receive a bonus when they find their account online and create login credentials.

The foundation also goes directly to parents for feedback.

“We recently implemented a parent advisory group,” Hogan says. “It includes seven moms — five native Spanish speakers and two native Vietnamese speakers. In this school district, about 60% of families are Hispanic and about 24% are Vietnamese, so representation is important.”

This council of local moms advised parents are more likely to engage if communication comes from the school. So, the foundation now often sends communications through the school’s parent portal.

“The school will send a message saying, ‘You’re going to receive communication from Excite Foundation. Be sure to check it.’ That’s helped move engagement closer to 30%,” Hogan says.

The Excite Foundation also mails home paper statements, using school district envelopes that include the logos of both entities. These communications provide a translation in Spanish or Vietnamese in addition to English, which Hogan says has further increased engagement and driven more inbound calls.

Relevance In A Crowded Landscape

Perhaps even harder to address than engagement is the fact College in My Future is not the only early college savings program, leaving parents to sort through competing messaging.

In 2022, California launched a program called CalKIDS, which provides $500 to low-income public school students. This accounts for approximately 85% of the school district the Excite Foundation supports. The federal government is also launching its own program under Tax Code Section 530A, commonly known as “Trump Accounts.” These provide $1,000 for children born in certain years, with additional funding coming from philanthropic sources like the Dell Foundation.

“That raises the question: is our program still needed?” Hogan asks. “We’ve continued, but we now spend more time talking about CalKids than our own program because we want families to access $500, not just $50.”

Thankfully, all these options do not have to be mutually exclusive.

“One limitation of CalKids is that parents can’t contribute additional funds,” Hogan says. “Our program could complement that.”

CalKids also functions more like a 529 plan with restrictions on qualifying expenses. Despite its name, College in My Future does not.

“Our program used to be restricted, but based on feedback from our parent advisory group, we removed those,” Hogan explains.

Now, when children turn 18, they can use the funds from their Excite Foundation accounts for anything, not just education expenses.

In 2023, Excite Credit Union and Excite Foundation received separate grants totaling a $1 million from California’s ScholarShare Investment Board (SIB) to continue to raise awareness of early childhood savings. Looking ahead, Hogan says he hopes to identify more ways to consolidate options and maximize impact.

The post Excite Foundation Breaks Down Barriers For Children’s Savings appeared first on CreditUnions.com.

Completed in 2021, the Texas cooperative’s headquarters is a monument to modern sustainability, with water capture and reuse, solar panels, and geothermal energy. The three-acre property offers 52% more square feet of space than the old HQ at a 90% reduced utility cost, using roughly the same amount of water as two families of four. The building has drawn enough interest to warrant its own website, offering a behind-the-scenes look at its design and performance, and the credit union regularly hosts tours for stakeholders, students, and community groups interested in sustainable development.

Credit Human’s 200,000-square-foot headquarters building spans 12 floors. It includes four levels of parking and supports 500 employees.

Two “living walls” of plants greet staff and visitors on the first and fifth floors of Credit Human's HQ. The credit union reclaimed most of the wood used in the building from buildings in San Antonio.

The building uses 97% less potable water than a typical commercial building. Tanks above and below ground can hold 140,000 gallons of rainwater, which the credit union filters and uses to flush toilets and irrigate.

Going Green From Construction To Culture

Sustainability is a key focus at Credit Human — the credit union has worked since 2019 to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions by 81% — yet the catalyst for the new HQ came down to operations.

Before moving into its current building, Credit Human operated two corporate offices in San Antonio. Leadership needed a unified footprint and additional space as the organization grew, turning their sights toward downtown. After a lengthy search, it selected a new address: 1703 Broadway.

That location, however, wasn’t just about square footage. Credit Human developed the building in partnership with Silver Ventures as part of a broader Class A office complex known as the Broadway Office Development. The site sits adjacent to Pearl, a 23-acre mixed-use redevelopment built on the former Pearl Brewery site just north of downtown San Antonio, one of the city’s most visible examples of urban revitalization.

Public-sector collaboration played a key role in bringing the project to life. The City of San Antonio and Bexar County provided financial support for infrastructure improvements, including upgraded intersections, expanded sidewalks and bike lanes, new green spaces, and a public parking garage. Credit Human also partnered with the San Antonio River Authority to incorporate low-impact development strategies that filter and manage stormwater runoff before it reaches the San Antonio River.

Although the building boasts cutting-edge features, leaders emphasize that its innovation lies in the way its systems work together.

“The majority of the technologies that we have in this building are 10 years old or more,” says Francisco Manon, senior manager of support services at Credit Human. “But making multiple building systems work together under one coordinated design hadn’t been done to this degree in the region.”

That level of integration introduced real-world friction during construction. Manon and his team navigated challenges with city inspectors who were unfamiliar with some of the interconnected systems, and the project — like nearly everything else at the time — faced pandemic-related supply chain delays.

Yet the greatest obstacle wasn’t technical. According to Beth Keel, sustainability programs manager, the real work was in getting stakeholders to think differently.

“The biggest challenge was a cultural change rather than technical,” she says. “We needed to help stakeholders move from thinking ‘we’ve always done it this way’ to asking what’s possible.”

One person already on board with the new approach was CEO Steve Hennigan.

“This is something our CEO started talking about six years before we started designing or selecting a property,” Manon says. “He wanted to do whatever was theoretically possible in this building.”

When it came time to move employees into the building, the organization adopted a deliberate onboarding process to teach employees how to operate in their new workspace, from sorting trash, composting, and recycling to eliminating single-use plastics and even removing vending machines and soda.

Keel continues pushing that cultural shift with ongoing education.

“I do lunch and learns every quarter,” she says. “We bring in partners like CPS Energy or SARA, the San Antonio River Authority, to educate our staff not only on greenhouse gas emissions but also what’s possible for their own homes and communities.”

Manon echoed that employee engagement is essential. Sustainability investments won’t perform as designed if the people using the building don’t participate.

Sustainability Is Good Financial Sense

Operating green isn’t just good for the environment, it can benefit the balance sheet, too. The same systems that reduce emissions also reduce operating costs, which creates a path for more investment.

“We have proved that not only is it good for the environment, but it makes financial sense,” Manon says. “We created a revolving fund and reinvest all the savings we produce with these kinds of investments into more projects.”

Manon ties the approach to measurable targets and long-term planning. For example, Credit Human has an organizational goal to reduce its emissions based on previous buildings up to 75% by 2030.

The financial framing also shows up in projects beyond its own headquarters.

“We’re installing solar arrays even in the new financial health centers, which normally are leased space,” he says. “We know we’re going to recoup that investment in six to seven years.” Looking ahead, Credit Human is in the design phase of a 100-year-old building in New Orleans, where the credit union believes it can target net zero despite the complexity of renovating a historic structure.

A Continued Ripple Effect

In addition to encouraging lifestyle changes among its staff, Credit Human has rolled out eco-friendly products for members.

The cooperative has a sustainable home lending program focused on geothermal, solar, water, and other home upgrades and has helped match homeowners with trusted companies, which leaders describe as a “high point” borrowers point to. As Credit Human invests in sustainability, leaders argue that members are poised to benefit.

Closer to home, the impact of the headquarters extends beyond its walls. Since opening, the Financial Health Center at 1703 Broadway has recorded increased foot traffic, new member accounts, and deposit growth as well as helped expand community partnerships. The building also includes a community room available free of charge to local nonprofits, reinforcing its role as a shared resource within a rapidly developing corridor.

Ultimately, Credit Human’s headquarters is an example of sustainability as an operational strategy rather than a marketing move. The building’s specs are impressive, but the team’s most significant insights for other credit unions are more about execution:

1. Don’t cap ambition by designing to the minimum standard and build for integration.
2. Plan for a culture change and invest in employee engagement.
3. Frame the ROI like a long-term owner, not a short-term builder.

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