Politics and the actions of legislators have a direct impact on how people access your credit union, what services they can receive from you, and whether credit unions can even exist. As such, it’s important to know the people and issues that impact credit unions – and this is vital from a strategy perspective as a single credit union, but even more from an industry-wide perspective to shape the issues before they become law. But it takes knowing what those issues are, and educating board and staff on them as well.
How does one go about educating the board and/or staff in an easy way? There are multiple resources at your fingertips:
- One example is this Creating Influence newsletter (and to register a member of your team, please share the name, credit union and contact information HERE).
- Among the many tools available are the legislator profiles; these documents help illustrate the direct actions legislators take on the issues of key importance to the industry in a quick, concise manner.
- There were more than 550 bills that required active lobbying and monitoring throughout the 2018 state legislative session to protect credit unions. For a quick one-pager on the top 25 issues, visit here.
- Seeking some perennial materials to help educate all staff on why credit unions grow connections with legislators, why credit unions care about the elections, or raise funds? Affiliated credit unions have access to these materials (found on the sidebar of the Creating Influence home site).