How  can 235,000 members easily understand how to decide whether to  transfer all their $4.5 billion of financial  resources and all future decisions over to another organization?  One not chosen by them whose leaders have no local connections, knowledge, experience or understanding of their market and special  legacy.

Is there a simple way to describe what is at stake?

I believe there is.  It is in the words of a song  recorded in 1945 commonly known as What America Means to Me.

The words explain how America and credit unions share a common animating spirit.

A Shared Belief in People and Community

Credit unions frequently use words like family and home to present  their unique design and special role for member-owners. A vital option in a profit driven economy where those who know the least, or have the least, pay the most for financial services.

This collective of self help, self-funded member owned cooperatives have created a special marketplace reputation, a persona.  A place people trust and feel SAFE.  An organization they and their children can count on to do the right thing.  Or, as Robert Frost wrote in a poem,  home is a place they have to take you in.

Credit unions capture what makes America  exceptional–cooperation, community, and freedom through  self governance, Every credit union’s origin story has the same resounding purpose, helping each other succeed.

Credit Unions: the American Spirit At Work

But how do we express this special character clearly when asked to decide the future leadership of SAFE?

The words in What America Means to Me summarize, I believe, the  contribution of SAFE’s eight decades’ presence in the greater Sacramento area.

The lyrics are from the Frank Sinatra recording of The Place I Live In.  Here is a concert recording with his personal introduction.

Now ask, What has SAFE meant for me?  As Sinatra concludes, “it’s the people who live there” that make America and SAFE special in the same way.

Let’s keep SAFE as a home that all members of the  Sacramento community can live in.

 

 

The Story Behind the Song

Here is the 10 minute short film in which this song, The House I live In, was first recorded in 1945.  .  https://archive.org/details/kQo1N4jY4KJSO8lik4Akl3704lzO4N

What makes America and credit unions special?  Sinatra’s final words are “the people who live there.”

The Question Every SAFE Owner Should Ask

The question every member should ask before sending in their ballot is: Why would we want another credit union over 750 miles away, operating under regulatory and political oversight over which we have no say, take over the place where 245,000 member-owners have built their own financial home?