Following are two examples of non-profits reaching out to like-minded organizations to improve their institution’s effectiveness for stakeholders. The first example is from Next City in an article : Inside a Kentucky City’s Unusual Experiment in Citizen Led Governance. This is a co-governance model.
The credit union applications seem obvious. For in the early years of a credit union’s efforts the sponsor often participated in co-leadership role.
The best example however, may be the co-governance leadership of the CLF from 1983 through 2008. In these decades, NCUA and the corporate network joined to bring all credit unions access to the liquidity facility. The model was broken by NCUA when it conserved US Central in 2008. The CLF has not functioned in a liquidity role since.
A Co-governance Effort for a City
Here is the opening description from the Next City article:
Public trust in government is near historic lows. But Americans’ trust in their local government far outweighs trust in the federal government. It’s been this way since the mid-2000s, when the State of the Nation Project began keeping track. . .
For the past month, 36 randomly-selected residents of Lexington have been meeting regularly to develop and deliberate over policy recommendations for revising Lexington’s charter to produce healthier and more effective local governance.
Marjan Ehsassi, executive director of the Federation for Innovation in Democracy (FIDE) says local co-governance models like these are part of the solution to rebuilding American democracy from the ground up: “People are feeling like, ‘I can control my local [government]. I can control what’s happening locally.’”. . .
Across seven sessions, the assembly members learned about the people and systems that keep Lexington’s roads paved and city hall lights on. They heard from subject matter experts and members of the public. They built mutual trust, changed their minds, and came to difficult compromises.
And when the assembly issued its final recommendations on March 29,2026 members ultimately decided to trust their council representatives enough to recommend a large pay bump, in addition to pushing for increased attendance and accountability requirements. . .
At a time when NCUA is inundating credit unions with almost two dozen reviews of regulations following tradtional bureaucratic processes, this assembly approach might result in mre effective outcomes.
Strategic Brainstorming with AI and Students
Have you ever attended a strategic planning session where no new ideas came out? There was nothing proposed to get excited about?
A linkedIn post describes a strategic brainstorming effort between a non-profit School the World and Boston University special help group.
Here is the opening: Last night I saw the power of AI, collaboration, creativity, and youthful energy come to life at Hack4Impact BU’s Nonprofit Build-a-thon.
The challenge given the four teams was to create a solution for thinking of ways to sustain engagement with our student service learning volunteers after they return from their week-long trips in Central America. Is there a way to continue to integrate these students in a continuing role in the charity’s educational purpose?
The post describes four strategic options created by the BU teams in 45 minutes of collaborative AI powered research. (link) Each volunteer team outlined very different approaches to continuing the student’s role beyond their one week on the ground at a foreign primary school. Here is one example:
Team Project Social took the idea of how students could use their in-person and online social networks to expand the involvement of students with our mission. I was most excited about the idea they had to connect students in Central America with the volunteers back home in the US through a tutoring interface. They really took their lived experience and applied it to our challenge.
Getting outside the Box
Lexington’s city government and the non-profit School the World, engaged with outside resources from universities to discover better ways for organizational effectiveness. The local universities were not experts in the organizations they assisted.
The co-governance model effort took almost 18 months. The strategic brainstorming session lasted an evening. Both were cooperative, collaborative efforts assisting the leadership of local organizations. Bringing in outsiders, even employing AI, created enthusiasm and ideas often lacking in traditional planning or problem-solving efforts. The city and the non-profit leaders went outside their usual planning efforts.
Can these examples help credit unions go beyond the usual ways of evaluating business strategy and options?
The co-governance process has worked before with credit unions. It was how the 1984 redesign of the NCUSIF was implemented. Today it would seem a novel way to engage members for their insights to credit union strategy. Especially as most boards have opted out of any direct dialogue or engagement with members.
Can new insights for the cooperatives be generated by innovative brainstorming with groups like Boston University’s Hack for Social Impact process? Isn’t this the way cooperatives were initially conceived, by out of he box thinkers?