Yesterday’s post described the growing disconnect between member-owners’ needs and credit union leadership priorities. Solidarity Link was an innovative way to close this divide.
Today’s post describes CEO McNeil’s analysis for change and how this example might impact the movement.
The Thought Process Driving Cooperative Solutions
From conversations with CEO McNeil, I learned this program resulted from a deep concern that credit unions had departed from their cooperative roots. She believes that the essential system support structure has declined from the early years of chartering and institutional buildout. Today many credit unions believe they achieved their present position on their own and that future visions are similarly theirs alone to determine.
Without a shared appreciation for and the influence of a cooperative system, individual coops with rich legacies of capital and assets, are able to strike out independently. Regardless of the consequences for the welfare of the whole network.
The decline of cooperative system thinking has enormous potential for everyone concerned about the sustainability of a unique credit union financial option. Solidarity Link is an attempt to address this challenge.
CEO McNeil’s Description of How the Initiative Evolved
This program resulted from an analysis of how credit unions had departed from their cooperative roots, United Trades included, and how to reintroduce cooperative design as the touchstone of decisions.
Last year, about 15% of members were laid off. Others saw hours reduced or traveled across the country to stay employed. The response was Solidarity Link: a year-long commitment to use the credit union’s earnings not to maximize financial performance, but to prioritize member well-being. Low-cost loans, small-dollar relief, and targeted resources for members going through hardship.
Financial services are dominated by provider logic. Institutions doing things for consumers. That logic runs deep, even inside credit unions. This isn’t charity or corporate philanthropy. It’s members helping members, with the credit union as the intermediary mechanism.
That framing challenges the assumption that financial success must always be the primary proof point for performance. There were questions. A break-even year wasn’t what people expected. Holding cooperative logic alongside financial logic requires intention.
United Trades is purposively acting as more than a financial institution, accepting that they are also a social institution. Community support takes many forms, and goodwill is never wasted.
But a cooperative’s most authentic expression is not what it gives to its community from a position of strength. It is how it stands with its members inside the conditions they actually face. Responding to real circumstances with real tradeoffs. Accepting that in some years the bottom line looks different because that’s what the moment required. That’s not a departure from sound management. That’s what it means to be a cooperative.
Through April, 119 members have been helped with approximately $77,000 in total support deployed. Many aren’t asking for help yet. They want to know it’s there. Others are deepening their relationship with the credit union not because they need assistance, but because they want to support others.
What we are observing is members who see what their coop can be. It’s their money. They don’t want to exploit each other. Further, that the cooperative self-help value is working the way it was always meant to. ‘People Helping People’ always meant mutual responsibility.
The Takeaway for the Movement
Reinvigorating purpose requires creativity and courage. Daring to invest up to a year’s earnings to reinvent the members’ understanding and to solidify trust is audacious.
But there is an even greater insight driving this effort. We live at a time of uncertainty due to many external factors, events and individual circumstance. Many are fearful about what’s next.
I believe Solidarity Link gives individuals something more precious than financial assistance. It is giving hope. “Hope is lived when it comes alive, when we go outside of ourselves and in joy and pain take part in the lives of others.” (Theologian Jurgen Moltmann}
Hope Is Contagious
The initiative is already creating further interest within United Trades membership and from other union locals learning about the program. The United Trades team and sponsor are excited, engaged and challenged to identify new member-centered value.
Another lesson is the role of the leadership team. It is critical in developing a culture that supports this reinvention of cooperatives as both a social and financial force for good.
I believe this example could capture the imagination and interest of persons who have never joined a credit union. Or even explain what the difference might be. Now they can see it for themselves.
This leadership example reminds us of Albert Schweitzer’s observation: “Example is not the main thing in influencing others. It is the only thing.”