NAFCU Delves into CU Efforts to Retain, Grow Membership

ARLINGTON, Va.-Amidst reports that credit unions’ membership growth is declining, NAFCU decided to look into the efforts the institutions are making to reverse that trend. In the latest Flash Report, NAFCU economists analyzed issues and trends related to membership to discover how credit unions retain and grow their membership. The trade association found that 22% of credit unions are targeting a younger audience in order to sustain membership or for growth. Just 8% were focusing on minorities. “The remaining credit unions,” NAFCU reported, “indicated they were concentrating their membership retention and growth efforts on the entire membership including the self-employed, the underserved, and women.” Fifty-eight percent of credit unions said their membership has grown by more than 2% in the last three years. One-quarter said their credit unions’ membership growth was less than 1%. The remaining credit unions (17%) were in the middle. More than half, (52%) said their membership was growing as anticipated, while 43% said they were not meeting projections. Just 5% experienced growth beyond what they expected. NAFCU then asked how often the credit unions responding surveyed any portion of their membership. The bulk of them (84%) said they surveyed their membership for satisfaction. Of those credit unions that do surveys, 36% do it annually, 26% perform them every two years, and 8% said they do surveys every six months, while 30% indicated `other’ for the frequency. Nearly one-third (30%) said they allocated 2-5% of their budget to attracting new members. Twenty-nine percent responded with less than 1%. Twenty-four percent said they spend between 10-20% on attracting membership, while 17% said they use more than 20% of their budget on attracting members. Most (61%) said they will spend more next year and 37% planned to spend about the same. Two percent said they would budget less on attracting new members in 2005 than they did in 2004. [email protected]