Recently, I attended the NAFCU Congressional Caucus where almost every speaker I heard addressed the importance of financial literacy and the dangers of predatory lending. As credit unions, we should lead the charge against the growing crisis of predatory lending in America; after all, that's what credit unions are all about. We were formed to help people of modest means learn thrift and achieve the American Dream. Our oldest members accomplished this goal, but what about many of the members who have come after them?

Predatory-lending practices prove there is a need for financial literacy way beyond our wildest dreams and, with that, a need to find additional ways to gauge success. Why is it that we tend to place so much emphasis on how fast we grow our assets, how large we make our share-to-loan ratios or how many basis points is our ROA? I'm not saying these are unimportant–if we're not growing, we're going out of business. But let's come up with a better measurement that really deals with people. We could talk, for example, about the number of small businesses our credit unions have helped succeed, the livable rate we pay our staffs and the number of members we have helped pull out of poverty.

I am convinced that financial literacy is critical to alleviating poverty. At LA DOTD Federal Credit Union, we taught 30 financial education seminars in 2004; in 2005, we taught slightly more than 100. This year, we taught 373 seminars through September–reaching more than 8,500 people, from children in Head Start programs to grandparents raising their grandchildren. We did not seek out these audiences. Once they heard about our programs, they came to us because we are providing them knowledge that will improve their lives. I am sure that many credit union members and potential members throughout the country have the same needs but don't know where to turn. I'm not advocating that every credit union needs to make the same commitment we have at LA DOTD Federal Credit Union, but I think many can go beyond sending someone out to lead a one-time class with high school seniors and then call it financial literacy. This isn't something we should expect our leagues or other trade associations to do. If we want to truly serve our members, they need to know they can turn to their credit unions for help. This is budget season for most credit unions; is there a way to move some resources to an outreach program–one that by going just a little bit further can make a big difference?