DALLAS -- George Hofheimer, chief research officer at the Filene Institute encouraged attendees of the conference on serving the underserved here to take action to serve the community because he said it is a more effective way to change public policy than lobbying.

"Policy in favor of our actions is a positive thing, but it's much more influential to serve the community without the help of public policy," Hofheimer said. "We spend a lot of time lobbying, but actions can speak much louder than policy initiatives."

Hofheimer stressed that action is a more efficient way of gaining the public policies that credit unions want. With lobbying, Hofheimer said that a lot of the time the goal gets watered down through compromise and that there can be losses that come with the gain. He cited the Credit Union Access Act of 1998 as an example.