Drilling Down to What's Important to Your Credit Union
CUs make a difference when they drill down to the specifics before focusing their time, money and energy on important topics.
We have our jobs and then we have our obligations. Or maybe it’s the other way around? Whatever the case or whatever order that might be in, credit unions seem to be really grabbing hold of these concepts of “job” and “obligation” and melding them into one.
The day-to-day of our jobs is what pays us, and gives us experience and knowledge, as we move forward in our careers. Then there are the break-out teams, committees or research groups that many organizations, including credit unions, set up internally to tackle a particular issue that has become a pillar of belief at the organization.
About 20 years ago I was part of a fairly tight group of employees from all areas of a large telecom company. Our goal as a group was to meet quarterly to discuss particular community issues or problems that we could help solve as a company, by donating and distributing money from a large pot of cash that was set aside each year and earmarked just for these reasons.
At the time, I found the exercise of this group to be inspiring and pretty frustrating. Inspiring because we were collectively talking about specific problems to which we could somehow make a positive difference by giving $20,000 to a charity, school or food pantry. It was pretty frustrating to me because there wasn’t a specific stance that we were taking. There was no focus on an issue that we stood for. I’m not digging on the executives who set aside the money for us to use. I was just annoyed by what they called our “spray-and-pray” way of thinking. Meaning, spray out this pile of cash all over the place and pray that it will do some good. “Oh, and by the way, let’s make sure we promote the hell out of our dozens of donations to get some community buy-in for the company.” Fine. That’s what companies do. This practice happens all the time in various ways and in companies and organizations of all sizes.
Once I became immersed into the credit union space, these same practices were happening – although under the guise of the cooperative spirit and cooperative principles.
But, a funny thing has happened along the evolution of thinking when it comes to community donations – a focus on one issue, or at least one broad and common issue.
For instance, let’s look at VyStar Credit Union, the $11 billion credit union headquartered in Jacksonville, Fla.
Last summer, VyStar hired Allie L. Braswell, Jr. as the credit union’s first vice president of diversity, equity and inclusion. Great. In fact, there were a number of credit unions that made similar first-time hires like this last year.
In addition to this new position, VyStar committed to and then implemented/created a new employee group called the VyStar Employee Resource Group (VRG). While the name seems fairly innocuous, the purpose of the group has a focus: To facilitate discussions on how to support and advocate for women, minorities, veterans, disabled persons and the LGBTQ+ community.
Last July when this dual announcement came out, Braswell said, “What I hope to do is leverage my knowledge of diversity, equity and inclusion to continue that and have people feel welcomed when they join our team. It is important for employees to feel respected for what they bring to the table and valued for the talents they have.”
In the year since the creation of VRG, the broadly-formed group has established 10 VRG subgroups to focus on very detailed and specific issues. Those groups are:
- African Heritage – Shades of Success (SOS)
- Asian Heritage: A.S.I.A. – A Society of Inclusiveness and Awesomeness
- Differently Abled – VyAbility
- Hispanic Heritage – La Voz de Mi Gente (LVMG)
- LGBTQ+ – VyPride
- VyStar Employees That Served (VETS) – Veteran Group
- Women at VyStar Empowered (W.A.V.E.)
- Emerging Leaders of Tomorrow (ELT)
- Older, Wiser, Livelier Seniors (OWLS) – Over 50+
- Parents are Leaders (PALs)
According to the official VyStar description and goals of these 10 groups, each one “focuses on professional development. Roundtable discussions are regularly organized by the VRGs, delivering opportunities to share knowledge with peers from other departments, leadership within the organization and professionals in the community.”
I feel like this model of starting with a broad concept and drilling down farther and farther into the specific issues is a great benefit to the VyStar membership community, as well as beneficial to the internal culture and growth of the credit union going forward. I also believe that this annoyingly-simple approach (and I mean this in a good, kind of “no-duh” way) can and should be a great model for other credit unions to follow when it comes to your community activism and/or the social beliefs held by your credit union during these incredibly challenging and exhausting times for so many credit union members.
I’m not 100% sure why, but VyStar’s approach to its resource group structure made my brain think about the Foo Fighters and if the Foo Fighters were a credit union.
The mega-rock band Foo Fighters, (come on, you know who I’m talking about) formed in the mid-1990s with former Nirvana drummer Dave Grohl. The band, like pretty much every band, just wants to make music, become better musicians, tour, entertain and try to express to the audience their love of the art of music.
Inside that initial purpose of being a band and growing a massive following, the group as a whole and its individual members have their specific community-giving and awareness missions.
The group loudly and officially supports organizations like the American Civil Liberties Union, the Global Poverty Project and Keep-a-Breast, a breast cancer education and awareness program.
Collectively, the band supports the message of “love one another.” On more than one occasion, while out on tour, they’ve made an extra effort to play mini-concerts on a flat-bed truck by playing songs like the 1970s hit “You Should Be Dancing” by The Bee Gees, to promote inclusive thinking. They do these mobile shows aimed at homophobic and anti-Semitic protestors. According to videos of these anti-protest concerts, some protestors do start dancing and singing along. They use their broader concept of “love” and drill down to spread that in very specific and noticeable ways.
My point is that credit unions having a broad outlook of community and social issues goals is a great thing. And then once they begin drilling down into the specifics and focus their time, money and energy on these incredibly complex and important topics, that’s when and where the differences can be made.
The work VyStar has done with its VRG has now earned it some recognition as it has been named one of the world’s “50 Most Engaged Workplaces” by the employee engagement platform company Achievers.
The actions are much more inspiring than words. We have watched these drilling-down-of-the-issues efforts by credit unions, which also incorporate the job with the obligations we have as good citizens, and we’ve seen some amazing results. The credit union’s internal culture and the broader community benefits from the specific causes they represent. To those of you embarking on these efforts, I applaud your important work.
Now I have “Monkey Wrench” stuck in my head.
Michael Ogden Editor-in-Chief mogden@cutimes.com