CU Times: Could you clarify how many of your employees were let go, how many were moved from full-time to part-time, and where those affected employees are located?

The important thing to stress is in order to comply with stop work orders, you have to document that you’re minimizing expenses and that you’re not working. Which means that in every case, we could idle staff or put them on a reduced schedule to keep them available to resume, we’ve done that. And where local laws didn’t permit us to idle staff, we had to move to letting those staff go, still with the hopes that if we get a permission to resume, we would be able to be in a position to bring them back on the team.

CU Times: Could you take us through what happened on the day you had to make this difficult move to reduce staff, and what it was like for you?

LaBorde: This has been a very rapid development in terms of understanding exactly what the instructions were related to the stop-work orders and the implications that has on our cash position. World Council is in a fortunate position in that we are a diversified organization – more than half of our activities are related to serving our members and doing advocacy and putting on a stellar conference, and the work we do through the [Worldwide] Foundation, and none of that is interrupted by the stop work order of what are federally funded activities. So in terms of our reserves and our diversified portfolio, we are in a good position. However, when we received this notice, because of the nature of halting everything, it froze all of the payments – the payments for even work that we had performed prior to the stop work order.

So that required us over several days, not just a day, to understand, what’s the minimum level of key personnel for us to keep to be operationally ready? What are the local laws? What are the tax requirements? How do we [manage] certain employees that are on maternity leave? And there are legal implications around that to make sure we’re fully compliant with all local laws as well as U.S. government requests. So this wasn’t an easy decision and we ran a number of calculations, we followed our leads in each country on what they thought we should do, and we talked to our peers. So this was in a matter of days really trying to understand, as leaders of an organization, how do we respond in a way that preserves our mission and retains as much of our talent as possible, yet complies with what we’ve been asked to do?

On a personal level, I can say that it’s really tough because every team member has a situation that is a family behind them, and a career, and a long, hard-fought recruitment to get them on board, and we have really amazing staff who were very much committed to not only the development work we do, but the credit union ethos.

As hard as it is taking those decisions, the silver lining is we’ve had an outpouring of support from credit unions in the U.S. and our global membership [that has leaned] in and said, how can we help? Is there something we can do?

We’re taking some really tough decisions, this is a really tough moment, but the rest of WOCCU continues and we’re continuing to do all the other work that we do to serve our members.

CU Times: How are you doing, really?

LaBorde: I’ve had a long career of working in places where there’s always a crisis. I spent a decade and a half in the Middle East working in Iraq, Lebanon, Egypt and Jordan, through the failing of a state and the collapse of a banking system. I was in Turkey in the aftermath of an earthquake, and when there was a complete devaluation of the currency and a complete meltdown of the banking system. People who work in developing countries are working with communities that are constantly impacted by upsets.

For me, I will admit that I had a lot of stress and sleepless nights, and a pit in my stomach [related to], how do we make the right decisions on a short timeline with limited information? That is not a good feeling. But I have to say, you don’t waste a crisis and you navigate those things. I have a team that has worked in all different kinds of scenarios. You pull together, you get people around the table, you sort it out, and then you tap your support network – it’s all the ways that people deal with a crisis.

I think this is a particularly difficult crisis because … in the development industry, which I’ve worked in for so many years, you can always do better. There’s always [room for] more efficiency. We always track our data because we really try to measure impact – how are we using hard-earned American taxpayer money to really drive impact and create a return on that? And we take that very seriously. What really concerns me, if we can figure out a way to navigate this, is to not to lose the relationships [we’ve built] with some of our member credit unions who have been expecting support from us. Ukrainian credit unions were supposed to receive half a million dollars this month to support the growing season of farmers in Ukraine. They’re financial institutions, they have demands they can’t meet. They were counting on that. They had loan products available that they were ready to disperse, and then we couldn’t deliver. My best hope is if I as a leader and my team can help us get through this review process, show the work we’re doing, show the impact that we’ve had, that for every dollar invested in Ukraine, we’ve generated $4 of capital for credit union members to have their harvest ready and grow their small business – that’s one example of the good results of a smart foreign aid program that we need to continue.

CU Times: What’s the next step for WOCCU advocacy-wise, and do you have a message for credit unions that want to help?

LaBorde: We’re doing a lot of different things. We’re keeping a presence in every country – even with the layoffs, we have retained our presence and our relationships in all the countries in an effort to resume or to continue in another way, because we’re not going to leave our member credit unions and partners stranded. I think that’s very important as a global credit union movement. We want to act on what we say.
We’re working very closely with America’s Credit Unions’ advocacy team to develop a list of our best credit union CEOs, U.S. League presidents and others who know us, who have positions of influence, who have close relationships with lawmakers, to get them to help us raise awareness about the credit union difference, and about the impact these programs have had in the last few years. [For example,] by working with Venezuelan migrants in places like Ecuador and Peru, we can show that 95% of the 200,000 Venezuelan migrants have said that they have put down roots, and that their incomes are growing and they’ve found a home in those countries. I mean, that prevents them from migrating into the United States. That’s clearly in line with [the current administration’s] policy goals, and it’s also the right thing to do for families that have been forced to flee a country.

We are trying to get those messages out through our other credit union champions, to allow us to raise awareness that the kind of work we do is an effective return on U.S. foreign assistance. We’ve had broad bipartisan support over the decades. With any administration coming in, they want to do a review. This is quite a different approach, to totally shake up the system, but our hope is that they’ll take a tough look at the programs that are really delivering value. And we would hope that the kind of broad bipartisan support that credit unions have enjoyed in the U.S. will allow us to also argue that the value that credit unions deliver in many countries around the world is directly in the U.S.’s interest. It helps us build economic stability. It helps us deliver value to the underserved that are part of enhancing global security and financial markets. It’s all connected, right? Even if in the moment we are saying, ‘America first,’ if you look broadly, the evidence is there that these things are good for the American people and a wise investment on the American taxpayer dollar.

LaBorde: GAC is a massive convening of U.S. credit union professionals, and I would not want to waste the moment to rally the credit union movement on the significant impact that credit unions have in the U.S. We want to keep credit unions very visible in front of the U.S. government on the value they deliver for the American people, and we also want to use the opportunity to raise awareness about the importance of the international credit union movement. Those are always our messages at GAC. We will elevate things we’re watching on the regulatory front internationally, but I do plan to speak to the importance of credit unions all around the world, and the hope that we have that there will be solidarity with us across the movement.

CU Times: WOCCU employees who were not impacted by the staff reductions are taking one furlough day monthly to show solidarity. How did this idea come about, and where will the funds saved through these furloughs be directed?

LaBorde: We had to get really creative on, how do we minimize expenses and make our money last as long as it can, until we get an answer on whether we can resume these programs, or whether we’re instructed to close them down? And part of that was to retain as many of our talented team as possible and have everyone in the organization make some sacrifices to be part of one team.

The savings we can generate would allow us to try to retain our country presence, and our programs, if we’re in a position to resume or if we’re in a position to seek partnerships with others. We want to retain our country relationships, and our staff who speak multiple languages, and all of the great things that we’ve benefited from over so many years. And so part of this is, how do we do that and continue to plan to be a global organization?

CU Times: Organizations implement business continuity plans for crises like cyberattacks or natural disasters, but like you said, this crisis is unique. Did you anticipate something like this happening when Trump was elected in November 2024, or did it come out of nowhere?

LaBorde: We have a reserve policy, and we have investments and cash reserves that anticipate staying open for 12 months if all of our funding dried up. So we’re a solid organization. But, nobody plans for this – the abruptness of everything stopping all at once in all the countries. We had been planning for many months, noting that there may be a Trump Administration coming and anticipating the types of programs that Republican administrations typically have favored. There’s always a shift in foreign policy, and like I said, we had bipartisan support for the type of work that we do in economic development and private sector partnerships, and we’ve been able to document the impact and value for money. But this is a very unique scenario in that you had a matter of 48 hours to respond, make decisions, figure out your position and move. And that’s tough. That’s really tough.

We planned for disruption and we have business continuity, but this is a very unique situation, let’s be honest. And I think we’re doing everything we can. We’ll get through it. Hopefully we’ll retain our global staffing at some level, and that’s what I’m working really hard to make sure we do. And we appreciate your help in helping us get the word out. We really rely on the movement to step up and help us for however many months we might need. And I’m confident that we’ll find that support.