Your Credit Union Partner

10/14/2026

What can a two-star restaurant teach credit union leaders about developing great employees?

More than you might think! The connection between staff development, service excellence, and organizational success is powerful.

Here's what the experience taught me.

Discover how the development of staff and innovative ideas led Eleven Madison Park to become the best restaurant globally.

10/11/2026

Great credit union cultures don't happen by accident. They're built by great people.

I'm excited to spend the day tomorrow with the team at Arcadia Credit Union in Wisconsin for an employee development day focused on teamwork, engagement, and strengthening the member experience!

One of the things I've learned from working with hundreds of credit unions is that strategy alone doesn't create success. It's the people who bring that strategy to life, one member interaction at a time.

Taking time to invest in employees, strengthen relationships, and build a shared sense of purpose is one of the most valuable investments a credit union can make.

I'm looking forward to some meaningful conversations, a little fun, and an opportunity to celebrate the important role every employee plays in the credit union's success.

When employees feel connected to the mission, members feel the difference.

10/09/2026

Being small doesn't mean thinking small.

Tomorrow, I'm looking forward to working with my friend Aaron Goff and the board and leadership team at Forrit Credit Union in Oregon on their strategic planning!

Forrit is navigating an important period of transformation, with a renewed focus on financial strength, community relevance, and sustainable growth.

I appreciate Forrit's commitment to remaining a local, member-focused cooperative while making the sometimes difficult decisions needed to build a stronger future.

With a focus on its local community, financial empowerment, and meaningful member relationships, Forrit can turn its community development mission into a powerful growth strategy.

The future of smaller credit unions isn't necessarily about becoming bigger. It's about becoming more relevant, more focused, and more valuable to the people they serve.

10/08/2026

I'm excited to be working with the board and leadership team at Puget Sound Cooperative Credit Union tomorrow in Bellevue, Washington on their strategic planning!

PSCCU has built a strong reputation for helping members make financially and environmentally responsible choices. After we take a moment tomorrow to celebrate their many big wins (since the last planning session), we will focus on building on that foundation, strengthening member relationships, expanding growth opportunities, and positioning the credit union for long-term success.

I appreciate the leadership team's willingness to challenge assumptions, explore new opportunities, and keep both mission and financial sustainability at the center of their strategy.

Small and mid-sized credit unions have tremendous opportunities when they connect their unique strengths with the evolving needs of their communities.

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09/30/2026

This is a milestone I’m especially proud to share.

For 15 years, we’ve had the privilege of working alongside small and mid-sized credit unions that refuse to accept that being small means thinking small. The Credit Union Strategic Playbook brings together what we’ve learned from those credit unions, their leaders, and some of the best professionals in our movement.

Your Credit Union Partner (YCUP) today announced the release of the 2026–2027 Credit Union Strategic Playbook, a new resource created to help small and mid-sized credit unions navigate the...

09/15/2026

Tomorrow I’m looking forward to joining Mark H. Smith, Inc. for a conversation about something I spend a lot of time discussing with credit union boards and leadership teams across the country:
Are we having the right strategic conversations about our future?

The challenges facing credit unions are not isolated. Growth connects to relevance. Technology connects to capacity. Talent connects to ex*****on. Mission connects to the business model. And increasingly, partnerships can determine how much a credit union can accomplish without simply adding more to an already full plate.

During tomorrow’s webinar, we’ll explore Seven Conversations That Belong in Your Boardroom:
• Growth & Relevance: Who will you need to serve differently to remain relevant?
• The Business Model: Does the model that got you here still work for where you’re going?
• Talent & Succession: Do you have the people and leadership capacity to execute your strategy?
• Technology, AI & Capacity: Where can technology make you better, faster and more efficient?
• Partnerships & Scale: What do you no longer need to build or do yourself?
• Mission as Strategy: What problems are you uniquely positioned to solve?
• Governance & Strategic Focus: Where is your credit union’s focus?

I’m excited to share some of what we’re seeing and learning on the road, but even more importantly, to offer questions credit union leaders can take back to their own boardrooms.

Different perspectives. Better conversations. A stronger tomorrow.

09/14/2026

One of the best times to think seriously about the future is when things are going well.

Today, im in Vancouver, Washington, facilitating strategic planning with Longshoremen Local 4 Federal Credit Union. This is a credit union with a strong financial foundation, a clear connection to its members, and a leadership team willing to think beyond what has traditionally defined the organization.

For many small credit unions with a historically narrow field of membership, one of the biggest long-term strategic questions is member succession: Where will the next generation of members come from?

Local 4 is tackling that question proactively.

Rather than waiting for demographics or changes within its traditional membership base to force a response, the credit union has been thinking outside the box and expanding its field of membership to create new opportunities for long-term relevance and growth, including the opportunity to serve firefighters alongside its longshoremen roots.

What I appreciate about their approach is that this isn’t about walking away from who they are. It’s about building on a strong foundation and asking how that same cooperative model can serve another community of working people.

Strong financial performance gives a credit union options. Strategic leadership is what determines how those options are used.

I’m looking forward to our conversation today about how Local 4 can protect what makes the credit union special while creating a path for the next generation of members.

09/11/2026

In 2011, I started working with Hawaii First Federal Credit Union. Tomorrow, I have the privilege of returning to their board and leadership team to facilitate another strategic planning session.

There are some credit unions that remind you why this movement matters. Hawaii First is one of them.

Serving communities on the Big Island of Hawaii isn’t always easy. The geography is challenging, the needs are diverse, and too many families and small businesses face financial barriers that traditional solutions don’t always address. Hawaii First has consistently chosen to lean into those challenges.

They’ve demonstrated what it looks like when a credit union treats its mission as a strategy, not simply a statement. From financial counseling and savings programs to creating pathways to homeownership and financing that responds to the realities of local families, their work reaches well beyond traditional banking.

What has inspired me over these 15 years isn’t just what Hawaii First has accomplished. It’s their willingness to keep asking, “What does our community need from us next?”

That’s the question we’ll be working on together this weekend.

For small and mission-driven credit unions, relevance isn’t determined by asset size. It’s determined by the problems you’re willing to solve, the people you choose to serve, and the difference you make when you show up.

I’m grateful YCUP gets to walk alongside credit unions like Hawaii First. They continue to remind us why this work matters.

07/16/2026

The fastest-growing market opportunity for most credit unions is already in their field of membership. Are you positioned to capture it?

Filene Research Institute’s new white paper, Growing Through Diversity: Using Data to Reach Young, Multicultural Members, co-designed with Coopera, reinforces something we at YCUP have been talking about for a long time: demographic change is not simply a community development issue. It is one of the most important growth opportunities facing credit unions today. https://www.filene.org/reports/growing-through-diversity-using-data-to-reach-young-multicultural-members

The research makes the case with both data and real-world results. Hispanic and other multicultural communities are younger, growing, financially active, and too often underrepresented in credit union membership. The report also shows that success requires more than translating a brochure or launching a new product. It starts with understanding your market, identifying the gaps between who lives in your community and who your credit union currently serves, and building an intentional, long-term strategy centered on people, products, partnerships, culture, and trust.

I’ve been writing and speaking about this opportunity for years, including my 2017 article, “Credit unions are doubling down on the Latino and immigrant market”. More recently, I wrote that “demography is destiny” and challenged credit unions to grow with their communities, not apart from them. Read “Credit unions: Demography is destiny”

https://yourcupartner.org/credit-unions-demography-is-destiny/

A big shout-out to our friends at Coopera for continuing to lead this work, and to three credit unions we know and admire, Tarrant County’s Credit Union, Prime Financial Credit Union, and Unitus Community Credit Union, for being featured as best-practice examples. Their stories demonstrate that this work can produce measurable results: younger members, deeper relationships, membership growth, stronger communities, and a more relevant credit union.

The opportunity is already in your field of membership. The question is whether your strategy is keeping pace with your community.

Great work by Filene, Coopera, and all eight credit unions featured in this important report.

Víctor Miguel Corro Filene Research Institute

April 3, 2025 by Scott Butterfield There’s an old expression that keeps coming back to me lately: Demography is destiny. It’s often used in political and economic circles to suggest that the makeup of a population shapes what’s possible in the future. I believe it applies just as strongly to...

07/03/2026

One of the most memorable takeaways from our conversation with Lily Newfarmer, President/CEO Tarrant County's CU, during out last YCUP quarterly webinar was this simple but powerful truth:

Culture change follows scoreboard change.

It aligns perfectly with Simon Sinek's latest article, You Get the Behavior You Measure.
https://simonsinek.com/stories/you-get-the-behavior-you-measure?utm_source=Facebook&utm_medium=Company&utm_campaign=Stories_You-Get-the-Behavior-You-Measure&fbclid=IwdGRjcAS05sNleHRuA2FlbQIxMQBzcnRjBmFwcF9pZAwzNTA2ODU1MzE3MjgAAR7vXzmPDFb4ObSu5LPmLFyEsx0X0zJisx7uXVdLxyQMHJF1Czw3AkmGJplz7Q_aem_W5tzgi9UqJ11UDKtaZjbSg

Too often, organizations say they want collaboration, innovation, leadership development, or exceptional member service. Yet the scoreboards tell a different story. We measure production, transactions, efficiency, and short-term financial results, then wonder why the culture doesn't change.

People pay attention to what leaders celebrate, reward, and measure.

If we want a culture built on trust, accountability, learning, service, and purpose, those things have to show up on the scoreboard too.

This is especially true in credit unions. Our mission has always been about improving people's financial lives. Financial performance matters, but it should fuel our mission, not replace it. The strongest organizations find ways to measure both mission and margin.

As leaders, perhaps one of the most important questions we can ask is:

Does our scoreboard reinforce the culture we say we want to build?

Thank you, Lily, for sharing such a memorable insight, and thank you to Simon Sinek for another thought-provoking article.

Teams optimize for what leaders measure. Learn how the wrong metrics damage culture, motivation, trust, and long-term performance.