International Credit Union Day is coming on Oct. 17, and credit unions all around the world will be demonstrating their support for the movement! There’s not a lot of time left to prepare, so what can your credit union do now to get ready?

The Credit Union Connection CEO/CoFounder Sarah Snell Cooke sat down with the president of the Worldwide Foundation for Credit Unions, Michael Reuter, to talk about the history of International Credit Union Day, its meaning and this year’s theme, One World. They also discuss what credit unions can do to get ready for the big day, including where to get some sweet ICU Day swag! CLICK HERE TO LEARN MORE. After you watch the video, of course! —->>

Read the full transcript:

Disclosure: Transcript is automatically generated

Sarah Cooke 00:01

Hello. Welcome everyone to The Credit Union Connection. I'm your host. Sarah Snell Cooke, I'm here today with our very special guest, the president of the Worldwide Credit Union Foundation. Michael Reuter, welcome.

Michael Reuter 00:18
Hi, Sarah. Thanks for having me. Yeah, and

Sarah Cooke 00:21
it's great to have you, because we have a special day coming up, and you gotta emblazoned all

over your background. Tell us what's happening October 17. Yeah, International

Michael Reuter 00:30

Credit Union Day is right around the corner. Um, World Council and the Worldwide Foundation for Credit Unions, it's happy to be leading the charge for the first time this year. America's Credit Unions was very kind to gift our two organizations with the whole package that is International Credit Union Day. So we've, in the spring, we took the time and the effort to refresh the brand a little bit, to create a new theme and to really clarify and three key activities that we're hoping credit unions and individuals and our vendor communities, not just across the US but worldwide, will will unify and rally around on October 17. Mm, hmm. So can

Sarah Cooke 00:31
you give us a back up a little bit and give us a little history of International Credit Union

Michael Reuter 00:49

Day? Yeah. So International Credit Day was originally created by CUNA, and it was not originally an international holiday. It was more like, like National Credit Union Day. And it was, it was designed and intended for credit unions to kind of pause knowing that credit union folks are busy running their own shops, serving members and member communities, to really just take a step back and celebrate, celebrate the work that they are doing in their own communities. Celebrate it amongst the different stakeholders within their communities and their organizations, but also celebrate as a larger industry around the United States and then International Credit Union Day kind of evolved as CUNA and the World Council relationship was evolving. So CUNA created the World Council in 1970 and obviously, few years before that, CUNA decided to to evolve National Credit Union Day into International Credit Union Day, because CUNA had an international division before World Council was created, called International and so International Credit Union Day was, was a, was connected to that effort to celebrate the growth and the excitement and the and the impact that credit unions around the world were making. So fast forward to 2023 you know, from the mid 1940s all the way to 2023, the World Council and CUNA had co-created the theme every year, and co-created the design palette and ushered out posters and swag to help credit unions and partners across the industry of all sizes, shapes and sizes, find ways that were unique to them to celebrate the day. So that's just a little bit of history, and now, starting in 2024 we own the trademark and the copyright outright, and we're super excited to kind of usher in, I guess the next chapter and what ICU Day can be, yeah? And

Sarah Cooke 03:04

that's awesome. So talk a little bit about the next chapter, because you did mention you refreshed the logo and the One World theme. Talk a little bit about how that was selected, yeah. So

Michael Reuter 03:16

we've historically surveyed our membership and in America's Credit Unions are CUNA before it had surveyed their membership, and we brought our two heads together and came to a deciding factor in terms of what the themes were. I think with this year, we had already been down the road in talking with America's Credit Unions on what the theme was going to be for this year, and then when we we were given the rights to International Credit Union Day, we decided to steam ahead with the One World through cooperative finance, which we think really, really is a unifying statement in recognizing that credit unions are financial cooperatives and credit unions are called different things in different parts of the world, and even though there are nuances of the model or how things are called from a branding perspective, you know, the financial cooperative model is a pretty powerful thing, and so we really wanted to rally around the word cooperative finance. And then we wanted to ensure that, especially, you know, in today's world where there, there, there, can feel like there's maybe some division or divide. You know, we wanted to make sure that the One World was a unifying factor, that we were positioning ICU Day as a day of unity, even though we're not calling it officially a day of unity. I like to when I talk to folks, I like to insert that into the conversation, because, again, I think we're so busy with our work and our development and serving members that ICU Day can really be a rallying cry to say, hey, pause for a day. So pat yourself on the back and share out what you and your your credit union and your organization's doing to serve member communities, and remember that there's a cause out there in making the world a better place through credit unions that's bigger than any one of us or any one organization. And that we're doing this, we're doing this as a community and as a family, and the cooperative principles are our DNA that ties us together. Yeah,

Sarah Cooke 05:07

exactly the point that you are part of something way much larger than yourself, way larger than any individual credit union. Um, so how many credits we have around the world? How many members? What like, how many? Who are we celebrating?

Michael Reuter 05:22

Yeah, yeah. It's. It can sometimes be challenging for anyone, individual or anyone, anyone entity, to kind of wrap their heads around the global credit union system, because it is global, um, but as it stands right now, and we should be releasing our new statistical report figures on ICU Day, that's kind of been a tradition for the World Council, yeah, so I can't, can't release what the growth numbers are going to look like, but as of the end of 2022 we had just a little over 87,000 credit unions around the world and 403 million odd members. You know, obviously distributed fairly, fairly evenly in different regions around the world, 13% penetration rate on average, which is, which is really good across nearly 100 countries, almost 100 countries, right? Yeah.

Sarah Cooke 06:12

It's definitely not just the United States. I mean that the right, you know, 37,000 by credit unions, 87,000, 87,000 credit unions, yeah, yeah. And, you know, we have 4000 in the United States, right, little more than that. So, yeah, we, we definitely want to feel, and should feel much part of a much larger organization or a larger movement than, you know, just our four walls, or our country, what have you. And so you mentioned the release of the new data. You're not going to slip us any information, are ya? All, I all,

Michael Reuter 06:50

I'll be able to say, I don't want to spoil the world Council's PR thunder in what they're going to release on ICU Day. But we have seen, we have seen growth in certain areas, and obviously, with the consolidation of credit unions, not just in the United States, but in certain parts of the world. You know, it's possible that some of the credit union numbers may decline a little bit, but we're optimistic that the membership of credit unions is still growing. I would say very candidly, it's from the World Council perspective, it can be a challenge to try to gather that data, because, you know, gathering data at a national level, trying to coordinate different credit union systems in different countries, and if you're in, you know, in a specific, specific region, it can be a challenge to gather that data fairly efficiently. So, you know, we, we work very well with our World Council partners to make sure that the data is is as accurate as it can be. And we're looking forward to really, hopefully promoting some growth of the movement on October 17,

Sarah Cooke 07:44
and anything special for the foundation on the 17th? Yeah,

Michael Reuter 07:54

well, we're kind of, we're kind of the waving the flag on behalf of the World Council enterprise and being the entity within the World Council that is leading the charge for, for International Credit Union Day, we, and we're honored to be able to do so it's really, it's really been a special year for International Credit Union because it was an opportunity to reframe the messaging around it. You know, I've, I've spent seven years really traveling the US pretty extensively, talking to different credit unions, talking to leagues, talking to individuals, talking to chapters, and everyone does something a little different on ICU Day, which I think is what makes it special. But I think there's also an opportunity, again, for unity, unifying across a couple key calls to action. I think the first one is education. I still, you know, my own personal narrative within this movement, there's still a lot of credit unions out there that don't even know there's a global credit union system out there. Wow. So I think bare bones, step one is just to continue to educate, leverage ICU Day and educate that there is a global movement. The size, the scope, you know, what are the pain points still out there? What are the successes that are happening? And then the second is celebration. I think credit union people do a good job of celebrating and celebrating their members, celebrating the work that they're doing, both within themselves, but also in collaboration with other local nonprofit partners and national partners, and obviously our international partners, like us at the council and at the foundation. So we're really encouraging celebration of sharing out the videos, the photos, the narratives of what each partner in the Movement is doing on ICU Day by using the ICU Day 2024, hashtag, which is a really important so splash that out on social media, post your videos, post your photos. And then the third call to action, which is completely brand new, which you might suspect, is near and dear to my heart, being the president of the foundation is participation. And so it's been a vision of ours at the foundation to be able to leverage ICU Day to create a global day of credit union philanthropy on a global scale. And so in year one of this kind of refreshed brand of ICU Day, we are encouraging folks to buy an International Credit Union Day pin, which is here on my lapel here. A $20 contribution, or each pin is $20 and those proceeds go directly into the Worldwide Foundation to do a couple things. They they help us replenish our Global Women's Leadership Network and Y-Cup scholarship program funds so we can continue to disperse out scholarships to those individuals as part of those networks. We help to replenish our project Sternberg Fund, which is the international fund that first responds to international credit union disaster relief crises, most recently in Ukraine, in the Caribbean and in parts of Asia. More recently, and then, just on a day to day level, it helps us work with the World Council to continue to replenish and develop and strengthen credit union systems around the world through through specific credit union projects. So individuals are buying pins than, themselves. Many credit, generous credit unions and vendors and CUSOs have stepped forward and bought them in bulk to hand out to their clients, to their members, to their teams. And then we are also partnering with Taylor Murray at Service Star consulting, who's helping us create the Umbrella Man. If your viewers are familiar with him, he has partnered with us this year to create a line of ICU Day swag, so shoes and stickers and laptop covers and tumblers and with the International Credit Union Day, new symbol, which is the circle with the International Credit Union Day encircling it, as you can see in the in the upper corner there, on my on my background. So, so hopefully this will, this is a completely new, first year of doing it, and we're excited for whatever results we get, organically and ad hoc, but hopefully in the years to come, it can truly be a multi million dollar global campaign, because if you're talking about the global movement, the number of members, the number of credit unions, the number of ancillary partners and vendors and system partners. The foundation, if we do it right, we, we really should be raising millions of dollars, just like a lot of other partners of ours in the philanthropy space, do using, like Giving Tuesday. You know, it's that, it's that kind of model,

Sarah Cooke 12:10
yeah, excellent, excellent. Um, it would be nice to see those dollars rolling in. So, yeah, where can people buy their swag?

Michael Reuter 12:18

Yeah, you can go right to woccu.org which is the, obviously, the website of the World Council for Credit Unions. And there's, there's an ICU Day button right on the header. You can't miss it. It's got like, a, like, a big kind of like, it's washed in like a sunburst orange and yellow, so visually, you can't miss it. And that'll take you to our page. You scroll down just a hair, and it'll take you to the three calls to action, educate, participate and celebrate. And if you click on the participate button, it'll take you to the pin page or the swag page for for ordering, ordering some swag or some pins, and knowing that with your purchase, you're you're making a contribution to us, and we're returning those funds into impact around the world by growing credit unions and continuing to support the movement.

Sarah Cooke 12:58
Now, as you're drawing around the country. Do you know, can you give some examples of how credit unions are celebrating International Credit Union Day this

Michael Reuter 13:06

year? Yeah, you know, in California, there's a group of credit unions led by the California and Nevada Credit Union League and Schools First Federal Credit Union. They've gathered about half a dozen credit unions together to come together to co-share around narrative and stories, around the impact of advocacy, the impact that international advocacy has at the international level, and how that connects to statewide advocacy that the league promotes. And then they that they dig deeper at the local level and talk about advocacy, talk about member impact. So we've actually partnered with them to curate a bunch of different impact stories from different regions around the world to talk, to show the impact of the work that we're all doing at the disparate levels, the International, the National, the state and then the local level. So California is doing some really cool things. There's a group of credit unions in New Mexico that are leveraging the International Balloon Fiesta, and they're having a huge tent at the Fiesta. And a bunch of credit unions across New Mexico are coming together to promote all the great, great work that they're doing across New Mexico and even in faraway places like New Zealand, where I had the pleasure to visit the last week or so I was in New Zealand and Australia, visiting credit union systems there. Our friends in Hamilton, New Zealand, First Credit Union, they're always the first one out of the gate, because the because of the time zone to be able to raise the flag, wave the flag, and celebrate International Credit Union Day. And they always they go out into the community, engage with the soccer clubs, the, the cricket clubs, the schools, the community group, nonprofits that they partner with, specifically to the Pacific Islander culture and communities out there. So a fun shout out to First Credit Union my friends out there in Hamilton, New Zealand, who are the first ones out of the gate every single year to promote International Credit Union Day. TruStage, our partner, for so many of us across the movement, globally and domestically, are are hosting a series of drop in visits to their different departments across their campus in Madison, Wisconsin, and elsewhere around the TruStage footprint. And so that's that's been really exciting. And then just across the various conferences and events that are happening in different parts of the US and the world, so many have reached out to us wanting pins in advance, and are going to be wearing those pins with pride and aligning the pins with, obviously, the success stories and the visuals that you see with with the new International Credit Union Day One World brand, so just a lot of distinctly different things that people are doing, and I I've already see a lot of momentum and progress being made in terms of people leveraging what they want to do uniquely within the framework of the new brand platform that we've spent a lot of hard time and resource put, putting money into, resources into. So it's exciting to see.

Sarah Cooke 15:51

So I always give my guests last final thoughts on anything we talked about, anything we didn't talk about, final thoughts for our audience.

Michael Reuter 16:09

just as well. Two things. One, just a shameless plug for our, we do have a co-sponsor of ICU Day, it's Trellance, a CUSO partner that's probably familiar to many of your listeners out there. So thank you to Ashra Connors and Trellance for supporting us, and especially in year one of this whole new ICU Day branding effort and campaign, and then call to action number two, as a takeaway, is just for everyone out there listening. There are great things happening around the world with credit unions. I know many may not have the opportunity ever in their careers to be able to travel abroad and see the great work that credit unions are doing. But I can reassure them that, just like themselves, across the US market, credit unions, their international peers, are doing some very powerful things to go out intentionally and reach out and support not just member communities, but communities that are underserved and don't have a financial lifeline. And that's what makes credit unions so special as a model, is that they go into places that banks and other financial competitors have, have written off. People that wake up every day without access to a credit union account or to, or to a credit card product, or to a, debit cards or a savings account so or someone just to, just to help them with, with a component of how to manage their finances better or budget better. So the work that our US counterparts are doing, there's an impactful work that their international peers are doing as well. So just, just as, just as a final message and a reminder that credit unions are a very powerful force in the world, and everyone is doing their part to make the world a better place through credit unions. And I unions, and I think ICU Day can be that unifying factor every single year for all of us.

Sarah Cooke 17:47
Awesome. Well, thank you so much for your time. Michael.

Michael Reuter 17:50

Thanks, Sarah. appreciate it.

Sarah Cooke 17:52

87,000 strong.

Michael Reuter 17:53
Yeah, that's right. Hopefully growing we'll, we'll find out on ICU Day.

Sarah Cooke 17:57
All right, we'll be looking for that breaking news. Thank you so much.

Michael Reuter 18:00

Appreciate it.