In a recent episode of The Credit Union Connection, host Sarah Snell Cooke sat down with Linda White, Executive Director of CUWLA (Credit Union Women’s Leadership Alliance), and Corlinda Wooden, CUWLA’s Director of Strategy and Engagement, to discuss the organization’s unique approach to supporting women in leadership within the credit union industry.
Linda shared that CUWLA began in 2019 when 13 women explored the idea of a new organization that was initially going to be coed. A pivotal decision was made to focus exclusively on women, creating a safe space where conversations differ slightly from mixed-gender groups. CUWLA officially formed as a 501(c)(3) in 2020 and has since grown to 260 members.
Corlinda, who recently joined CUWLA, praised the organization as a “powerhouse group of women” with an “outstanding” ripple effect on employees, communities, and membership. Both emphasized the safe space as a key differentiator, highlighting empathetic and supportive advice within CUWLA’s community compared to less helpful responses in other forums. Their engagement platform, Basecamp, hops with daily activity, showcasing the high level of community support.
CUWLA offers valuable resources, including monthly meet-and-greets for casual discussions and quarterly Power Hours with outside experts. A significant benefit is CUWLA Coaching, providing members with access to executive coaches at no additional cost beyond their membership fee.
The organization recently expanded its membership eligibility from credit unions with $300 million in assets to $500 million, a decision influenced by existing members reaching the previous limit and new inquiries.
The impact of CUWLA is evident in member testimonials. Wooden shared a quote from a member who would pay for her membership out of pocket due to the immense value, and another who stated CUWLA has been her “support hub, not just professionally, but personally.” Linda added that members often say, “if it wasn’t for this group, I’d lose my mind”.
CUWLA’s future vision includes exploring ways to support the next generation of women leaders within credit unions with assets under $500 million. Those that would like to contribute to CUWLA’s mission are encouraged to spread the word, direct donations via their website, CUWLA.com and underwriting specific programs.
For a deeper dive into the invaluable work CUWLA is doing to empower and support women in the credit union industry, be sure to watch the full video interview below.
Disclosure: Transcript below is automatically generated
Sarah Cooke
Sarah, hello and welcome everybody. I am Sarah Snell, Cook your host of the Credit Union Connection. I’m here with two lovely ladies today. We have the CUWLA Executive Director and former credit union CEO. Linda white,
Linda white
welcome, hello.
Sarah Cooke
Hello. And we have our Director of Strategy and Engagement, Corlinda. how you doing?
Corlinda Wooden
Doing? Well, good to see everyone. Good to see y’all.
Sarah Cooke
So why don’t you give a little background on CUWLA?
Linda White
Well? So CUWLA was the brainchild of Lily, new farmer from Tarrant County’s credit union back in 2019 12 of us and her 13 were tapped on the shoulder to kind of go, let’s come together to see if something like this should be and, you know, not many people know this, but we walked out the first day thinking it was going to be a co ed organization. And then, you know, over cocktails and dinner, and somebody has kind of quiet, leaned over to me and said, you know, we used to have something like this in our area, and it just didn’t work. So we literally straw pulled to kind of make the determination why it should be women. Should it be men and women, and why should be women? And we landed on, you know, women, by nature, nurtures and just we all have peers that we love dearly, but the conversation sometimes is just ever so slightly different. Um, so we just felt we want to have that safe space for women. So then we were originally formed in 2020, as a 501, c3, and here we are, five years later,
Sarah Cooke
yeah. And now, how many members do y’all have? We had 260,
Linda White
members, which is right, I know, you know, I retired as CEO and said we knew in 2021 that we were going to need an executive director as part of our growth strategy. And we’re like, what does that look like? Who could we get? And I raised my hand, and I said, the universe does not know I’m retiring next year, and I’m happy to step in and do it for a little bit and see what that looks like. You know, I was, I’ve walked in their shoes, literally. And I can, I can do that. And 260 members later, I and I’ve been retired from almost three years, and here I am
Sarah Cooke
still going at it. And so carluna, you recently joined the organization. Why was this interesting to you. What about the opportunity appealed?
Corlinda Wooden
You know, I have learned about CUWLA from the fold and always thought, Gosh, I am not a CEO and I’m not at a smaller credit union, but I would love to join these ladies. I just think they’re a powerhouse group of women, and the impact they have is outstanding. I mean, the ripple effect, if you think about supporting that female leader, and the impact that she has on her employees, her community, her membership, it’s just amazing. And I also love Linda so much. So the opportunity, yeah, I worked with her when I was the executive director for healthcare Credit Union Association, and that’s where we first met. And it was just, you know, when she reached out and said, Hey, we have an opportunity, and we’d love to see if you’re interested. I said, Absolutely yes,
Sarah Cooke
excellent. That’s excellent. So what makes CUWLA different? Obviously, we’ve got 51% of credit unions headed by women, so I think it makes sense. What makes CUWLA different, though? What are you offering that others aren’t?
Linda White
I’ll take that. Let me take that. Yeah, back to that safe space you’ll probably see. Hear us say that like repeatedly, because that was really the biggest thing we hang our hats on. Is that safe space. And I will give an example from a conversation in another portal that was presented. It was like a COVID group, and the question was posed from a woman of a small credit union and three employees, and she was asking about a raise for staff and her board and whatnot. And the response came from a male counterpart, and the response was, why are you doing that? Why that’s your job, the board. And it was like, she’s got three people, and that’s really not what she was looking for. And then fast forward, a few years later, once CUWLA was formed, and we had a similar question, come from kind of fairly larger Credit Union. I mean, it was under 100 million, but not three or 4 million. And was posing that same kind of question. And the response is, this time and again, it was a large Ukraine who, at this time, you would think would put it in their budget and move forward that way. The response that she got was, oh, I used to do it that way, and here’s how I handle it. I know what you’re you’re going through. It was never you should have or why don’t you. So I think that’s probably one of the biggest reasons our members come together, and for Linda being new to the fold and seeing it, she’s like, the communication and what they share is just, it’s priceless. It really is. And just to have that safe space and someone who like, seriously, literally, has the same makeup, not not this kind of makeup, but, you know. Know to know what you’re going through. Yeah,
Corlinda Wooden
and I would add to, I mean, like Linda said when so Basecamp is the engagement platform that we use at CUWLA, and every single day, somebody is posting and like, five or six people are responding back. I mean, when we say the engagement is high, I’ve never seen it this high at any other organization that I’ve supported. And so it just goes back to that safe space and feeling like you have a resource available of this community of women who want you to succeed, and they’re there to support you. And it’s pretty
Sarah Cooke
powerful. Yeah, definitely showing the credits collaborative movement for sure. And so what are some of the offerings that you all have core Linda, do you talk about those a little bit? Yeah.
Corlinda Wooden
So base camp is that one of just having that platform, and things get posted left and right on there, and then there’s also, we call meet and greets, so it’s very casual. I think, you know, Linda created this concept, and I love it, because there’s no agenda. You’re just showing up. You’re logging in once a month, and just, you know, sometimes it’s event session, sometimes it’s a support session, sometimes it’s an education session. But no matter what the members are, the ones feeding the agenda of just what’s going on. And so that happens on a monthly basis. And then we also have quarterly power hours. So that’s where, if there’s like, you know, when we look at base camp and we look at all the communication, what is the theme, what’s bubbling up to the top, where we can bring in some outside experts to help provide an education session, or, in some cases, like potential partnerships with different vendors that you can look at and explore. And Linda does a good job of asking those tough questions of the vendors, so that the CEOs don’t have to do that. So it’s wonderful. And then I would say the other really big benefit is CUWLA coaching. That’s something where you can tap into executive coaches at no additional cost outside of your CUWLA membership, and you can meet with these coaches you know, every two to four weeks, depending on whatever cadence you know, matches for your lifestyle. But these coaches are helping these, these female CEOs in ways that they’re not getting and typically would cost 10s of 1000s of dollars outside of that. And again, this is just like no cost to your annual membership fee, which I think is also pretty sweet.
Sarah Cooke
Yeah, yeah, nice deal for sure. So, Linda, earlier this year, you all expanded from you had a ceiling of $300 million in assets for your credit union membership, and now it’s up to 500 million in assets. Now, I think we could guess why that’s going up. But tell us a little bit about why you decided to expand.
Linda White
Yeah, well, I guess let’s go back to why it was 300 because when we started back in 2019 at, you know, the at the drawing board, we had the conversation at, what is it based on number of members? Is it based on number of assets? And we thought, you know, 300 million was where we landed, just because at that time it’s like over 500 they probably have more staff internally, they have more resources to network, and they’ve got a broader, broader reach. So when we saw twofold, there was a number of reasons that we made the decision. One was we had members, not many, that were getting ready to reach that 300 well, that kind of kind of stinks. I was that was a nice word. It kind of stinks for them when they are in the fold. And now, not only are they looking for help and resources and everybody, it’s a share. It’s a give and take. And then we looked at it, and we were getting people pinging us and saying, I’m three 50 million, but I only have like, 11,000 members, and maybe we have members that are less than 300 million, that have more members. I can have the conversation, because annually we review our bylaws and our structure and our governance, and we said, you know, we can’t really go to the membership size because we do either or there’s just a lot of things that go wrong with that. Then we looked at the database to kind of go between 300 and 500 million. It’s less than 100 additional credits eligible for membership. So that that is, that is the long and short as to why we went in and went up to 500
Sarah Cooke
million. Yeah, it’s certainly, you know, your assets aren’t going as far as they used to these days, I guess, right. Um, yeah. I mean, when I started in credit unions, the average size of a credit union was like 120 million. And I’m sure it’s probably a triple that at least.
Sarah Cooke
But yeah, yeah. So, um, what have you what have been the results? What are some of the outcomes that you all have seen? Gorlin, start with you from the group.
Corlinda Wooden
Yeah, there’s it’s amazing again. I talked about the impact of what I see on the communication of base camp, but what I hear when we have different meetings is also equally inspiring. Like, literally, last week we had a meeting. Mean, actually it was earlier this week, time flies when you’re having fun. But there was a committee meeting, and one of the members shared that, you know, even though the fee to be the annual fee, is really reasonable, it’s either 495 or less, even all the way down to zero depending on your asset size. So really reasonable. But she said she if her board didn’t approve of her to be able to pay for that from her credit union budget, she would pay for it out of pocket, because she believes in the value that Kela provides her so much. And I just loved that. And then there’s another I’m going to actually just read. It’s the one time I’m going to go scripted here for a second. But I just love this quote so much that she sent to Linda, just like a month ago, and she said, CUWLA has been my support hub, not just professionally, but personally. And I honestly believe small credit unions are still in operation today because of CUWLA support. As a female CEO, this is by far the most valuable partnership I have. I still get goosebumps. I just got goose bumps, right? Like, it’s just like, how cool to be a part of a community that you feel that way. I mean, I just love it so much. And Linda, I’ll turn it to you if you have anything else to add.
Linda White
Yeah, yeah, no. I mean, when you hear that, yes, I sometimes I’ll read quotes from members, and I’ll get emotional. And Lily, Lily, new former always says, let’s see if Lynn get through an interview without crying. And and I’m getting really good at not doing that, but because when I say I’ve walked in their shoes, I have. I remember what it was like to be a CEO with $3 million credit. I know what it’s like to grow a credit up to 100 million. And we have members in all facets of that, their journeys, and how do we help them? And ever so often, we’ll we hear those quotes all the time. Like, if it wasn’t for this group, I’d lose my mind. And then, you know, without, like, sharing their, their their safe space, there will be a post occasionally this kind of says, talk me off the cliff. Mm, hmm. And how do you you can see the big hug coming from the members, and one of the things Portland, and I rarely will reply to a post from a member because we want them to be able to share organically.
Sarah Cooke
Yeah, I’m not a hugger, so just keep that in mind when I see you next, I get that thread a lot. So So what’s your vision for the future? Linda
Linda White
So, and we’ve talked about how we grew from 300 to 500 Don’t, don’t anybody get any ideas. We’re not going to go over 500 for CEOs, just because we really feel then the conversation does differ. And there’s, there’s a group for for much larger credit unions, we are looking at, how do we help the next generation? How do we help if we’re about sustainability of small credits that are primarily run by women, how do we help them to be stronger themselves? So is there a number two in a credit under 500 million that might need something like hula? And quite frankly, we do have get asked that. So we’re looking at, is there something we can do like that? We want to make sure that we’re a differentiator to the Global Women’s Leadership Network. You know, Sarah, I’ve been with them since, like, the first sister society, right? We want to make sure we have that differentiator. But is there something we can help with that, that next layer ingredients up to 500 million. So stay tuned. That’s cool. Yeah,
Sarah Cooke
very cool. So, how can anyone in the credit industry support CUWLA? Can it be men? Can it be, you know, larger credit unions. How can anybody support CUWLA?
Corlinda Wooden
Yeah, yeah, absolutely. I mean, when you think about Q love, we’ve just talked about, there’s 260 members today, but there’s over 1900 eligible female CEOs, when we talk about that 500 million and under in assets. And so it’s like, help us spread the word. Help us create and grow this community even stronger. And then, you know, Linda, you can speak to some of the ways that we have other supporters, outside of the membership itself.
Linda White
Yeah, we do something we recently did, is we added people say, How do I just donate or help support? Because we do have our QA conference that we do limit the number of sponsors there, because we want it to be, you know, it’s about members, and they’re sharing, and it’s not, we’re not talking about Alm and and that’s not the kind of things that we talk about at the conference. So we did add a link on the website. If people just want to straight up make a donation, they can do that. And it’s, it’s one of those. They can voluntarily pay the processing fee or not. We have programs that we look for underwriting for so this year, with the help of schools first out in California. Thank you. Bill Cheney, they have underwritten to support our coaching program, because we do contract out somebody to facilitate and oversee that program, and that there’s a licensing to either do disc or cliftonstrengths, which is what they’re doing this year. So the underwriting so. Of those programs, because we are a 501 c3, and right now, you know, are we’re we’re being paid like I like I said. I am a volunteer plus, slash employee, contract worker, because it’s my give back. I’m a founder. But as we grow, what does that look like for sustainability? So really, it’s about supporting a 501, c3, that is supporting currently, like 260, members, but more, because we know all credits out there, know that without small credit unions, we wouldn’t have an industry that we’re looking at today, right? Yeah. I mean, I know many large credit unions that are amazing, but, but the stories that we’re hearing from the communities of small credit unions, there’s a need so to help support that effort.
Sarah Cooke
Yeah, it’s almost as if it’s a group for small credit unions that happen to be led by women. I mean, it just the way it works out. The math works out within credit unions, for sure. And I also think too women just communicate differently, yeah, exactly for sure, yeah, and not better or worse, just different. Then okay, we’ll close it out. Linda, you want to provide us with your your final thoughts on what you want to leave our accredit and executive audience with?
Linda White
Yes, we want credits to be here for ever, and we know that women need a hand up, not not a hand out. And as again, you know small credit CEOs that are women, most of you have grown up in your credit unions in order to be sustainable for the future, is about growing with the credit and the needs for the future. And so we’re here for you give it a try.
Sarah Cooke
Absolutely. Thank you so much for your time, ladies. I appreciate it
Corlinda Wooden
Yeah, thank you, Sarah. We are honored to be here.