Why Credit Unions Are Underinvesting in PR—and Why That Matters in an AI-Driven World

Most credit unions have a marketing person. Few have a PR strategy. That distinction matters more than ever in an AI-driven world.

Katy Wegnon, Chief Experience Officer at GoWest, shares with The Credit Union Connection Founder/CEO Sarah Snell Cooke that she is seeing this gap firsthand. Credit unions are doing extraordinary work in their communities—launching job fairs when banks lay off workers, helping government employees survive shutdowns and collaborating to support fire victims. But they’re not telling those stories, and their silence has consequences.

Here’s what most credit union leaders don’t understand: AI systems constantly scan press releases and news coverage, learning what makes an organization credible. When your credit union wins a recognized award, the MAXX awards by GoWest, or generates media coverage, AI treats that as a signal of trust and expertise. That signal shapes where your organization appears when someone asks ChatGPT for credit union recommendations.

“Awards are one of the most underrated drivers of AI visibility,” Katie said.

They provide third-party validation, structured information by category and publication on high-authority domains—exactly what AI systems recognize.

PR and marketing are not interchangeable. PR builds credibility and brand. Marketing drives campaigns. Right now, credit unions invest in marketing while their PR remains the weak link.

Credit unions are humble. That’s a strength in many contexts. But when competing against fintechs and banks for consumer understanding, media attention and policy influence, humility becomes a liability.

Banks aren’t waiting for credit unions to tell their story; they’re actively shaping the narrative. If credit unions don’t speak up, the only perspective journalists and their readers will hear is the banking industry’s.

Katy’s advice is simple: Say yes to media interviews. Say yes to awards. Say yes to member stories that show what makes credit unions different.

Sarah added, “It’s not bragging if it’s true.”

The other challenge is operationalizing story collection from member experiences with your call centers and loan officers, finding the extraordinary in everyday work, and sharing it consistently.

Listen to Katy’s full conversation with Sarah to hear how AI is reshaping PR, why credit union storytelling matters more than you think, and what practical steps your institution can take to build this missing muscle.

Sarah Snell Cooke: Most credit unions spend some on marketing, but barely invest in PR. That’s a missed opportunity, especially in an AI-driven world. PR builds the credibility and organic visibility that search algorithms actually recognize. Today, I’m talking with Katie Wegnon. She is the Chief Experience Officer at Go West, about why credit unions need to rethink their approach to public relations.

We’re covering practical PR strategies, leveraging member stories, awards in particular, as Go West prepares for its Max conference, media participation, and how to use AI to find the narratives that matter to your community. If your credit union’s PR strategy feels weak, this conversation’s for you.
Now let’s connect with Katy.

Sarah Snell Cooke: Hello, welcome everyone. I am Sarah Snell Cooke, your host here at The Credit Union Connection. I’m joined today by Katy Wegnon. Welcome.

Katy Wegnon: Thank you. Sarah, it’s so fun to be here.

Sarah Snell Cooke: Yeah, absolutely.

Katy Wegnon: You’ve been a friend of Go West. We’ve had several of our Go West colleagues get to join you here on this podcast and talk about a lot of the great work we’re doing. Yeah. So, thank you.

Sarah Snell Cooke: Well, of course you guys are doing great which is what we’re gonna talk about a little bit today,
Sarah Snell Cooke: right?
Katy Wegnon: Yeah. PR amongst other things, yeah.
Sarah Snell Cooke: Yes. And, and you are the chief experience officer at Go West. Yeah.
Katy Wegnon: Yes, that is me.

Sarah Snell Cooke: Give a little introduction about yourself and then the organization, although, like you said, we the associations pretty well.
Katy Wegnon: Yeah. I was gonna say, you heard a lot about Go West. Obviously we have six states of credit unions across the West that we, focus on advocating for, amongst many other things. I’ve been here about three and a half years. I’m the chief experience officer, so I have PR, marketing, events, and then all the digital channels.

I always call them the channels that are the front door of Go West. that’s what our members see and experience, and, that’s what my team manages, which is a really fun place to be in the credit union industry. I worked in banking before that for 12 years. and so I’m inspired every day by the work that credit unions do and feel so lucky to be here and be at Go West.

Sarah Snell Cooke: Yeah. I feel that 27 years later, for sure. So you all are holding your MAX awards soon. And, so talk a little bit about that, but also, just kind of to set the stage, a lot of, a lot of people who apply for awards, or don’t apply for awards- you should apply for awards, it’s a good PR move. But, those who do it, it’s sort of a one and done kind of thing, where it could be spread out over, over time. So talk a little bit about, this, you know, awards coming up, as well as like, the types of opportunities that credit unions can make out of them.

Katy Wegnon: Yeah. So we are in full swing. We are planning, and promoting our, MAX experience, which is in October, so we’re super excited about that. And it’s one of the largest gatherings of our six states of credit unions in the West. And one of our favorite nights, and I think a lot of our credit unions’ favorite nights, is, the Go West MAX awards.

It is really a celebration of all the professionals, and the volunteers, and the credit unions that are doing outstanding work to really power and grow our movement, and it’s all of their contributions that we really want to highlight. we have nine award categories. everything from employee experience to distinguished director to summit advocate.

And then one of my favorites, which I was kind of alluding to a little bit earlier, is, cooperation in action. Because I was at a bank for 12 years, and in those 12, and it was a great bank, but in those 12 years, I never saw banks come together to do something to impact the community. They really did see each other as competitors, and I just think that is one of the most unique things that credit unions do.

I remember early on at Go West, we had a fire in our community, and it happened on a Friday night. And over the weekend, there was a call of Spokane Credit Union CEOs coming together. Whether they were, you know, had branches in that exact location, they all came together to uplift the community, decide what they were gonna do, lean on each other, and it was that collaboration that just made such a huge impact. So that award is always near and dear to my heart. but we have a little bit of, you know, every category to honor and, and celebrate all the great work throughout our credit unions.

Sarah Snell Cooke: Yeah, yeah. For sure. And so how can credit unions take advantage of this, leverage, you know, if they, they apply for a award and they win an award, you know, how do they take advantage of that, PR, from a PR lens?

Katy Wegnon: Yeah. Well, we have a new award this year. Okay. And that is one of the one, I mean, beyond, like, the very true and inspiring to my heart. Cooperation in Action Award, this new award is really powerful. It’s storytelling with purpose.

And that’s an award we’ve been working with our credit unions a lot over the last couple years to really own and find their PR voice, because we really want to amplify as much as we can, the stories within the credit union movement. And so we want to recognize the great work that they’re doing in PR.
We have a lot of credit unions that are leaning in, to that work, and they’ve really demonstrated leadership in their storytelling and their media engagement. And we know how just critical that is for consumers to understand the difference in uniqueness, in credit unions, and then also in their cooperative model.

But that all rolls up, too, to our elected officials, and helps with all the advocacy work that we do. so we’re really excited about that, you know, just initiative that we have around PR with our credit unions, and then to highlight their storytelling with purpose work at the GO Max Awards.

Sarah Snell Cooke: Yeah, yeah. For sure. And, so I love that, when I first saw that you guys even have a PR working group, I was like, “Yay!”

Katy Wegnon: Yeah, it’s so exciting. It’s in year two. almost doubled the amount of credit unions, year over year that have decided to join that group- which is really exciting.

Sarah Snell Cooke: Yeah, well, because I feel like, nearly every credit union has a person who does marketing. Sometimes in a smaller one it might be the CEO doing their own marketing. But PR isn’t something that’s as popular, really talked about as much.

Katy Wegnon: Well, you know what I think? I think there’s only so much time in the day, and, you know, I was a person that worked inside of a financial institution, and a lot of times PR is a nice to have, right? It was kind of like, oh, it’s an afterthought, it’s a nice to have. We’re doing all this great work, but we’re not necessarily telling our story.

And I think, I even think that with awards, right? And I think this is another part of it, is credit unions tend to be humble as an industry, and so I think just, like, that muscle hasn’t been built. And we’re doing this amazing work, and we need to tell the story, ’cause it’s good for us. We need that consumer understanding, we need media understanding, and again, we need elected officials to understand the impacts we’re making. and I think it’s the same with awards, right? But what we’re really hoping people see is awards no longer should be a afterthought.

Because the world that we’re living in, AI, it really is a reason for credit unions to actually make that part of their strategy, from a PR perspective. Because, and I think you know, a lot of people don’t understand this, but AI or awards are one of the most underrated drivers of AI visibility. So you know that AI systems are like constantly scanning and crawling and trying to learn from content, like our press releases that we send out, and news coverage, right, from those press releases. So, as as our credit unions and organizations, are really seen by and, you know, connected to credible third-party awards, like our Go West MAX Awards- it really becomes a signal to AI, that there’s trust and leadership there. And over time, those award submissions, the news coverage, the content that you’re really putting out there, it really helps AI describe your organization.

And you know, when someone plugs into ChatGPT or, you know, whatever system they’re using, and they’re asking for a recommendation, you want your, you know, organization to be the organization that populates there. And- and so some of this work is helping where your brand will show up in those results.

And then even just for a journalist, like, if they’re looking to do a story, they’re gonna analyze your brand, and it’s a lot of that work in AI. So you know, changed so much from all of that paid content to now, you know, it’s, like, 99% of it is that organic search content.

Sarah Snell Cooke: Yeah, and if you’re not telling your story, somebody else is gonna. We say that all the time. And if you feel the nasty stuff, the banks… No, no offense, but, the nasty stuff the banks say about credit unions, if that’s what comes up, that’s not good for anybody’s brand.

Katy Wegnon: I love that you brought that up. And we’ve actually, you know, over the course of the last couple years, we always tell our credit unions, “Say yes.” Even times where we’re, like, you know, nervous to take the interview, to do the story, like, what if they ask us the tough questions? We always remind them that you have the best story. And it’s the story that needs to be told, and really, sometimes, like, from a policy perspective, perception really is policy. Yeah. So for us to be able to own those interviews and own the narrative, is really important. And hopefully everybody understands, the takeaway there is, yes,, getting the awards, it is, good for your brand. It is a bit of chest-pounding. But it’s also really helping your credibility and your brand in this new AI world that we’re all navigating.

Sarah Snell Cooke: My big thing is it’s not bragging if it’s true.

Katy Wegnon: Exactly. You’re just telling the story. You’re just telling what you’re doing.

Sarah Snell Cooke: And the way and I think especially when you talk, speak to being humble, I think if credit unions can operationalize the stories that they collect from their members, I always advise my clients that your story is a combination of all your clients’ stories. Yeah and so it’s the same way with members too.

Katy Wegnon: Getting the members involved as well in that, I think is huge. And there’s so many cool stories. That’s something I’ve been thinking about a lot lately, is like there isn’t just a size of credit union that should tell the stories. It’s like large and small. We had, you know, recently in Colorado, speaking of banks, there was a big bank that came in and bought a community bank.

And they laid off about almost 1,000 people. And our Colorado credit unions came together collectively and launched a virtual job fair. And they’re allowing all these or encouraging these laid-off bankers to come apply for jobs that they already have open. I mean it’s just these super cool things that our credit unions are doing. ENT from Colorado, soon to be Wings. When there was the partial government shutdown- they came in and helped FAA and TSA workers with skip-a-pay and other types of programs to really help keep them financially stable during times where, you know, they were unsure when they were gonna get paid again, and it’s just there, I mean, there’s endless stories of work that credit unions are doing. That was 10 weeks.

Sarah Snell Cooke: That and some of the TSA.

Katy Wegnon: And Coast Guard were out, and, Yeah, I mean, a lot of those folks are also, you know, the ones standing in the airport or whatever, and they’re not- making a heck of a lot of money to be able to survive, you know, 10 weeks without a paycheck. So to have a financial partner that can come in, and that’s just, again, the uniqueness of a credit union, where they’re really putting their members first and making sure that they can feel stable when everything else, you know, in their world is not stable. Right. They can at least have a financial stability partner.

Sarah Snell Cooke: Yeah and having images of that out on their website and their social media, all that kind of stuff, in your press releases if you’re gonna do any about tha,- which you should. Yeah. you know, just saying. Exactly.

Katy Wegnon: Yeah, exactly.

Sarah Snell Cooke: I think, you know, and, and because credit unions tend to pay short shrift to PR, I feel like that’s actually a bigger part of building a brand than even marketing can be.

Katy Wegnon: It is.

Sarah Snell Cooke: And so, yeah, it, it, it’s kind of a chicken or egg kind of thing. But at the same time, you know, you do. I just spoke on branding the other week, and the more brand type stuff you do, telling your short stories out there, making sure that people are hearing them, the less expensive your marketing becomes because you already have a strong brand.

Katy Wegnon: It’s so true. And just like, looking at the difference of where AI is finding, you know, it’s changed so much with SEO, and now everyone’s asking their AI friend for recommendations. Yeah so it really is more that organic PR, press release, you know, news coverage that isn’t paid as much as before. Like, if we were having this conversation a couple years ago, it would be the flip of that, right? It would be much more the paid content is what was driving SEO.

Sarah Snell Cooke: Yeah. And hopefully that leads to more quality in discovery than, than quantity. Yeah, so, I think, the other thing, and I’m kinda gonna flip this on its head a little bit, people are talking about AI is killing PR jobs. I personally disagree, because of many reasons. But I’ll let you talk, speak to that point if you would like.

Katy Wegnon: Yeah, I mean, I would say absolutely not true. I think the conversation we’re having right now about how important PR is and how important you know, that needs to be a huge part of your strategy now over paid types of content, I think it just shows that there is more opportunity actually for growth in the PR industry and PR professionals. And one thing that we’re finding, we talk to a lot of journalists, and they, you know, they put a lot of the press releases through a filter. And if it’s not, you know, an organic, genuinely written, you know, unique to your brand, press release, a lot of times they won’t pick it up. So I mean, I would say that it’s more important now than ever for differentiating your brand.

Sarah Snell Cooke: Especially if you get an award saying you’re the best credit union in whatever area or best credit union. For credit cards, I think I just saw Navy on one of those lists. So I mean, obviously they’re huge, but any credit union can get that if they- do the work. Yep. Yeah. so, kind of got off track ’cause- PR is my jam.

Katy Wegnon: There’s so much exciting stuff right now in our I mean, especially in yeah, PR and community.

Sarah Snell Cooke: Absolutely. Maybe there’s some way to use AI to actually collect all those stories from the call center, for example. Yes. You know, or your loan officers and put it together in a way that, shows how you do every day. ‘Cause credit unions do this work every day, like you mentioned, and so- they aren’t used to, like, talking about it. It doesn’t seem extraordinary to them.

Katy Wegnon: Yeah, and I think, I mean, for when you go back to, like, awards and you’re looking at how to, you know, why it matters so much for AI, it’s like, ’cause it checks so many boxes for AI. You know, it’s third-party validation. That is what is AI. Yes. That’s what AI is looking at. It’s structured format. It’s categories and winners and years.

It’s published on, you know, high-authority domains that have a lot of credibility. They’re crawling that. And then it’s repeated across multiple sources. So awards specifically check a lot of boxes. And so you know, our credit unions are having a lot of conversations about the operational side, like to your point, call centers, listening to calls and, getting sentiment and understanding, employee service on those calls and, what might be repeatedly needed in those calls. But we’re saying, and then there’s this whole other side of it that you can be using from, a PR brand side of it in, in ways that we’ve never seen, in SEO, do. So I think it’s, it’s really exciting to look at not only the operational side of it, but where AI is really helping from a visibility lens in the PR space.

Sarah Snell Cooke: Yeah. So, I normally wrap up with final thoughts so for, for public relations, and using AI in that, what are your final thoughts you wanna leave our credit union audience with today?

Katy Wegnon: I think a lot of people say, “Well, we already are doing marketing.” We are, you know, we hear that a lot. “We have a marketing person,” whenever we’re encouraging them to talk about PR and, driving the PR voice and the PR narrative. I still think that it’s just not a muscle that is strong right now, and I still think that we’re very much an industry that is very humble.

We’re doing all the work, but we’re not telling the stories, and so I think AI and the focus on it is the perfect time for credit unions- to really dive in and lean in to all the opportunity right now around PR. And, you know, the more credit unions that we can get to tell their stories, the more that it just amplifies our credit union industry and our credit union movement. And to your point, like, the bankers are not gonna let up. we know that they’re happy to deliver false narratives. A lot of times when we have the opportunity to take an interview, we will sometimes staff that with our credit unions, and we’ll talk to the reporter, and the reporter has been fed so much information only from a banker.

Yeah. That is the only perspective they have. And so when we say yes to that interview, and we get to tell the, the true credit union narrative and tell- our story, it’s really educating reporters and journalists. And they’re learning things that they wouldn’t have just because we tend to not jump into those interviews and tell our stories. So I just think it’s so powerful to say yes. Say yes to learning how AI positions you from a PR perspective and say yes to those interviews to amplify the credit union story.

Sarah Snell Cooke: Yeah. Absolutely, and like you were saying, earlier, before we were on, is getting that a little bit of training ahead of time too.

Katy Wegnon: Yes. It’s so helpful. That’s helpful. Be prepared. Yeah.

Sarah Snell Cooke: Yeah, absolutely. So alrighty, tell us, about the MAX Awards, where people can apply, all that, who’s eligible, that kind of stuff.

Katy Wegnon: Well, today is the last day for submissions. So we have gotten so far, it looks like a record number of submissions. I will say I’m really excited about the new categories. We’re seeing, you know, a big increase in that storytelling with purpose submission. So I’m really excited to see, what all we learn from this year and all the great stories that we get to tell. MAX is in October, in, Colorado. We are seeing a lot of registrants for MAX. We’re really excited. In one week we had 126 people register.

I really think that it’s a gathering for no matter where you sit, and no matter what your title is in the credit union, it’s a great place for you to jump in and really understand, kind of like the movement, all the great advocacy work that’s happening across six states. We actually have credit unions come beyond our six states, so we’ve had national representation. And people just love credit unions love to learn from each other. Yes, they do. We have breakout sessions that are led by other credit unions, and they’re some of the most popular because like I said, we’re just such an industry that shares
and really wants each other to, to be better for the overall movement.

So I encourage everyone, no matter where you sit in your credit union to look at MAX because we really build out, the content for all, you know, all positions, you know? And we’re really- we’re mindful of the fact that it’s in October when people are in their budgeting cycle. They’re planning for the next year. So we’re gonna be talking about PR, we’re gonna be talking about AI, we’re gonna be talking about innovation, and really taking a look ahead at, you know, what that, that next year is gonna look like for credit unions. And then I think, you know, so much of the value that we hear is just the networking and, and learning from each other. So we’re really excited. It’s gonna be a great MAX 2026.

Sarah Snell Cooke: Awesome. Thank you so much for your time today. Yeah. Appreciate it, Katie.

Katy Wegnon: Thank you, Sarah.