Consumers today are constantly exposed to advertising for financial services, including checking accounts with significant benefits, access to special debit cards bearing the logo of their preferred sports team, promises of cash incentives for signing up, and many different gimmicks. These marketing strategies, which primarily come from for-profit banks, don’t do much to forge lasting, meaningful connections with customers. As customers feel more sold to than supported during their financial well-being voyage, they may actually be alienated.
Credit unions can set themselves apart by utilizing community engagement activities to build strong bonds with their populations. These initiatives offer a “win-win” option to both add genuine value to your area and increase brand recognition, reputation, and devotion for your credit union.
Tips for engaging the community through activities
When you take into account various social, regional, and cultural factors that may affect which kinds of community engagement initiatives have the greatest impact on various community groups, there are more ways than we can count to engage your community. The following suggestions for community engagement programs are just the beginning of your credit union’s value-added activities:
Financial Education
Financial education efforts are a potent way to interact with your community members about something that directly affects their lives. By encouraging members to use more of your goods and services properly, you can strengthen your credit union while also significantly improving the quality of their lives. By providing the neighborhood with economic education resources and programs, your credit union can support the development of prudent economic decision-making. Make sure to design a program that enables you to measure its impact as effectively as possible so that you can use relevant data and continually improve your offerings as you create your financial education program or choose a partner with a turnkey solution.
Employee Involvement
A key component of what can win your credit union over to your community is “walking the talk.” Therefore, even though your website and marketing materials may now demonstrate how much you care about your community, one way to demonstrate this is to motivate or even encourage your staff to participate in community service initiatives. Employees can spend time performing community support outside of the company on monthly or semi-annual paid charity days that some credit unions choose. By fostering a culture of community involvement within your staff, you can make them accessible members of the community who uphold the values of your credit union by assisting your friends and neighbors with these kinds of initiatives.
Classroom Involvement
Building connections with students at nearby schools gives you a head start on raising brand awareness with the next generation and aids young people in developing good habits that will serve as pillars for financial wellness from an early age. The majority of students use relatives, friends, or social media to shape their economic futures rather than receiving financial education in schools. Your credit union will stand out as an organization that truly understands what its community demands and effectively serves that value by providing financial education to nearby schools. This fosters relationships with the upcoming generation of members as well as the development of a more financially knowledgeable and responsible society that starts with its youth.
Get Started Now
You can significantly increase the level of community engagement by collaborating with Zogo, a mobile-first financial learning tool that empowers and motivates your community members to develop the practice of economic wellness in their lives. The award-winning program includes gamified community engagement tools and an ever-expanding material collection of 1000+ bite-sized personal finance lessons on a variety of subjects pertinent to your community. To find out how our cutting-edge, gamified tools can assist you in engaging your community, get in touch with the group using the form below or request a demo.