Your Weekly Update from Montana's Credit Unions

WEEKLY UPDATE FROM MONTANA'S CREDIT UNIONS | March 21, 2025

Happy Friday! Have you busted your brackets yet? Despite your "playbook" — or lack thereof— the NCAA calls the hope for a perfect bracket "absurd." It's better to focus on what you can actually control, like "coaching" your staff or "recruiting" new partners. We have resources to "assist" throughout this newsletter; don't "pass" on the opportunities. (Too much? 😂🏀)

FOR YOUR DUES

Women's Community Conference 2025 Slideshow

Can-Do Mindset: The Channel Your Cheetah Retreat was an empowering experience focused on boosting confidence and self-advocacy. Attendees engaged in transformative sessions that tackled limiting beliefs, imposter syndrome, and fear while learning practical strategies to negotiate, advocate for themselves, and embrace their unique qualities. Participants left with personalized tools to carry their newfound strength and confidence beyond the retreat.

Take the Lead Deadlines: Registration for this year’s Take the Lead workshops ends March 28. This interactive, contemporary leadership training program is designed to test, challenge, update, and enhance the leadership skills of up-and-coming and experienced leaders within your credit union. Watch this video to learn more about what to expect from Take the Lead from program facilitator Bill Nagle.

April is CU Youth Month: Gnome matter where you are in your CU Youth Month planning, you might find resources to help in our "Grow your Savings Garden" toolkit. (Clicking on the link will start an automatic download.) Are you looking for in-person ideas for growing your CU Youth Month campaign? Here are a few:

Host financial literacy workshops or webinars
Conduct youth savings challenges
Organize volunteer opportunities for youth members
Celebrate a youth member appreciation day

Be sure to share your plans with us so we can join the fun!

What We're Reading, Watching, and Listening To

If you're a social media nerd like some of us: You'll love this article from one of our favorites, Sprout Social. (They're to social media like Jean Chatzky is to personal finance.) It offers ways to measure and articulate the value of social media to your organization. It's a quick read with lots of charts and graphs for fellow ADHDers, and it will help you communicate your value not just to your teams but to your kids who aren't totally sure what you do, so they just tell their friends you work on the computer all day.

p.s. Measuring and articulating have been quite the themes in marketing lately. If you're more into watching than reading, check out this video from "The Data Whisperer" Scott Taylor, as he talks about the correlation between data and storytelling.

Advocacy Update

America’s Credit Unions Respond to CDFI Fund: Following President Trump's Executive Order on March 14 limiting the CDFI Fund to its statutory functions, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent emphasized the importance of the Fund in supporting job growth and prosperity. America’s Credit Unions — along with other key partners — responded swiftly, highlighting how credit unions use the CDFI Fund to boost local economies and align with administration priorities.

This Week's Blogs

A Direct Line: While releasing the fourth quarter 2024 results, newly designated NCUA Chairman Kyle S. Hauptman stated, “The growth in assets and insured shares is good news and reflects the strength and resiliency of the credit union system when operating within a mixed economic environment.” Are national trends mirrored in Montana? Read this week's A Direct Line to find out.

Personal Finance Blog: This week's personal finance blog covers the basics of estate planning — specifically, essential documents to get started.

2025 Lending Conference: We're springing forward this year's Lending Conference from April 23-24 to November 12-13. If you are as excited as we are about the opportunity to get your lending teams together for learning and networking, you can register today.

2024 Impact Report: Risk management never sleeps, and we're convinced neither does Donya. In 2024, our compliance hotline received over 550 contacts.19 training presentations were presented to 13 credit unions. We distributed 12 Compliance Vault newsletters to 200+ people and sent 13 BSA/OFAC emails to 325 people. We also hosted a webinar meet and greet with TruStage CEO Terrance Williams. This year, we’re looking forward to:

HR Suite Plus product (for our <$150m CUs)
InfoSight360 product and electronic lien filing

FROM OUR PARTNERS

Online Learning: Webinars, online courses, and virtual trainings are the most popular, convenient, and cost-effective training method for your credit union. Check out the upcoming webinars from our partners Credit Union Webinar Network and OnCourse Learning.

Unlocking Financial Engagement: Credit unions play a vital role in guiding members’ financial decisions, but to truly engage them you need to understand the psychology behind their payment choices. Download this report from Velera to start shaping a smarter payment strategy today.

Virtual IRA Training: Register yourself or your staff today to secure a spot to join the highly skilled Ascensus trainers for online training on April 9 (IRA Essentials) and on April 10 (IRA Advanced) from the convenience of your desk.

This is one of the events on which we’ve teamed up with the Tennessee Credit Union League to offer Montana’s credit unions timely IRA training. Look for them throughout the year!

PARTING SHOT

Gerry is off on some much-deserved PTO. Before he left, though, he sat down with MCU Board Chair Jeremy Presta for a Q&A on our Impact Report. Give it a listen, and let us know what questions you have.

Cooperatively, the MCU team

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