Each week, for the next four weeks, we’ll be diving into the pressing issues and emerging trends that impact credit unions. This blog post is the first in our credit unions series.

As a credit union, your continued growth as a business often depends on your ability to successfully engage current and prospective members. When you successfully engage your members, chances are they will value the services you provide, you will strengthen your relationship with them, and most importantly, they will remain a member over the long-term. When you successfully engage prospective members, you open the door to drive membership at your credit union. So, what are the best ways to engage with current and prospective members?

Community outreach initiatives—such as financial education programs—are a great way to connect with both members and non-members and provide them with access to the guidance and resources needed to improve their financial health and well-being. A successful financial education program will engage and empower participants to acquire the knowledge, develop the skills and gain the confidence they need to achieve financial security.

Financial education programs create significant value for credit unions in other ways as well. Specifically, the information from these kinds of initiatives provides insights into the financial health and well-being of credit union members and the larger community. In turn, these insights can be used to help the credit union better support the individual needs and goals of participants by providing access to the right resources—including financial products and services. Additionally, the data can be used to support and improve marketing and outreach efforts by enabling the credit union to create highly targeted messages and communications based on robust consumer profiles and needs.

These insights are also particularly helpful with establishing new relationships with younger generations, which are key to helping credit unions grow their memberships. In fact, currently, half of all credit union members are now age 53 and older, 31% are Gen X and just 24% are Millennials; therefore, younger generations like Gen Y and Gen Z are large, untapped opportunities that can help fuel further credit union growth. With that said, financial education—or financial wellness—programs will be an important dimension of a credit unions outreach strategy in an effort to successfully engage Gen Y and Gen Z.

Community outreach and support are core to the mission of credit unions helping their members achieve financial security. Financial education programs aid credit unions in leveraging data and insights to better engage and communicate with the audiences that are the key to their continued growth, and more importantly, these programs are a highly effective way to engage and provide value to both members and non-members who seek financial security.

Read how we recently helped a credit union in Virginia improve financial literacy in their community and engage their members in new and exciting ways. Click here.