Getting to Know Affinity Plus

Introduction

Danielle 00:00
Hello and welcome to the A Plus You podcast, where we chat with our internal experts and community members about how finances affect us in the real world, translating complex subjects into lively discussions. Brought to you by Affinity Plus Federal Credit Union. I'm one of your hosts, Danielle Johnson...

Amber 00:15
...and I'm your co host, Amber Shanley.

Danielle 00:18
Amber, it's our first episode.

Amber 00:21
We did it.

Danielle 00:22
We're here.

Amber 00:23
We finally are.

Danielle 00:25
We made it. Amber, why don't you tell everybody a little bit about yourself? You've worked at Affinity Plus for 200 years, right?

Amber 00:33
Well, 15 doesn't feel like 200 which is great for me, because that would be a very, very long time. So, but I'm Amber. I'm our director of branch services. I started at Affinity Plus in 2009 as a temp employee, and worked in our branch network the entire time, and now I help lead our leaders in the branch network. So it's an enjoyable time, actually.

Danielle 00:56
So you've done a little bit of everything, is what you're saying.

Amber 00:58
Yes.

Danielle 00:59
You know everything?

Amber 01:01
No, well, Danielle, tell us a little bit about you.

Danielle 01:05
Well, I work on our marketing team, and one of my areas of focus is financial literacy and education, and we feel that's really important for our members and our non members to understand the ins and outs of finances, and we're here to make that a little bit easier and a little bit more easier to understand

Amber 01:23
With some experts,

Danielle 01:24
With some experts. So each week we're gonna feature an internal expert on the pod. You will hear from what's going on within the organization, maybe some market trends and how they affect you and your daily life.

Meet Dave Larson, CEO

Amber 01:38
So for today, we can think of anyone better to discuss Affinity Plus with and we are pleased to sit down with Dave Larson, our president and CEO, welcome Dave.

Dave 01:46
Thank you. Thank you both.

Danielle 01:47
Welcome to the first episode.

Dave 01:49
Wow. Thanks for all your work on this.

Danielle 01:52
It's been a journey,

Amber 01:54
A journey indeed,

Dave 01:56
Typically it is

Danielle 01:59
Dave, we understand you have a rich history here with Affinity Plus. So why don't you just start off by telling everyone how you got to sit in your own the chair you're in now.

Dave 02:09
Yeah, it's, it's a little longer than Amber, 22, 22 years I've been CEO for 11. And it's kind of funny, because a long, long time ago, my last final in college was Money, Banking and Finance, Financial Markets. I think it was. And I remember walking out of that final and thinking to myself, who would ever want to work in banking and the financial services industry is all I've done now for 31 years, which is crazy to think about. And I did some different things for some different organizations. And in 2002 I was lucky to find Affinity Plus, and really came to really enjoy credit unions and what they stand for. And luckily, in 2013 there was a CEO change, and the board thought I would be somebody that would be effective in leading us forward. And that's what I've done for the last 11 years. And I'm certainly biased, but the last 11 years have been my favorite of the of the 22 that I've been here. And I think, really, what I've enjoyed is we've really built, I think, something pretty special here, and we have a lot of really strong, tenured, talented people that really buy into what we're trying to do, and and have a good understanding of who we are maybe more importantly, who we're not, and that's something that I drive a lot of passion for, is really trying to focus continually on what we're about, who we want to be, where we want to go, that's really aligned to us as an organization, whether it be our purpose, our vision, our values, And I think for most of the most whether it be our members or our employees, we're doing a pretty solid job with that.

What's the difference between a bank and a credit union?

Amber 04:07
I completely agree. And one of the things that you kind of touched on there was falling in love with the credit union industry. One of the biggest questions we had asked often is, what's the difference between a bank and a credit union?

Dave 04:19
Yeah, and it's, a it's a very popular question, because it's one of those things. Oftentimes, if you kind of walk up to a credit union building or a branch, it looks pretty similar to a bank. And so really, it all starts with kind of, well, what are you about and what credit what makes credit unions neat or different is that, simply put, we're not for profit. We're not a nonprofit like Special Olympics or the you know, YMCA, but we're not a for profit entity. And so what I always tell employees, or if I talk to members. Is, if you really listen to those three words, not for profit, and you really think about them, that's what we're about. We're not for profit. We want to make a profit, but it's not profit at all costs. And so what that allows you to do, in my view, is you need to be healthy. You need to be financially healthy. We need to make money, but we're not driven by that. And something I'm proud of, and that I've enjoyed is that, as being CEO for 11 years, the board of directors has never said to me, Well, you got to run harder at profit. You know, we need to double down and go make more money, or we need to increase fees on our members to drive more profit. They certainly understand, again, we need to make money, but that's not our driver. And I think, to me, that's one of the biggest differences between banks as credit unions, is, you know, the big banks answer to Wall Street or they, you know, community bank might answer to its owner or its shareholders, where we answer to our members and our members on us, we're cooperative. And those are big differences between credit unions and banks.

Amber 06:05
Danielle, how does that fit into marketing? Throwing you on the spot there?

Danielle 06:13
Well, I think one of the things that we try really hard in marketing to do is tell our story and tell our differentiators. And I think a lot of people, I mean, sometimes us included, we sit as a team and we're like, okay, how do you tell people how you're different? And how do you, instead of just lecturing someone, tell somebody in a creative and effective way. So that's a conversation that we have all the time. We come back to that. That's kind of our core conversation is, how do we continue to tell that story of who we are in a very authentic, down to earth way.

Amber 06:48
Absolutely. And I think that ties in really well to what you said, Dave, like we listen to our members like that's who we work for every single day. And I think even from the marketing side to the CEO side to the branch side contact center. Regardless, we all work with our members, and we all have a great member story to tell, because someone told us, and members are so proud, and that's something that we continue to hear every single day, and that's where I think member feedback is just so key. It helps us be who we are and who we're not, be said.

Danielle 07:19
Hey, I completely agree. Like I have a favorite member story, I'm sure I know you guys do. So it is really all about the members. Like when you boil it all down and look at look at that end result,

Amber 07:31
I think that's what makes a credit union special, because I don't know if you would hear the same at a bank, you might hear something really cool about a customer they serve, but we have members who come in just to have coffee with us. That's all they did today.

Dave 07:46
Yeah, one of my favorite moments as I've been CEO was there was there was a time in banking where people that were banking at banks were having accounts open for them that they hadn't signed up for, and there was a lot of scrutiny on this. And I remember coming in and kind of like pumping my chest, like, isn't it great? We would never do that. Like, you know, we we don't have to say, well, we have our members have so many products or services. If you have a savings account with us and that's all you need. We're good with that. But I was kind of like, yeah, we would never do that. We'd never sell products or services to our members that they don't need. Or really, I shouldn't even probably say the word sell: offer. And our CFO said to me, Well, how do we know, you know? How do we know nobody's done that?

Danielle 08:42
Oh, that's a good question.

Dave 08:43
And I was, yeah, I thought it was a really good question. And he kind of stumped me. And I was like, well, let's go ask our members. Let's go ask them, Have we ever offered you a product or service that you thought we shouldn't have offered you, and we built on that and said, If there's anything that we've done as a credit union that you are very unhappy about. We want to know that as well. And at that time, I went to marketing and said, Hey, I want to craft this communication and send it out to our members and and I said, one thing I want to be certain is I want the the email message, the communication, to come directly from me. I want it to come from my email box. So if they can, if they have experienced something like that, or if they have a complaint, I want to hear it. And you know, at that time, we might have had 150,000 members, or a little bit more than that. And marketing, as they should, was like, are you sure you...

Danielle 09:41
Are you sure you want to give out your email?

Dave 09:43
Yeah, you sure you want to do that? And I was like, Yeah, I don't want to give up my phone number too. And I'm like, you know if, if I'm coming in here, kind of pumping my chest like we we don't do this. And then our CFO says, Well, how do we know? Well, let's go. Let's make sure we know. And so we. Sent it out, and, you know, I kind of waited and then

Danielle 10:05
Held your breath for like, a hot second...

Dave 10:06
A little bit, yeah, and email started to come in, and my phone started to ring, and I think we got over like 550 members who reached back directly or called.

Danielle 10:19
That's a pretty good response.

Dave 10:21
Yeah, on kind of something like that. I thought it was pretty good. And there were some really funny responses, like, is this really, you the CEO? And I'd reply and be like, Yeah. And, you know, there was some that was like, you know, I like an ATM basically in my garage. There was some about, you know, I wish you'd put a branch here. Things we always kind of hear from members, but the most common response from members was, this is why I bank with you. You're different, you care. And that really kind of moved me, and really made me proud. And, you know, we got a few that were like, Hey, I got turned down for a loan, and I'm frustrated by that. But nobody, not one member said, yeah, you inappropriately offered me or signed me up for a product or service that I didn't want. And you know, there was a little bit of a in my mind, but I was proud of that, and that was a story that was fun to share with our employees. And I think, to your point, Danielle, we do a good job of not only trying to tell our story to our members, but we tell our story internally to to the employees. And I think that's really important, is again, talking about who we are and who we're not, and I think that's a really great example of us saying, Okay, we don't believe we're that, but let's verify that one of our values is integrity. And I think that took a lot of integrity to go out and, you know, have that communication, and it's funny, because even today, you know, some members still have help held that email, and they will reply directly to me. And to your point, we all have members that we interact with. I certainly have some of mine as well. But you know, I think that response from members of this is why I bank with you. Was a, was a pretty cool moment in our history.

Cutting fees and giving back

Amber 12:17
Danielle, what was something that stood out during Dave's leadership at Affinity Plus, while you've been here?

Danielle 12:23
I would have to say, probably the fees and when we cut our fees. So Dave, why don't you tell us a little bit about that decision and why we made that and how, I guess, how that even happened.

Dave 12:35
Well, I think again, it really starts with not for profit. So in my view, it's easier to think about that. And the reality is, two of our strategic focuses are member experience and employee experience, and we knew that members, for the most part, don't appreciate the fee.

Danielle 13:00
I mean, who does?

Dave 13:01
Right. The other thing is, I always thought about the employee, like when a member calls to ask for their fee to be refunded, or to explain the fee, or to how do I avoid this fee? The reality is, those were never very easy phone calls. And so we had had a lot of discussion about this topic, and we went to the board of directors and talked to him about it. And I think you know, as I've mentioned, we understand who we are and who we're not. The board understands who who we are and who we're not as well. And so when we presented this to them, and of course, they they, they need to ask questions about a change of kind of this magnitude, but they fully were in support of the of it. And I think that one of the things about that change that we made, when we gave basically 10 and a half million dollars back to our members through that fee change, and obviously that's grown. That was the first year, but one of the things that I was really proud of, speaking of kind of member stories, is when we announced that to our members through social channels, who we heard a lot from were members who weren't actually getting the fees. And again, they were saying, This is why I love my credit union, and this is why I love Affinity Plus this is why I bank here. And that's really cool, in my opinion, because I understand kind of the cooperative side of the credit union. And another thing that I love about that change is one of our smaller communities that we serve as Mahnomen, Minnesota, and -

Danielle 14:35
Way up there, for those of you that may not know where that is -

Dave 14:38
Yep, and you know that came to us through a merger, and we merged that credit union, and we built a new facility in that market. And there were consultants, and there were others who said to me, Well, why would you build a new branch there? It's such a small town, and I'm like, Well, this aligns. Works really well with who we are as an organization and as a not for profit. We're not running at running at it from a profit standpoint. We're running at it from a purpose, a vision of values perspective. So it aligned there. And so we built a new facility, and we've been serving that community, but in that community alone, in the first year, it was like $45,000 that we gave to a very kind of low income area. And that has a tremendous impact. So sometimes you look at the biggest numbers, sometimes I like to look at a small number, or a smaller number. I mean, 40, you know, plus $1,000 is nothing to shake a stick at. But you know, you look at that comparatively to a Roseville or university segment of our members, seeing that impact in a new community that we had entered in Mahnomen was something that I was really proud of as well. So, you know, you know I talked about, kind of the Reach out, but also the fee changes. To your point, Danielle, more recently, is something that I'm really proud of as well. And I think that our employees are really proud of that. I think our members are really proud. And what I've always tried to do is hit on most of the most, because the reality is, you have 275 plus 1000 members. You have 610 plus employees. Every decision we make, not every single person is going to love it, but if you can get most of the most, the vast majority, to say, Okay, I understand why this decision was made. If you can do that, do it

Community impact

Amber 16:30
absolutely like in Mahnomen, even the small number that you're mentioning, it was even a small number of members

Dave 16:35
- Members Yeah,

Amber 16:36
That's the key to that. It wasn't 10,000 members,

Dave 16:40
Right

Amber 16:40
It was in the hundreds.

Dave 16:41
Yeah, exactly,

Danielle 16:43
well, and I know specifically for Mahnomen. And even after that, we did, we were able to offer mortgages there for the first time. And so we have a member story on our website about a family who was able to purchase kind of their home that they could support their extended family and everything. So the impact just in Mahnomen, when you were telling that story, is is so much more,

Dave 17:06
yeah, where traditional financial institutions weren't willing to help that family, and I am proud to your point of reading about an individual member's story, in the impact that we've made.

Amber 17:18
Absolutely, I think that's just so key. Because every time we open a branch, things like that, it is for that community. It's not necessarily like looking at the big Affinity Plus to a degree like it is, but it's not like the focus is on that community, how that branch is set up. It's bringing in all all of those things that make that community special.

Dave 17:42
oh, I was gonna say, I think if you look at our kind of branching strategy, we're we certainly look at what's going on in that community. But a lot of times, in my view, financial institutions simply look at growth, population growth. And so if you look at the West metro or the East Metro, you know, there's some communities that are really growing fast. We've stayed away from those. We've gone into communities that maybe are close to those communities, but where we think have a little more community feel. I always kind of say, let's look for credit union towns. And, you know, I think the West Metro is a great example of that, where maybe Maple Grove or Plymouth are very sought after for a lot of businesses to put locations in. We went into New Hope, and certainly right next to Plymouth. So if our member, if we have members in Plymouth, they can come over to New Hope. And I'll never forget. We were at the grand opening, and the mayor was there, and the mayor said something to the fact of you're the first financial institution other than a check casher or a payday lender to come into this community in 15 years. And she was really appreciative, and I was appreciative of that decision that we've made, and we can we continue to make those as well,

Amber 19:03
Absolutely, in the sense of pride in any new community that we go into, yeah, the city's so excited to have us there. We're excited to invite the city in. I think of shock if he has the most recent example, yeah, having a day proclaimed to be Affinity Plus veteran credit union day. Yeah, unexpected and exciting,

Dave 19:20
Yes

Danielle 19:21
well, and when you were talking about New Hope, I'm thinking about midway. I mean,

Dave 19:27
Another great example

Danielle 19:28
a great example of check cashing facilities, no financials, no one there to really take that community and say, like, we're here for you. We want to help you, and we don't want to be predatory,

Dave 19:40
Right. Yeah. And, you know, you look at Midway, it literally was a banking desert, kind of that area, and, you know, we went into that community, and we've done well there, and we've seen other financial institutions follow. So I. Think sometimes that's something that's interesting too. Is sometimes when you identify an area, all of a sudden, others are seeing that potentially an opportunity as well. So yeah, Midway is something I'm really proud of, too. And sometimes you forget about the things that we've done. But certainly I like how we go about adding locations. We really start with alignment to who we are, who we're not, and the values that represent us.

Amber 20:28
I couldn't have said it better myself.

Danielle 20:29
Agreed, agreed.

Dave 20:32
There's a lot of great stories, but the Pizza Hut story is this family, unfortunately, mom, dad, son, all ended up in the hospital at the exact same time due to various different issues. It's like a story you can't even imagine. And we were at a grand opening for a new location for us up in Virginia, Minnesota, and this member wanted to talk to me. And sometimes, when you're at a grand opening, members that want to talk to you, they want to know why you didn't open in this community or that community. And so this member wanted to talk to me and share that story about being the hospital with their with with their son and their their husband, and she shared that they were in a they were in a situation that if, if they were hospitalized, they weren't getting paid for their jobs, which is very common. And because of that, the loans that they had with Affinity Plus were coming due, or, in fact, were past due, and called in to us, and our employee said, Hey, we understand life happens. You know, took a look at the account. Said, we can do some different things to aid you. Don't worry about it. Let us know when you're out of the hospital. And we were able to, you know, do some different things to really help them from the financial services side. But really, what struck me, and really to me, what I believe, is what we strive to do, is she shared that later that day, when their family was together, there was a knock at the door, and Pizza Hut was there with some pizzas for the family and some coke. And the family had said, Well, we didn't order any pizza. And they said, Oh, this is from Affinity Plus Federal Credit Union. And I often say, you know, banking is what we do, but people is who we are. And to me, that's a great embodiment of that statement. I mean, banking is what we do. We help them with their banking, but people, it's who we are. Our employee who had that conversation, recognized that and took the time, had that care, and said, Hey, we can help this family out with some food that night, because typically, hospital food isn't always the best, and they were so appreciative of that pizza. And one thing she said to me at the end was, and she was emotional, telling me this was, and I was too. Was that, you know, I tell everybody to bank with Affinity Plus, and that's always kind of been one of my beliefs, is if you take care of people, you take care of them the right way. They tell people. And, you know, sometimes people get frustrated with their traditional financial services company, and if we can have our members, you know, being advocates or an ambassador, for us to say, hey, check out Affinity Plus, that's a great thing. And if you look at our member growth, it's very strong. And I think a lot of that comes from existing members telling friends and family to check us out.

Danielle 23:17
There's no better marketing than word of mouth.

Dave 23:19
That's right, well said,

Outro

Amber 23:21
And our members are proud. Well, Dave, thanks for joining us today and talking about credit unions, Affinity Plus. But most importantly, our members here at Affinity Plus, that's always fun to hear those stories and hear things that make you proud of being CEO here with us.

Dave 23:37
Well, you're welcome. Thank you both.

Danielle 23:39
Thank you for being our first guest.

Dave 23:40
Yeah, this is great.

Danielle 23:43
It's been really fun. Thank you so much for joining us today. Be sure to follow us wherever you get your podcasts, and to keep up with all things banking. You can find us at affinityplus.org

Amber 23:54
and we look forward to having you join us on the next episode of A Plus U

Danielle 24:02
Dun, dun, dun.