Marketing innovators

In this episode of the CUNA News Podcast, associate editor Brock Fritz talks to Colleen Desselle and Rachel Bond about their innovative approaches to marketing and business development.

While Desselle and Bond hold different roles, they have at least one thing in common: the Marketing & Business Development Council recognized both with top honors this year. Desselle received the 2023 Lifetime Achievement Award, and Bond was named the 2023 Community Impact Professional of the Year. 

Desselle shares her family history of credit union service and explains how she’s grown the credit union’s marketing and business development efforts over the years.

Bond details her approach to financial education, community outreach, and partnerships.

Transcript

Bill: Welcome to the CUNA News Podcast. I'm Deputy Editor Bill Merrick. In this episode, Associate Editor Brock Fritz talks to two marketing innovators, Colleen Desselle, Chief Marketing Officer at CSE Federal Credit Union in Lake Charles, Louisiana, and Rachel Bond, Associate Vice President of Community Engagement and Public Relations at Greater Texas Federal Credit Union in Austin.

Desselle shares her family history of credit union service and explains how she's grown the credit union's marketing and business development efforts over the years. 

Bond details her approach to financial education, community outreach, and partnerships. 

The Marketing and Business Development Council recognized the pair with top honors this year.

Deselle as its 2023 Lifetime Achievement Award recipient, and Bond as the 2023 Community Impact Professional of the Year. We begin with Colleen Desselle. Enjoy.

Brock: All right, Colleen, thanks for joining the podcast. Why don't you just kind of introduce yourself however you see fit.

Colleen: Well, thank you, Brock, for this opportunity. It was an exciting email to receive that people wanted to hear more about my story and you know, the appreciation that I received with the Lifetime Achievement Award this past spring with the CUNA Marketing and Business Development Council. I have been with CSE celebrated 30 years this past December.

So I'm going into my 31st year. I began thank you, I started here as a part time teller. And just to go back even a little bit further than that, this is my credit union. I am a member of CSC Federal Credit Union. My grandfather was one of the original memberships when this credit union was originally started back in 1943.

If you remember, part of our history in the United States is the war, and they had to come and create refineries here to be able to provide fueling for the planes and things that were going overseas. City Service Refinery was started here. So, at 12 years old, my grandfather came and opened up an account and established me as a member and started my journey of saving.

And teaching me about the credit union way. So it's a, it's a huge passion. It's been part of my family history. I consider myself fourth generation expanding that to my next generation of my grandchild as being a new member here. She's two and a half, she'll be three in December. So I am very excited about what credit unions offer and why I work here.

When I left from being a teller, I became a full time. Member Service Representative. I did everything but IRAs. Grew that position helped with balancing and closing the branch. We had one branch when I came to work here. And then I moved over to loan processing, became a consumer lender, became a mortgage lender.

And through those years we were growing and going from a single charter membership to multiple charter seg based. So we... had changes like the 80s where things changed in the industry and there were strikes and layoffs and we realized as a small credit union we had to continue our growth somehow so we changed our charter, went to that multiple SEG development and started recruiting businesses to come join the membership.

That's kind of what led me to... The marketing position, the Louisiana Credit Union League came to our management and said, you know, you're out of size. We really need to start promoting credit unions more in the community that we live in here in Southwest Louisiana. And so our management team decided to open the position.

Brock: Wow. So, obviously, tons of changes at the credit union since then. What's going on now? 

Colleen: Well we are now Community Charter. We cover six parishes, which in other states would be counties, thank you, just lost that. Six counties, parishes here. So, we're working and establishing those communities. I have a business team of three right now for business development.

I have one designated for one of the parishes, and then they kind of spread out amongst all six to get us into the community. We only have four branches right now. So, we're running into our fifth branch, which will go into one of our, one, two, three, four things. And then we're assessing branch development for other areas within those communities that we do.

We also just deployed some ATM standalones in some of the other parishes where we don't have branches. Lots of stuff happening. Lots of things happening for us. And it seems like we're always in a growth mode. So we're always, you know, we're always strategizing. We're always talking. We're always thinking.

What's the next thing? What's the next big technology? Trying to keep up with the services that our members expect from a financial institution.

Brock: So, yeah, you were named, you won our Lifetime Achievement Award from the Marketing and Business Development Council. Sort of always a little weird to talk about yourself in this way, but what do you think stood out about your nomination or your career?

Colleen: You know when you asked You sent me that question over and I was like, you know, I guess I look at it and I say I've accomplished so much through the years because I had a I'm a very good board chairman. When I first started doing this position, I didn't have a budget. Much less a plan. But I knew I had to do certain things.

So, as I did things, I just got the buy in. And eventually, I was given a budget. And then I created the plans and things like that. But, based off of what, Now, my staff pulled together my application. I had no idea. This was a complete and utter surprise for me. So I went back and I read through what they had pulled together for me and and you know Kind of like an obituary or something, but I looked at it and I'm like, wow, I really have accomplished a lot.

Now it wasn't me alone, of course, it's with teams, whether it was my marketing and business development team, or the management team giving me the approval to do things. But you know, it is a lifetime. How many people get to have a lifetime job that I have that's so happy to do the things that I, I do?

It's just been... Something that brings me joy, being able to help people. We're, I look at marketing as kind of the, the advocate for the membership because we hear, we hear their pain points. We, we hear what they want, we hear what they don't want. We hear when they're not happy. We hear when they are happy.

But some of the things that we were able to accomplish was, Because of our team and then because of our membership. you know, I think as far as like the achievement you're asking one of the things we decided on a few years ago was financial counselors, FICEP certifications, and we've been working on that. The fact that we have a strategic marketing focus, and then our brand. Our, our people recognize us.

I don't, I don't have to... Show them anything. I can just, I get people that sing our tagline to us every day. We're somewheres and they're like, oh, that's my credit union. And when we heard those type of things, it's like, okay, well, that's a great tagline. So we did different things that said, hey, CSE, that's my credit union.

And we get it all the time. So those are some of my bigger achievements that I'm proud of and appreciate. All the help that I got through the board, through the management team and employees. And then my own family member and family team. So,

What qualities do you think helped you go from part time teller to Every other role you've had all the way up till now in marketing,

Colleen: So, I've always known specific things. But I'll throw a cheer off there for Mark Arnold's group, On The Mark Strategies, and Sean Temple. This year we did The Working Geniuses. And so I was able to actually pinpoint my working genius. And so my working genius is enablement and discernment. I always said my mother's, my motherly instinct is number one.

And so I contribute that to some of the things that I do. So, when it comes to qualities, it's the fact that I have specific intuition. I like to support people. to help them accomplish and achieve things. I don't always look, and I kind of, kind of think credit unions are the same way. We do a lot, we just don't vocalize it, and we don't advertise it.

And I kind of feel like sometimes I'm the same way. I, I like to help people, I like to get things accomplished, but I don't always look for the pat on the back. I've had to teach myself with my team to give them. The compliments and the kudos and things because not everybody accepts things without those type of treasures, and so I've worked through that.

Brock: Why do credit unions matter in, in the community?

Colleen: Should be an easy question, but it is very difficult for people to determine what those pieces are, I find. What's that differentiator? May not be such a big differentiator from credit union to credit union, but from credit unions to other financial institutions, we should be able to be knowledgeable enough to put those out there really quick.

So why do credit unions matter in our community? It has provides a local focus. I talk about this a lot. We still have local people making local decisions. They're your friends. They're your family. They're your neighbors. I can't say how many times I get people to say, Oh, I saw your billboard.

Or someone told me the other day, they were like, I tell you hello every morning. And I'm like, Where am I? Where are you seeing me at? I'm on the TV and I'm like, oh, okay, you know okay, that's cool. As she's watching and she's seeing our ads and things like that. We have an economic impact. Either through the commitment that we provide into the communities through nonprofit assistance chamber assistance.

But we also have an economic impact by the membership that we help and assist. So those are some things that I thought about talking about just a minute ago. Inclusion of multi types of individuals. We also have personalized service. We vest in our communities through the services that we provide.

For such as financial wellness. We have been doing a lot of community activism, going out, meeting with the library, meeting with the parks and services, and actually scheduling financial wellness literacy programs for youth and adults. Our youth are so lost when it comes to knowing how to do things after high school. You know, not everybody's fortunate to have parents or guardians that can assist them. Most parents and guardians are struggling themselves. So if you can get to the youth and help assist them now, and teach them those things, teach them about credit. Now, I have stories all the time about my 24 year old son, and he's graduating from college.

And he comes to me this week and he's like, I'd like to move out. And I'm like, I would too, but how are you going to do it, you know? His friends will listen to me before he listens to me, but it's all good. His actions are starting to show me he is listening. So I'm just a parent and a record player.

And that's how you have to be as a parent. Eventually they'll, they'll get it, we feel the pains of our members. Because we are them. So, a lot of times we make decisions You know, we take out the biases of what We think, and we have to think about what our friends, our neighbors, our families are going through.

The big thing we always have to deal with every once in a while is the storms, you know. We dealt with COVID. We dealt with Hurricane Laura and Delta. And, you know, we live in a community where we pick ourselves up and we work together. And whether it's southwest Louisiana or, you know, New Orleans or Baton Rouge, we're there for each other.

Helping each other, getting us through the, the hard times and celebrating the good times because Les Bontemps Roulette, you know, it's, it's Louisiana.

Brock: Yeah. So it sounds like a very, very local family type atmosphere there. So obviously that's gonna go into these community partnerships. So there's a lot of that just going out and talking to people and knowing people.

Colleen: Being where the people are you know one of the first things that I did when it went to working and helping with non profits was finding out what our employees were associated with. That was a great start because... You know, then you got to learn personally about your employees and, and what they were going through.

So, you know, we have a huge following of a local breast cancer group. And we do Real Men Wear Pink where we have one guy that comes and he promotes the breast cancer awareness, cancer awareness as a whole. And we fundraise and, and put into that. We have done things with Big Brothers Big Sisters, which is another group that we help with family, youth, and counseling.

There's so many non profits out there that need assistance. And some are fine, and they'll let you know, hey, we don't need the assistance, pass it to the next person, and that's what we do. But it was, it was, you know, finding out where they're... Love lied and what their families were experiencing. And then we worked through those to, to bring those groups on and support those community efforts.

And it's just grown through the years. We do nonprofit work, but we also do community things with like the library, the local parks and recreation. But it is the, the, the simplest way to say is just ask.

You don't know unless you ask. I had one contributor of the local university one time. We were at an event and I asked him, I said, what made you decide to come participate in this event?

And he said, of all the years I could have, it took one person, and that one person just asked me. And they might say no, but they might not. And they might just say, Maybe not this year, but get back with me when budgets are available and, you know, we'll see what we can do. And hey, that's all, that's all you can do is ask.

Brock: And yeah, that stuff will hopefully never change as far as like conversation and knowing people and relationships. But I'm assuming technology wise or. Some aspects of marketing have changed since you started. So what, what are kind of the differences you've seen over the years?

Colleen: Well, you know, my first mass media was a billboard down the road, and, you know I'll tell the story and I'll ask for forgiveness later. But one of my board members came up and said, Oh, you know, billboard. It's at the road. Nobody's going to see that. Well, I was like, okay. So I pulled it down.

Well, then the next month he came back and says, well, where's the billboard? And I'm like, well, you said you didn't like that. Well, but people saw it and I'm like, yeah, and he's like, put it back up. So I put it back up. So, and we've done billboards, you know, we have a strategy about our billboards. We still do some print, which, you know, print in different periodicals have gone away, things are changing, but we still are true to some of our traditional marketing because we know members are still out there looking at some of those areas.

We look at the. demographic data to see where different demographics are looking and viewing, you know, video we know is huge. Viewers like to be entertained. So we're looking at we do more video, we have some YouTube and things like that. We have become more strategic in our marketing. So we have a program where we.

We know what our membership looks like. We know the demographics of it. Things as far as Gen Y, Gen X, Alpha. You know, didn't know there was an Alpha, but guess what, there's an Alpha. And, you know, what our legacy, we have a long term, long time membership base. We've been around, we're celebrating 80 years this year of operation.

That's huge and that's, you know, Not very many of us still out there that can say that we've been and I'm proud to say even though we've had Three total mergers most of those were just small Less than a thousand members to come in under our fold Majority of our membership growth has been organic and I'm very proud of that It's sustainable and we continue to grow every day 

Brock: what do you do outside of work?

Colleen: Well, I'll just re emphasize this. So, I've been with the Creighton for 30 years. I've only done the marketing and business development since 2003. Do the math on that one. And so I became Chief Marketing Officer in December. So that was an accomplishment. What do I do outside of this? Okay, so here, here's the big deal that everybody's talking about.

So, it's my 40th year class reunion this October, but tomorrow night, I am dancing with a hundred they're called the Twisters. It's the dance line from the past decades, the 70s and the 80s. The 90s and so on. So there's a hundred of us and we are dancing tomorrow night a Jazz dance with the band. So it's been the big joke because I'm 57 years old and you know people are like Well, how are you doing?

I was like, I'm keeping up my daughter's I'm on one side of the 30 She's on the other side of the 30 and she kept saying are you sure you can do this? I'm like I got this I might, I might be old and I might look old, but I still got a kick. I still got protege or whatever, but I can do this. But I also fish.

I like to fish. That's my, my thing. And I have, like I said, my granddaughter love of our lives. She got mad at me the other day because I didn't get a chance to go pick her up from daycare. Somebody else had to get her. And she asked me if I learned my lesson not to do that again, so. She keeps us stepping you know, so life, life and work life, it's got to be a balance and I have done a lot of traveling this year very happy.

I graduated with CUNA Management School, so I have that certification of, you know, it's like, but what's next, you know, what do I do next? That's kind of what I've been asking myself lately is, where do I go from here? I have something in the works. We haven't announced it yet. It's going to be something that we're going to do here at the Creighton Union.

We're very excited about it, but I'll let you know about that once we can I'm still here for a little while. In fact, we were just having that discussion earlier. You know, when I'm ready to retire, I'll be ready to retire, but My, my motto is, when you quit learning, you quit living.

So, for all of those out there, my age and older, just keep learning. Cause everyday it changes. Technology changes, regulatories change. But if you love what you do, there's no reason to retire. Maybe you just do something a little different.


Bill:  We now hear from Rachel Bond, Associate Vice President of Community Engagement and Public Relations at Greater Texas Federal Credit Union.


Brock: Hi, Rachel. Thanks for joining us. So why don't you just kind of introduce yourself, your role how long you've been there, 

Rachel: Sure, great. Yeah, thank you for having me. It's an honor. I am Rachel Bond. I'm the AVP of Community Engagement and Public Relations for Greater Texas Credit Union, Aggieland Credit Union. I have been here, it'll be 17 years in December. And I started as our business development officer way back when, 

Brock: Awesome. So what's going on now? Whether the credit union as a whole or what your What are you individually focused on?

Rachel: Sure we actually just completed an 18 month core conversion project uh, which was very exciting. Every department and all the teams were all in on supporting and making it 

a success. 

Individually and personally in my department we're expanding and growing our community involvement and our investments into the community to build strong relationships.

And just you know, get our current and future members through our outreach and our volunteerism.

Brock: nice. That probably feels pretty good. Yeah.

Rachel: It does, it feels great to be on the other side of it. And just now what can we do with our new core and what, you know, what else can we do next?

Brock: So you were named our 2023 Community Outreach Professional of the Year. What do you think stood out about your nomination and why do you think you 

won?

Rachel: Yeah, yeah. Thank you. I was thinking about that question and I'm like, I it, it's awkward sometimes for me to talk about myself in that capacity. So I know that there were a ton of amazing individuals who were nominated and shared this space of community outreach and engagement. So you know, it's hard for me to pick just maybe one thing that might've stood out.

But I, I have a heart of service that a lot of people tell me. So that comes from like my faith and my background baseline of just loving all people. And so I think that kind of speaks for itself maybe in this capacity. When you serve and you care so much, you never really turn it off.

And so it kind of carry it with me through my professional and personal life. As well. So I am very blessed to work at a credit union that kind of saw that value and encourages and supports that to magnify it through others.

Brock: won? Why is that so important to credit unions? Why is the community outreach service such a big part of your credit union or the movement as a whole?

Rachel: Sure. I think credit unions demonstrate that they're good stewards of their members money by investing and supporting the communities that we live in, work in, and support. So there's, you know, that's one of the things I think community engagement and outreach is about serving and being beside the community, kind of meeting them where they're at.

And all of us, like, uplifting each other together to make the community better for each and every individual person that lives in it.

Brock: so I believe you said you're almost at 17 years and I know that's not always been in this role, but what are some of your favorite uh, Moments from your community partnerships or outreach opportunities over the years.

Rachel: Sure, so I actually got to help found our financial education program when I started. We didn't really have any formalized program, and so that's been something that's really cool, kind of building it out over the years, work to develop it to meet our members needs. And then personalize it.

I think what sits ours a little bit different is as we can personalize it and tailor it to our non profit clients, students, and members of the community, and our credit union members as needed. So that really helps them feel engaged and feels personal to them. Some of my favorite community outreach and partnership things that we've done the Austin Disaster Relief Network CUNA has been a long time partner of the credit union, but also personally, I've been very passionate about supporting it and their efforts long before the credit union started supporting them.

And so they come in alongside people after a disaster like a house fire or an apartment fire, or even a natural disaster like a flood or a tornado. And so, not only do they help meet immediate needs they help people find dignity in in using resources after those needs, but they kind of, what sets them apart and makes them different is they come alongside these families and these community individuals and support them with their spiritual and emotional needs.

as well. So we recently last week just did our fourth wall raising for the house that Habitat, the house that Credit Union's built through the Austin Habitat for Humanity. And so it's been in four years now, and, you know, I think, I mean, cooperation among cooperatives is just what we do at credit unions, so it's just really awesome to see and build houses for for Austin and, and the Central Texas beside other credit union employees and staff.

I mean, we know that housing equity is an issue across the United States, and Specifically here in the Austin, Texas region, it's, it's very it's, it's, it's hard to get in to the home ownership market. So we just, that's one of our, our big fun ones lately,

so. 

Brock: how many people were out there helping you raise that fourth wall or how many people are involved from the credit union?

Rachel: Sure, there's five main credit unions and credit union partners that have a large like sponsorship and support. So our local Austin chapter of credit unions comes in at a high level of support so that way the smaller credit unions can also participate if they can't donate funds and fundraise the same way as some of maybe the larger credit unions in our region.

So everyone has equal access to like some volunteer days and supporting the house that credit unions built. I think for that wall raising, we just come out of a giant rainstorm, so not a lot of people thought it was going to happen. So we had about 15 to 20 credit union staff out that were ready to build and help raise that first wall and take the big ceremonial pictures.

So, 

Brock: Great. So back to financial education a little bit. You said you started the program. I guess, what was that like, just completely building it and then what, I don't know, what, how's it running now, what's, what's kind of the goal or what do you, what do you do?

Rachel: Um, you know, a lot of people find the investment of financial education to our members and to the community is very valuable. You know, the, the better our members are financially equipped the better our credit union is. And so we know that the community can benefit from some financial education and some financial empowerment.

And we recently just rebranded. Our financial education program into a financial empowerment program so hopefully there's less of a stigma associated with financial education. People are very educated. They, they know a lot of things, but we're just empowering them with additional resources and financial knowledge and know how.

And so we're hopeful to build that series out, focus on some areas of member engagement to help multiply that impact, 

Brock: And then what's the greater good program?

Rachel: So our Greater Good Volunteer Program is how our employees it's an initiative and an avenue where our employees kind of develop and broaden their service to the community. And so full time employees get 16 hours a year and part time get 8 hours to leave work during work hours and volunteer.

So we have. Group activities, areas of focus but employees can always volunteer on their own, individually with a non profit, a PTA, or any of their passion projects. A lot of times we see that our employees are already doing some of these things and we just want to support them whether it be with an additional financial donation to the non profit they already love and support.

Or sending some of their co workers with them to help magnify and multiply those hands in the community.

Brock: You have a big partnership with Texas A& M. How does that benefit you and the university?

Rachel: So as a, the relationship with Texas A& M is pretty powerful connection. And it benefits both of Aggieland Credit Union and, and, and Texas A& M University. We are the official credit union of Texas A& M and the core values. of the Aggies and the core values of the credit union align in a lot of ways that makes it an easy relationship to talk about and support.

They easily support us as well as we support them. And I think what's an item of note, we not just support the students at the university but the faculty and staff through financial education partnerships with Some things that they're they're living well program or their HR department's doing employee benefits fares as well as, you know, all of the stuff the students are doing, new student conference, being there to tell them about how to bank like an Aggie and and join Aggieland Credit Union.

. What makes us a little different is we have two brands. And so we are known as Greater Texas Credit Union across Texas. And we're known as Aggieland Credit Union kind of in the Brazos Valley. And so there's a very strong affiliation with Aggies. And so that's why we are known as kind of Aggieland Credit Union in, in College Station and that region.

Um, you know, a lot of people find the investment of financial education to our members and to the community is very valuable. You know, the, the better our members are financially equipped the better our credit union is. And so we know that the community can benefit from some financial education and some financial empowerment.

And we recently just rebranded. Our financial education program into a financial empowerment program so hopefully there's less of a stigma associated with financial education. People are very educated. They, they know a lot of things, but we're just empowering them with additional resources and financial knowledge and know how.

And so we're hopeful to build that series out, focus on some areas of member engagement to help multiply that impact.

Brock: how do you go and build partnerships in the community? How do you kind of make those first introductions or find organizations that you want to work with?

Rachel: So, we don't view community partnerships as transactional, which I think is really important to talk about. They should be mutually beneficial, so a lot of times if someone comes to us, You know, with the sponsorship or a donation. Well, you know, how can we create a relationship together? Not just how can we just give you money, sign a check and say, there it is.

Let's take a check presentation, picture posted on social media, and we're done. It's about aligning ourselves in those capacities. So we highlight our partners online, whether we're participating in a program or not. If they're doing, you know, some of our nonprofit partners might do adopt a family during the holiday.

We share those stories with our audiences as well, and one of the things that we've been doing is kind of highlighting some of our volunteerism in our member emails, and so in that capacity it sends our members back to the non profit's website to learn more about the non profit, doing like a spotlight so that way they can learn more about not only what we're doing, but what they could do in the community with that.

When we are approached for community partnerships or sponsorships and donations. We kind of make sure it aligns with our core values. We want to make sure it aligns with our membership and our members core values. We kind of have regions in which we serve. So we focus on those service regions first.

You know, if we're not in that area, and our members aren't in that area, it might not make sense to partner with a non profit that's 200 miles from our closest location. But we do look at it. We look at all of those that come in individually as well. So, we want to make sure, again, like I said earlier, we're doing, we're being good stewards of our members money.

And so, we, our members actually come to us a lot of times with wanting to support a non profit or a PTA. If they're volunteering somewhere, or if their kid serves in a capacity. We always try to take a look at it and make sure that we're supporting where our members are as well.

Um, you know, a lot of people find the investment of financial education to our members and to the community is very valuable. You know, the, the better our members are financially equipped the better our credit union is. And so we know that the community can benefit from some financial education and some financial empowerment.

And we recently just rebranded. Our financial education program into a financial empowerment program so hopefully there's less of a stigma associated with financial education. People are very educated. They, they know a lot of things, but we're just empowering them with additional resources and financial knowledge and know how.

And so we're hopeful to build that series out, focus on some areas of member engagement to help multiply that impact,

Brock: what advice would you have for. A credit union professional who is looking to improve their community outreach. 

Rachel: I think one of the most recent things I was chatting with a co worker about earlier this week, and, and we were trying to come across a way to explain something. And he was like, you know what, like, just make sure you're authentic. And I was like, that word is just perfect for what we were talking about and kind of.

popped into my brain for, for this today, because I think that if you're not authentic, it's, it's clear. If you're, if you're just somewhere for a check presentation or a donation and then, and then you're done the community will eventually kind of, you know, figure that out. So there's going to be times to share the news.

We, you know, we find that balance between We should tell our members and we should tell the community what we're doing. But everything we do doesn't need to be in front of a camera, right? So like balancing that out is really important. We do things because it's the right thing to do. That's from the top down.

Our CEO said that many times. I believe that as well, not because we're going to get publicity for it, but because we should invest in our community and in our, in our branch areas our regions we serve and invest in, you know, the next generation that's going to work for us or rule this country, right?

Like let's make, make them the best yet because we're investing back into them. We've also realized one thing I would offer advice is that your investments actually go further when you make a connection and build those relationships instead of just like a sponsorship or donation. So not just investing your treasure, but your time and your talent as well.

We've seen through some of our relationships where, you know, our employee is on a web page for the volunteer for a nonprofit, like in their shirt that has our logo on it. We didn't ask them to do that. We didn't even know that they were going to use that photo, but every time we volunteer, we know they take photos.

So that in and itself was just kind of like the full circle of that relationship building of, you know, we'll see sometimes employees pop up on a social media page of. One of our nonprofit partners, again, asking for volunteers or talking about what people are doing and they didn't tag us because it's not about us.

It's about the volunteers, but then our employees and our members, team members are there you know, getting highlighted. And so when that's organic and authentic, it's really easy because you've built that relationship. They don't have to say, oh, who do we need to look for or what should we be doing? To them, it's just like, we have all these members.

We have all these. Volunteer photos and like, oh, this is a great photo and it doesn't matter like who's in it, right?

there's a lot of credit unions in the Austin area that give back and invest in the community So we're all in a shared space and I think that you know, again, there's not competition among us there's plenty of market share to share, and so it's always fun to see other credit unions in shared spaces.

It's never like, oh, we should be the only one doing this thing. If the non profit needs it, or the community program could use support, then we share it within our networks. We collaborate with our local chapter, we are LinkedIn tagging each other on things. We're emailing each other back and forth about stuff.

Sometimes those of us that are in like the shared community engagement space. And so it's about making us all better and making our community better together, not just being the only credit union at something. 

Brock: What do you like to do outside of work?

Rachel: I I like to travel, so next week I'm going on vacation, which is very exciting. We don't get to do that super often, we have two little kids my husband and I, but so we're going to do that, but I actually start CUNA Management School in two weeks. I'm excited about that. I'm a first year for that.

And so I know that that'll be a good testing of my skills and development. And so I'm very excited to kind of see what that has to offer. I probably should have started it before 17 years, but I'm here now and we're getting started. And so I'd like to get out into nature and I love to run.

So we're usually out with a running club, or volunteering, or trying to do a park cleanup when the weather is not too hot just finding a, a way to be in, out and about in the community,