Since 1954

We started because a group of schoolteachers could not get a fair loan, and decided to lend to each other instead.

That is the actual origin, and it is worth keeping in mind because it explains the parts of us that look inefficient. The first loans were written by hand at a kitchen table. The rule was simple: the people putting money in and the people taking money out were the same people, so nobody had an interest in a bad deal.

Seventy years on we have nine branches, an app, and considerably better bookkeeping. The rule has not changed.

What member-owned means in practice

You open an account, you become a member, and a member is an owner. You get a vote — one vote, the same as everyone, regardless of how much money you keep here. The board is elected by members and made up of members, which is why it contains a retired nurse and a farm equipment dealer rather than a slate of career directors.

The practical effect shows up in small decisions. A bank branch that is not profitable enough gets closed. A credit union branch that is not profitable but is the only one in a town of four thousand people tends to stay open, and the members who vote on it are the ones it serves.

What we are not

We are not the cheapest on every product, and any credit union that tells you it is has picked the product carefully. We are not open on Sundays. Our app is good now and was not good three years ago, and some of you remember that.

We are also not big enough to have a department for everything. When something unusual happens, it goes to a person rather than a process, which is slower when the answer is simple and considerably faster when it is not.

Where the money goes

Back to members, mostly — in terms and in the fees we do not charge. Some of it goes into the towns we are in: the scholarship fund, the financial-literacy sessions we run in high schools, the small-business lending nobody downtown would write. That is not charity as a marketing line. It is a co-operative spending its surplus where its owners live.