This Merger Story Shows That When Credit Unions Grow, Their Community Impact Strengthens

In a Nutshell: Great Lakes Credit Union (GLCU) significantly increased its assets under management and branch footprint when it engineered a merger in June 2024. The merger also created more opportunities to put the credit union mission of people helping people into action. When banks expand, they may risk becoming more impersonal and cut off from customers. When credit unions like GLCU grow, they naturally strive to spread the benefits of their people-helping-people philosophy more widely.

Chicago-based Great Lakes Credit Union (GLCU) merged with another credit union in June 2024 to create an institution with 100,000 members and about $1.6 billion in assets under management. The merger also increased GLCU’s branch count to 19 and expanded its footprint closer to the city center.

Great Lakes Credit Union Chief Experience Officer Patrick Basler told us it made sense to join forces so members on both sides of the transaction could access more and better products, services, and branches. But it also meant more financial wherewithal to do other things credit unions are designed to do.

When we spoke with Basler, we learned how GLCU goes the extra mile, time and time again, to reach beyond its membership to help those in need. It thinks of its branches spread across several Illinois counties as community hubs prepared to deliver counseling and other services to anyone who walks in. That’s the way members want it.

“No matter what stage you are in your financial life, we can provide you with products and services,” Basler said. “But we truly believe it’s our community story, our people-helping-people mission, that has fueled our growth.”

Mission is the operative word here. Banks and credit unions may provide similar products and services, but when you look under the hood, you’ll find their engines are different.

Banks are profit-making financial institutions, accountable ultimately to their shareholders. But no one “owns” a credit union in the same way. Credit unions organize themselves as not-for-profit cooperatives. Their members are their owners.

We think that’s a pretty massive distinction. Members remember their struggles when they organize themselves to form a credit union. That leads most credit unions to invest not just in more affordable and inclusive products and services but in a larger community service mission.

Not to discount the many charitable and philanthropic contributions of banks and other for-profit businesses, but that people-helping-people approach is the essence of credit unions.

“We take our mission a step farther to call it community giveback,” Basler said. “If we can build up our communities, we feel it’s going to make everything and everyone stronger — including us.”

Great Lakes Credit Union channels its charitable efforts through a 501(c)(3) nonprofit foundation, the GLCU Foundation for Financial Empowerment. It’s the credit union’s vehicle for increasing financial well-being for members, employees, and communities while effecting positive change for everyone, regardless of socioeconomic status.

That commitment takes many forms and encompasses financial literacy, community support, and charitable partnerships. One of the foundation’s most distinctive aspects is that it provides resources to support housing and financial counseling through team members certified by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD).

It’s a benefit rare in the credit union industry, and Great Lakes Credit Union members ultimately make it happen. Over the past year, the credit union’s HUD-approved counseling program has helped more than 1,100 families improve their financial management or maintain homeownership. Basler leads the team.

“Part of the HUD certification is our counselors don’t just serve GLCU members; they serve anybody in the community who needs some counseling,” Basler said. “They’ll do one-on-one sessions on budgeting or first-time homebuyer education and just really work with consumers to elevate them financially and prepare them to take their next step.”

In addition to the one-on-one counseling, HUD-certified counselors stage frequent first-time homebuyer seminars for anybody in the community who would like to participate. In an era where homeownership seems more out of reach for many than ever, Great Lakes Credit Union steps up with resources to reverse that trend.

Basler said foreclosure intervention is a chief component of the approach. These are not credit union mortgages but loans from other financial institutions that were foreclosing. Essentially, the credit union partners with institutions that are potential rivals to generate positive outcomes.

“We’re very proud that in the calendar year of 2023, we saved over 160 homes from being foreclosed on,” Basler said. “Those interventions saved more than $30 million in community assets.”

Basler said there’s so much need for counseling that the credit union has a hard time keeping up with demand. In addition to HUD-certified counseling, Great Lakes Credit Union offers a very robust volunteerism program through the foundation.

Each year, about 75% of the credit union’s 250-plus employees volunteer their time at food pantries and other charitable organizations — even at local schools to put students through budgeting scenarios or help them learn financial management.

“We volunteered nearly 4,000 hours last year,” Basler said. “That’s real work — hitting the pavement to really benefit the community and the partners we’ve built relationships with.”

Increasingly, that means outreach to the Hispanic enclaves in the Chicago area. It only makes sense. Basler said credit union research has revealed a large base of underserved Spanish-speaking potential credit union members in GLCU’s branch network area.

The credit union strives to convey its commitment to its Hispanic community through its Juntos Avanzamos designation, which it recently achieved.

According to the Juntos Avanzamos website, industry stakeholders sponsor the initiative to highlight credit unions that are committed to serving and empowering Spanish speakers through affordable financial products and services. The designation signals to Hispanic community members that Great Lakes Credit Union branches are non-judgmental spaces for discussion of personal financial matters.

“Juntos Avanzamos translates to together we advance,” Basler said. “We want our Spanish-speaking members and prospective members to know we’re committed, and prepared, to provide products, services, resources, and education tailored to their needs.”

The commitment manifests in many ways. For example, Great Lakes Credit Union recently upgraded the AI assistant in its contact center to use Spanish. The credit union also encourages team members to become certified as bilingual capable. Almost a quarter of GLCU’s staff — up front and in the back office — speaks Spanish.

Great Lakes Credit Union even offers a quinceañera loan to help Hispanic families make that quintessential rite of passage for teenagers more doable.

“It’s an example of a product we’ve developed specifically for our Hispanic community,” Basler said. “The Chicago area is very diverse, and there are lots of opportunities to impact underserved members positively.”

The list goes on at Great Lakes Credit Union. Our conversation with Basler painted a picture of an institution where community service is the chief animating force.

For example, Great Lakes Credit Union is Bank On Certified. The nonprofit Cities for Financial Empowerment Fund oversees the Bank On Certification, partnering with financial institutions nationwide to make safer, lower-cost transactional products more widely available.

In a financial environment where millions lack access to a basic transaction account and may resort to expensive payday financial services, Bank On Certification proclaims to the world that enough is enough. Bank On Certified financial products remove (or at least reduce) cost and access barriers and bring the benefits of mainstream financial services to more unbanked and underbanked individuals.

“For those who have never had a checking account or maybe had some issues with one in the past, our Bank On Certified checking product can get them into a basic account with no overdraft fees, a very low minimum deposit, and no minimum balance requirement,” Basler said. “Then, after some time of showing positive behaviors, you elevate yourself into a traditional checking account.”

Great Lakes Credit Union carries the low-income credit union designation, which means most of its potential or actual membership qualifies as low-income according to federal benchmarks. For example, they have a branch in Chicago’s Austin neighborhood, one of the most financially underserved areas in the city.

The Austin project came about through a partnership with the Leaders Network, a faith- and community-based social justice nonprofit based in Chicago. At the time, Basler worked at the Illinois Credit Union League and helped spearhead the project.

“We’re proud to put a HUD-certified financial counselor right in the branch in Austin, knowing the need in the area goes beyond just products and services,” Basler said.

The project aims to retain more money in the financially stressed community as opposed to seeing it migrate to outside financial institutions where it has less direct impact. Great Lakes Credit Union welcomed Leaders Network cofounder Pastor Ira Acree as an associate director.

“We’ve opened quite a few accounts and put a few million dollars in loans back into the Austin community,” Basler said. “And through Pastor Acree, we can now tap into the knowledge and expertise necessary to do even more.”