CEO's Corner

Managing Director and CEO of BFSFCU Stephen D. Breed shares his thoughts about the Credit Union.

Our New Prosperity Magazine

Posted: 24 June 2010

Have you seen the new BFSFCU magazine? Many of you have, because we’ve received some wonderful compliments. Thank you so much for letting us know. But we also had a couple of members who wanted to know why we would go to the expense of producing a magazine in these times of financial uncertainty.

Our intention in launching Prosperity Magazine was to respond to an increasing number of our members who have asked for more financial education resources. Some are family members of current or former Bank and Fund staff. Some are spouses of current staff. Some are college students who are looking for a financial foundation. Some are just starting their careers. All of these groups, as well as some retirees, have indicated that they are either too busy to seek out, or do not have access to, broad-based financial education, and have sought this information from or through the Credit Union.

Surprisingly, the production of the magazine is not cost-prohibitive because the publication is also used by other credit unions, with a minimal amount of customization to allow for specific Credit Union promotions and announcements. We are therefore able to take advantage of economies of scale which the size of our membership base would normally not allow. We discontinued the old newsletter in favor of a smaller statement insert format, in the interest of expense control. The combination of these two actions allowed us to provide broad-based financial information (via the magazine) and more CU-specific information (the smaller-format newsletter) in a very cost-effective way. The magazine is designed to provide more generalized information as a complement to the specific product and service information we provide on our website and in our brochures.

We have received a lot of positive feedback from members who were pleased with this additional resource and we hope that you will find future issues useful to you. Again, thanks to all of our members who have expressed feedback about our new Prosperity Magazine. We hope that this new resource will continue to be of value to the multitude of members seeking financial education information.