Gesa Credit Union provided a gift of $1 million to a group that has proposed building a carousel in Kennewick, Washington. In return, the credit union received the naming rights to the carousel for twelve years.
The carousel will be called "The Carousel of Dreams presented by Gesa Credit Union."
While this donation will enhance the stature of the credit union CEO in the local community, I'm not sure this gift is in the best interest of the members of the credit union, especially since the credit union has only paid $3.6 million in dividends (interest) to its members on their savings through the first six mionths of 2012.
After all, the donation of a credit union’s members’ money to an outside party is a highly sensitive issue.
Read the story.
It appears the CU CEO is speaking for her members. If the members want to support a horsey ride that goes in circles they can do it of their own free will. Who died and made the CU CEO Pope to determine what is the best use of the members money? Pay the $1M in dividends to the members and encourage them to contribute to the horsey ride. How about feeding the needy and not the greedy? If the horse foundation can't get the support of the community that should tell you something about the level of community support. In these hard economic times I am certain the members would appreciate a robust dividend over a horsey ride.
ReplyDeleteOK, let's get real here; the credit union is paying about $7.2 million per year in dividends which would equal $86.4 million over the 12 year naming rights time frame (assuming no growth or increase in interest rates). Therefore, we can see that the lost interest to the members over that time period equals 1.1% of potential dividends and that assumes that the $1 million is used to pay dividends and not spent on some other form of marketing.
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