Photo Tour of the Gates Foundation Visitor Center

The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation manages a $40 billion endowment. The foundation focuses on strategies where it can make the biggest impact to reduce inequities around the world in the areas of health, poverty and education, developing strategies to focus on each of these areas globally and in the U.S.

The foundation is focused on results and makes adjustments when a project isn’t working.

The Gates Foundation Visitor Center in Seattle beautifully tells the story of the foundation’s work. Visit for just 30 minutes and you’ll leave with a clear understanding of the work being done.

What does all this have to do with credit unions? Well, each year at the CUES School of Strategic Marketing I, we go on a field trip to the Gates Foundation Visitor Center. Why should credit union marketers visit the Gates Foundation Visitor Center? Like the foundation, CU marketers need to be able to align their work to their credit unions’ overall strategic goals. They need to be able to adjust when things aren’t working. And they need to measure results against goals.

Plus, credit union marketers can find inspiration here at every turn.

Let’s explore through these pictures from the school’s trip last week.

The Foundation Family

These are some of the people working with and benefitting from the foundation. Could you showcase credit union members (a first time car buyer, new home owner, small business member) in a similar way?

Approach to Giving

Does your credit union have a strategy for charitable giving? Does it look like this?

Adjusting Strategy

How does your CU compare to this statement?

Access to Financial Services

One of the ways the Gates Foundation is working on poverty is by expanding access to financial services for the world’s poor. In many areas this means mobile technology. Does your credit union have a mobile strategy?

Working Together