C-suite first: How Great Lakes Credit Union hardwired grassroots advocacy into its org chart

Great Lakes Credit Union re-engineered its leadership team, training cadence, and media strategy so that advocacy expertise permeates every level—from executive scorecards to member-facing postcards in 22 branches.

Steven Bugg didn't launch Great Lakes Credit Union's newest grassroots advocacy blitz with hashtags or postcards—he rewrote the org chart. Since becoming CEO, he hired a former league executive with advocacy skills, absorbed a merger partner whose CEO sits on Illinois' league board, and brought on an executive with banking experience, COO Elizabeth Osborne, fresh from testifying before the House Financial Services Committee on AI in June 2024. All of it, Bugg said, was so that advocacy expertise would have a place in every C-suite conversation, not just on the CEO's to-do list.

Mobilizing employees, volunteers, and members to speak directly to their lawmakers has become the movement's most reliable political insurance policy. America's Credit Unions credits grassroots efforts with generating and sending more than 845,000 constituent messages (as of May 30, 2025) to lawmakers as part of the Don't Tax My Credit Union campaign.

Bugg frames advocacy as strategic risk management. By putting voters' voices ahead of lobbyists' talking points, credit unions make it far harder for Congress or state capitols to erode the cooperative difference.

"We strongly believe in the cooperative spirit and model we operate under, and if we're not advocating for it, no one else is," he told directors when they set advocacy goals for him and thus the entire executive team. That mandate now reaches Capitol Hill, the Illinois state capital of Springfield, and a half-dozen city councils, giving GLCU a three-tier influence footprint the CEO calls essential for advancing the movement forward at every level.

Unity without uniformity

Bugg is quick to note that unanimity isn't required. Credit unions, including Chicago-based GLCU, can disagree on individual bills, "but we keep marching together on shared priorities," he said. This reassures boards that principled dissent won't exile a credit union from league strategy sessions, Bugg added.

Behind the scenes, his team squeezes more value from national resources by customizing America's Credit Unions toolkits, personalizing slide decks, email copy, and social media cards into "house-branded" assets that slot neatly into GLCU's intranet, CEO townhall decks, and member newsletters.

Staff instruction first

Every campaign begins inside the walls. Intranet explainers, town hall calls, and 15-minute micro trainings equip frontline staff to field policy questions on the fly. When the refreshed Don't Tax My Credit Union push hit GLCU members' inboxes this spring, emails drew a 37 percent open rate, 8 percent clickthrough, and roughly 750 member letters and postcards—"far higher than past efforts that skipped the staff first step," Bugg said.

Branches became micro advocacy hubs. Participating in this effort with other credit unions, GLCU enacted QR code postcard stations in 22 lobbies, inviting members to message lawmakers—and sparked conversations about credit union differences that members "never bring up on their own."

Storytelling remains the secret sauce. During Illinois' interchange fight on tips, GLCU ditched balance sheet jargon and asked members to imagine a restaurant server losing income because patrons could no longer tip by card.

The member-facing message "couldn't come across as self-serving," he said, especially after merchants flooded the airwaves with their own narrative. Legislative meetings that followed, he said, "felt less like a fee debate and more like a customer experience discussion, " a shift that kept credit union voices credible.

Proof in philanthropy—and the airwaves

GLCU backs policy arguments with community receipts. In radio interviews and in-branch scripts, he spotlights the GLCU Foundation for Financial Empowerment as living proof of how cooperative economics return value locally. Through the GLCU Foundation, this translates into housing counseling, financial literacy, and emergency relief.

Bugg appears monthly on a Chicago Money Matters WGN radio segment, which magnifies that message. The show pulls suburban and downstate listeners, and Bugg's rapport with host John Hanson routinely stretches the airtime and keeps the dialogue authentic.

"You can't turn it into a product pitch," Bugg said of WGN's policy regarding program hosts, but listener call-ins now shape future segments and even branch talking points.

Keeping the momentum going

Surveys show advocacy recall plummets in 30 days, so the GLCU team shares the message continuously on branch screens, CEO vlogs, and quarterly action alerts. He sees it as continuous improvement rather than sprints from campaign to campaign.

"I can't ask my team to lead those conversations if I'm not willing to lead them first," he said, underscoring that grassroots momentum must start at the top.

The constant motion—staff refreshers, member touchpoints, media loops—keeps GLCU ready for whatever bill lands next in Illinois or on Capitol Hill.

Even more examples of advocacy in action

Listen to the A CU Seat at the Table podcast episode, Rooted in Action, to hear from other credit unions and leagues on how they are building grassroots advocacy efforts into their daily operations.