When storms, floods, and tornadoes strike, credit unions don’t wait
On a morning in late April, Karen Browne picked up the phone and started calling fellow credit union CEOs. Historic spring flooding had just swamped 40 Michigan counties, and the president and CEO of TBA Credit Union had a simple proposition for her counterparts across northern Michigan: pool what they had and get money directly into members’ hands.
Nine credit unions said yes. Within weeks, the Northern Michigan Flood Relief Fund had distributed 73 micro-grants of $500 each, totaling $36,500, to members dealing with flooded basements, displacement costs, and lost income. No government program. No lengthy application process. Just nine institutions, organized through the Paul Bunyan Chapter of the Michigan Credit Union League, moving as one.
“I reached out to all of the CEOs and said, ‘Hey, there’s a need, we’ve got some money,’” Browne said. “And if we all contribute more money, we can institute these micro-grants for our community.”
“You don’t see that with banks or other financial institutions,” she said. “That’s what’s special about credit unions; we started on the foundation of people helping people, and that’s still who we are today.”
A pattern, not a coincidence
What happened in northern Michigan was not an isolated act of generosity. Roughly two weeks earlier and 400 miles to the south, an EF-3 tornado carved a 13.5-mile path through Ringle, Wisconsin, destroying homes and leaving families with nothing. CoVantage Credit Union responded with a layered package that illustrated how credit unions can deploy multiple tools at once: a $30,000 donation to the Community Foundation of North Central Wisconsin’s Emergency Relief Fund, Storm Relief Loans of up to $25,000 at 4.99% APR with a 90-day payment deferral, and waived origination fees on qualifying construction and remodel loans for storm-impacted members.
“These are moments when showing up matters,” said CoVantage President and CEO Charlie Zanayed.
Meanwhile, 400 miles to the west, severe storms were battering Iowa and Nebraska. Veridian Credit Union, a Waterloo-based cooperative with 31 branches across Iowa, eastern Nebraska, and the Twin Cities, responded by pre-authorizing $3 million in Disaster Assistance Loans to help members cover storm-related expenses, including home repairs, vehicle damage, and temporary housing. Loans of up to $5,000 at fixed rates between 7% and 7.25% APR were made available with terms up to 36 months, with funds reserved through August 31, 2026, or until the $3 million was fully deployed.
“Unexpected expenses are a reality of life, but they shouldn’t become a long-term financial burden,” said Veridian President and CEO Renee Christoffer. “Access to low-cost financing can make all the difference when managing unexpected costs, and Disaster Assistance Loans are designed to offer support for those unique, timely needs.”
The infrastructure hiding in plain sight
Three disasters. Three states. Three credit unions. And in each case, an institution moved faster, more directly, and with more flexibility than any bank in the same community.
That is not an accident. It is a product of structure. Credit unions operate as member-owned cooperatives, which means no decision requires sign-off from a distant corporate headquarters, optimizing for quarterly returns. The nine northern Michigan institutions could pool $36,500 and distribute it in weeks because their chapter infrastructure already existed, and their mandate, people helping people, had never changed.
David Powell, mortgage manager at TBA Credit Union and mayor of Cadillac, Michigan, watched the flooding hit his own community.
“Credit unions were built on the principle of people helping people, and that principle has never been more important than it was during this time,” he said. “We wanted our members to know they were not alone in their recovery.”
Built for exactly this
The Michigan response was itself built on precedent. Just one year earlier, when a devastating late-March ice storm left more than 100,000 Northern Michigan residents without power, the Michigan Credit Union Foundation mobilized 27 credit unions to fund 174 member grants, while the National Credit Union Foundation’s CUAid program distributed $270,789 to affected credit union employees and volunteers. The infrastructure that made the 2026 flood response so fast existed in part because it had already been exercised in 2025.
Powell put it simply: “I felt it was needed for all nine of our credit unions to get together and help our community and feel like one.”
