my upcoming conferences

Hi, I'm William. I'm the Director, Online Banking & Engagement at Vancity, Canada's largest credit union.

My opinions and views are just that, and don't reflect the views of my employer (or, perhaps, anyone else).

my peers
:.BankerVision
:.Banking Kismet
:.Banktastic
:.The Bankwatch
:.Benry
:.The Boardcast
:.Buzz Canuck
:.The Client Side
:.CU Communicator
:.CU Employee
:.CU Hype
:.The CU Loop
:.Currency Marketing
:.Denise Wymore
:.Doug True
:.EverythingCU
:.The Financial Brand
:.Marketing ROI
:.NetBanker
:.Nexus Connection
:.Noise to Signal
:.Open Source CU
:.ShoreBank Voices
:.Social Signal
:.The Story
:.Tinfoiling
:.Trey Reeme
:.Verity's Our Voices

What does Vancity do in the community anyway?

A major project I've been working on for the past few months is spearheading the re-architecting and rewriting of all the content in the community area of vancity.com. It's been a massive project because, well, frankly we never expained the myriad ways we do good things in our community everyday. A little gap I think.

In other words, the very reason I wanted to work at Vancity, and the main thing that keeps me excited to come to work everyday was almost entirely absent from our website. It's a long story.

So, I'm so extraordinarily pleased to share with you our new MyCommunity area.

Inside you'll find out about our four pillars of community leadership (Acting on Climate Change, Facing Poverty, Growing the Social Economy and Being Accountable), what we do in our communities, why we do what we do, what financial products we have that help create positive change, how we help the not-for-profit sector in our local economy, what grants we give out and whole lot more. This project has been absolutely amazing, and I'm really excited about sharing it with you.

I'd love to hear what you all think, especially other CU folks.

Labels: banking, corporate responsibility, credit union, design, environment, microcredit, poverty, social economy, underbanked, vancity

posted on Wednesday, April 02, 2008

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6 comments
Sometimes just writing that stuff, even internally, is the most important part. Putting it in writing external is a great way to hold the CU accountable for its actions. Any current or prospective member instantly knows what you guys stand for. Great work Waz!
comment from Robbie on April 02, 2008

Hi Robbie. You're so right. The process of amalgamating, organizing and writing this content was clarifying and enlightening. It was a fascinating and informative process.

And it's such important work.
comment from

wazaroff on April 03, 2008

This is great stuff. Stunning that it wasn't on the web before you grabbed a hold of it. I guess no one there thought it was important enough (the info or putting it on the web).
comment from

everythingcu on April 03, 2008

Hi Morriss, sorry for my delayed response to you, my friend.

In fact, it was quite the opposite, it was SO important people kind of froze over it. It was like choosing one baby photo to save in a fire (weird analogy but that's the best I can do). It was a great and important process to research and document all that we've done and continue to do.
comment from

wazaroff on April 04, 2008

William:

WOW -- the updated mycommunity section looks so much better. In addition to updating/improving the existing content, you've also brought together a lot of the content that wasn't on the sight before -- some of the most tangible evidence of how we relate to our communities.

I think your comment above was correct -- it wasn't that we didn't think it important to be there, it was more that we were worried about getting it right.

I also feel that how we define and articulate our community work has evolved quite a bit over the past year, and that increased organizational clarity is borne out on the way you've rejuvenated the site.

I'm especially glad that you put links to Change Everything and we all profit (not to mention the bike share story).

Congrats!

Alison
comment from

Anonymous on April 06, 2008

Thanks Alison. I still see so many opportunities and ability to further add clarity around what we do, but it is such an amazing and critical step forward.

It is one of those cases where done is better than perfect, and we had to take this big leap to keep taking small steps.

Thanks for the comment!
comment from

wazaroff on April 06, 2008

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