Since the Center for Member Well-Being launched in July 2025, and even before that, there is one word that has been on credit unions’ minds when it comes to financial well-being (FWB): measurement.
Despite many past efforts, most credit unions don’t feel that they have a good way to understand members’ FWB, measure the impact of their efforts, understand whether they are moving the needle, and demonstrate the return on investment of their FWB initiatives. Most importantly, very few have a data-backed way to answer the question that is core to the credit union mission: Are our members financially better off because of us?
Our new FWB measurement working group is designed to tackle this issue, and, given the importance of this work, we thought we would take you along for the ride.
A bit about the FWB measurement working group
The working group is led by our Member Well-Being fellow, Dr. Mat Despard, and we have over 27 individuals participating from 12 sponsoring credit unions.
The working group will unfold over six sessions between late summer and early fall, with the working group covering:
- Current measurement and evaluation practices and goals
- The potential and limitations of survey data
- The potential and limitations of administrative data
- FWB data infrastructure, capabilities, and competencies
- Prioritization of key FWB indicators for measurement and evaluation
Our hope is that by the end of this initiative, we will be able to co-develop a set of best practices for measurement and evaluation that balance rigor with what’s actually feasible given each credit union’s capacity, resources, data infrastructure, and product mix.
Measuring Member Financial Well-Being, Where We Stand Today
Blog 1
