32. Dan Berger, CEO of the National Association of Federally-Insured Credit Unions (NAFCU), on How to Stay Focused on Your Association's Mission

How do you determine what your associations’ core services should be? And once identified, how do you stay committed to these core services? How do you identify adjacent markets and modify your governance to grow? In this episode of Associations Thrive, host Joanna Pineda interviews Dan Berger, President & CEO of the National Association of Federally-Insured Credit Unions (NAFCU). Dan introduces NAFCU, talks about his journey to becoming CEO of NAFCU, and talks about how NAFCU is growing and thriving. Dan discusses: How NAFCU is obsessively focused on ACE - Advocacy, Compliance and Education. If a program or service doesn’t belong to one of these buckets, NAFCU does not do it anymore. How and why NAFCU went from being the National Association of Federal Credit Unions to becoming the National Association of Federally-Insured Credit Unions. How NAFCU’s hiring matrix includes a requirement that a job candidate have experience being a member of a team, any kind of team, including a sports team or a music group. How Dan addressed his leadership blind spots as a CEO by hiring an executive coach and creating a personal cabal of other association CEOs. How NAFCU thrived during the pandemic by staying focused on advocacy, nurturing their communities, launching podcasts, creating an in-house video studio to increase production value of their education, and opening up their executive conference. References: NAFCU Website NAFCU’s focus on ACE (Advocacy, Compliance and Education) NAFCU’s 2022 Accomplishments Dan Berger Leadership Blog NAFCU CUPP Podcast