Strengthening community Peoples Credit Union

By BRANDON BRUESCHKE editor@messengernews.net

For a little more than 60 years, Peoples Credit Union has been providing banking services to Iowa.

Starting in 1962 in Webster City, Peoples Credit Union, expanded and opened a branch in Fort Dodge in 2016. Located at 1717 Fifth. Ave. S., Peoples Credit Union has become an important member of the community.

“So far, it's been an absolutely wonderful process,” said CEO Jordan Hensley about Peoples Credit Union’s progress. “When you make business decisions or decisions to expand or to grow, you always hope that it'll be a benefit for your members and the communities that you serve. So we came to Fort Dodge when we merged with Frontier Credit Union, and we took over their membership, and served our membership that we had in Fort Dodge already. And it's been an absolutely wonderful thing. We've really enjoyed the partnership with not only the community of Fort Dodge, but also being able to grow the membership as well.”

Hensley said one of Peoples Credit Union’s goals is to have a positive impact on the community.

“We are there to augment the community and to strongly build the community,” he said. “Again, the stronger we can make the community, the better our members’ lives are, the better for Fort Dodge as a whole. And that's our commitment to all the communities we serve. We want to be a partner, we want to strongly build a relationship within our community. And there's a lot of places that will say, they hang their hat on service.

“Well, to me, in my mind, to a certain extent, a service is table stakes, you have to have great service just to be in the game, or just to be a part of what you want to do. But to me, and we're very lucky with the crew and the team we have in Fort Dodge, but you know, caring about when people come in. They know our frontline team, they know who they're talking to, our crew and our team are a part of the community, too. So they have a vested interest in making this better for everyone.”

Moving forward, Hensley said, “Once you are established, and you create relationships that benefit all the parties involved in your membership, you're building trust within the community. It opens up doors and relationships that wouldn't have always been there or wouldn't always be available. And, to me, that's where the growth component is, where now we get to do the fun stuff instead of solely focusing on building our presence and our business in Fort Dodge. Now we can have fun and work with the communities and in the service projects. But you know, just get into the community more and just know that we have that established step. Now we can give back a little bit more.”

He continued by saying, “So now it's kind of shifted to … the next step into the future of how can we do more in the community. How can we do more for our membership? How can we strengthen the city of Fort Dodge, and it's been a fun progression just because we're able to work with D/SAOC and Meals on Wheels and, and there's tons more that we've been able to partner with, but at the same time, it’s been kind of that next step for us.

“I’m a true believer — and credit unions have a saying of ‘people helping people’ — and for Peoples Credit Union, the stronger we can make our communities and the more commitment we can make to our community, the stronger our membership is, and the stronger it just strengthens every point of the circle.”

While reflecting on the milestones the Credit Union has reached, one major sentiment resonated with Hensley the most — gratitude.

“It's just been a truly great partnership with not only the community, but all of our members there, and I would just like to, from all of our team, thank the community for allowing us to serve them.”