Success Story: Bourns Employees Federal Credit Union

Client Profile:

Bourns Employees Federal Credit Union (Bourns EFCU) was founded in 1966 to serve employees of Bourns, Inc., a global manufacturer of electronic components. Since then, Bourns EFCU has grown to serve local community businesses and their employees with more than 2,500 members nationwide. Bourns EFCU develops long-standing relationships with members through personal attention and easy, low-fee financial solutions.

Election Challenge:

Bourns EFCU is run as a lean organization. Everyone on staff wears a lot of hats to ensure the efficient operation of the credit union. For our annual board of directors’ election, we began the search for a new election partner to help us resourcefully administer our vote.

When looking for a partner, we essentially want to clone ourselves – our goal is to have that business become an extension of our organization. With our election project, we were in search of a results-oriented company that could add value to our process by providing high-quality voting services at a reasonable cost.

SBS Solution:

Through Internet research, we discovered Survey & Ballot Systems (SBS). SBS verified that they could make our hybrid election more efficient by reducing mail returns associated with our mailed ballot packages. They seemed to be the only election vendor with a real method to achieve this goal. Based on this demonstration and their ability to provide an online voting option alongside our paper ballot process, we selected SBS as Bourns EFCU’s election vendor.

The success of Bourns EFCU’s election depends primarily on member participation. Leadership needs to see that members are involved in the democratic process and that their participation forms a representative board of directors. SBS worked carefully with Bourns EFCU to create an election process that made sure this happened.

When voting ended, SBS provided Bourns EFCU management with a certified written report of election results. Our board was highly complementary of the contents. The data gave us insights beyond winners and losers, telling us what tactics were most effective and gave us the confidence to move forward with seating our elected leaders.

SBS’ ability to implement an effective process and provide post-event reporting not only added value to Bourns EFCU’s election, but strengthened our organization’s governance process as a whole.

SBS’ ability to implement an effective process and provide post-event reporting not only added value to Bourns EFCU’s election, but strengthened our organization’s governance process as a whole. ~ Elizabeth Lipke, Chief Executive Officer, Bourns Employees Federal Credit Union