Your credit union’s success depends on clear direction, yet the demands of day-to-day tasks often leave little room for long-term planning. Taking the time to define your credit union’s vision, brainstorm goals, and create a structured plan can set the stage for years of sustainable growth.
Strategic Planning Consults by Synergent are designed to help credit unions build actionable, strategic plans that not only strengthen financial performance but also drive meaningful membership, share, and loan growth. With our process, your team will leave with a clear, measurable, and practical roadmap to guide decisions and initiatives for the future.
“Credit unions are navigating a period of unprecedented change, with stagnant growth, rising member expectations, and increasing pressure to innovate,” said Jennifer Berry, Vice President of Core Conversions and Consulting at Synergent. “Our Strategic Planning Consult was created to turn those challenges into opportunities. By bringing leaders together around a shared vision, clear priorities, and a practical roadmap, we help credit unions not just adapt to today’s landscape but position themselves for long-term financial strength and member impact.”
How It Works
Our consultative process blends expert facilitation with market intelligence and competitive benchmarking to ensure your plan is both ambitious and achievable. Over a four- to five-week period, Synergent guides you through a structured framework:
Week 1 – Research
This is the discovery phase of the strategic planning process. Your credit union’s primary Synergent point of contact and a Synergent consultant selected specifically to align with your credit union’s needs will work with your team to identify the focus areas for the strategic plan. Synergent will then complete any necessary research to support the eventual plan.
Week 2 – Brainstorming Session
Your Synergent consultant will be onsite at your credit union to collaborate with your executive team, board of directors, supervisory committee, and/or any other stakeholders identified as part of this process. We’ll work together to brainstorm ideas, goals, and desired outcomes.
Weeks 3-4 – Strategic Plan Development
Synergent develops a comprehensive strategic plan tailored to your credit union’s unique needs and opportunities.
Week 4 or 5 – Strategic Plan Review & Refinement
Stakeholders at your credit union will again meet with your Synergent consultant to review the plan, provide feedback, and ask any questions. If modifications are needed, these will be made before the final strategic plan document is provided to your credit union.
Types of Strategic Planning Sessions
While strategic planning can be customized to fit your needs, below are some sample modules. Typically, a credit union selects three or four focus areas. Each module can be adapted to a 30–90-minute session, scaled to fit your audience and goals.
Credit Union Health and Context
This module begins with compiling an overview of the credit union, including key statistics, assets, return on investment, capital, membership, and more. We’ll assess and document the state of the credit union, review prior strategic plans, discuss annual reports, and visualize performance trends from the prior three years.
Vision & Mission Alignment
In this session, a deep dive audit will be completed of the credit union’s mission, values, and vision. We will fully discuss whether or not the vision is fulfilling the mission and complete an alignment check.
Market & Member Insights
Identifying emerging technologies is a major component of this module. We also will compile and complete a comprehensive market analysis that covers member needs, competitive positioning, and current market trends.
Goal Setting & Strategic Roadmap
Defining strategic goals and objectives is essential in strategic planning. We will identify and set annual and quarterly milestones that will ultimately comprise your roadmap. We’ll work together to identify quick wins and to review strategic priorities, refreshing as necessary.
Creative & Future Thinking
In financial services, it can be hard to know which trends are fads and which are here to stay. In this session, we will host an innovation lab and future trends workshop to identify and discuss of-the-moment products and solutions, how they work, and which could be beneficial to your credit union.
Organizational Strategy & Risk
In this module, we will go back to basics, starting with the completion of a SOAR analysis (strengths, opportunities, aspirations, results). We also will complete risk assessment and mitigation planning, including the identification of team roles, responsibilities, and resource allocation.
Financial Modeling
As part of the planning process, you want to align your budget with your strategic initiatives. In this session, we will forecast projected financial impact and identify ways to balance your goals against allocated funds.
Logistics & Tools
This is the opening the toolbox module. Whether it is digging into how to make the most use of industry resources such as Callahan and NCUA or reviewing presentation basics in PowerPoint, this session is a hands-on, how-to seminar.
Next Steps: Tactical Planning
Collaborating doesn’t have to end when the strategic planning session is completed. Tactical planning is what can come next, where what we outlined in the strategic plan starts to be executed. This can include working together to build a roadmap, define the allocation of resources, set timelines, and more.
Key Benefits
Define a Clear Strategic Vision – Establish and communicate your credit union’s vision for the future.
Identify Key Performance Goals – Outline specific, measurable goals to keep leadership and staff aligned.
Develop a Multi-Year Action Plan – Create a practical, step-by-step plan that drives annual projects and staff activities.
Align Priorities – Coordinate leadership, staff, and stakeholders around shared goals and measurable outcomes.
Learn More
To schedule a strategic planning session for your credit union, please contact us today. We look forward to collaborating with you!
