One mission, two associations, endless value. In August, GreenStone’s board of directors and executive team held a joint board meeting with neighboring association Farm Credit Illinois. The goal – collaboration, networking and learning. The result…read on to hear about the value of the experience from four of your board members.
Gene College
Collaboration = “the act of working together.” This is the reason that the board and management of GreenStone and Farm Credit Illinois held a joint session in August as a part of our 2024 planning process. It was an opportunity to share our business model, including the unique technology tools that are available to our customers. Farm Credit Illinois informed us on how they operate in their marketplace. An outside speaker also gave a thought-provoking presentation on the future state of lending.
GreenStone exists to be America’s first choice for financial services. Farm Credit Illinois also does an excellent job of meeting their customer’s needs. Even though there are some differences in commodity concentrations, business practices, etc., it was very clear that both organizations are committed to being the very best in their individual marketplaces.
These types of joint sessions are very valuable. We can learn from others which may ultimately benefit our customers and, likewise, can offer some of our insights to other organizations. The opportunity of getting to know other association board members was also great. Each farm operation has its own challenges and opportunities and I gained beneficial information from such conversations. Hopefully, we can have additional joint sessions with other associations in the future.
We are all working diligently for a common cause!
Ron Lucas
When this joint meeting was first announced, I honestly wasn’t certain if we’d get value out of it. After we did meet, it was very enlightening! We have a lot in common and yet different in many ways. GreenStone is more diverse in our customer’s commodities and farming practices. We both put a lot of effort in supporting young, beginning, and small farmers. Also, both associations prioritize giving back a portion of our earnings to our members through Patronage dividends annually. And opportunities were identified to possibly collaborate on technology or other areas down the road. Overall it was a good meeting get to know the other directors who hold the same goals in mind as we do – to do the best we can for our fellow borrowers.
Dennis Muchmore
It was an excellent joint board meeting between Farm Credit Illinois and GreenStone. The opportunity to share common issues and solutions to those issues doesn’t happen as often as we would all like, and focusing on just two organizations over the two days allowed extra scrutiny on certain commonalities.
Although my interest was piqued due to Illinois board members being from towns near my hometown, drawing on their strength and common experiences with our board members enhanced the two days. I feel even more confidence in the Farm Credit System and in GreenStone.
Michael Timmer
I imagine we have all had a person in our lives who we would like to learn from or find out what makes them successful; Farm Credit associations are no different. GreenStone does look at how other associations meet the needs of their customers while fulfilling the Farm Credit mission. We recently met with Farm Credit Illinois for that purpose. Our board of directors and executive teams had an opportunity to meet and discuss the challenges each association faces, share ideas, and see how each of us returns value to our members. Both associations have strong financial positions, high customer satisfaction scores, and work hard to help young, beginning, and small farmers. Farm Credit Illinois had some particularly innovative ideas for helping the young and beginning farmers they serve.
Similarities aside, the associations achieve this success while maintaining quite different loan portfolios. One of GreenStone's strengths is the diversity of our loan portfolio. While meeting the financial needs of a diverse customer base is challenging, it provides stability to the association by limiting the fiscal impact of cycles in any one industry. Developing new software and integrating it into the workforce to improve efficiency is a challenge that both associations face. GreenStone has been a leader in this area. Our information technology department has been working to develop software that will improve the efficiency of GreenStone and to keep the costs down has partnered with several associations to share the cost of these software enhancements.
At the close of our meeting time together we all agreed it was beneficial and would look for opportunities to meet again. . . there is more to learn.
To view the article in the online 2023 Fall Partners Magazine, click here.
