Abilene Teachers Federal Credit Union

There were no measurable objectives for 325 Day. We were just making a small effort to improve the mood in our hometown during the third year of the pandemic.

From a more general standpoint, the target audience of Abilene Teachers FCU is a broad swath of middle-income citizens in our 16-county, semi-rural area of west central Texas. The total population of our region is 180,000 - a figure that hasn't changed in 20 years. We offer consumer banking services only.

The credit union name is a misnomer, as we have had a community charter since 2006 in our two largest counties. If a person lives, works, worships, or attends school in Taylor or Callahan counties of Texas, they are eligible for membership. In the other 14 counties we are SEG based.

For this particular event, we were aiming at two audiences. The first was local business owners. We needed to persuade them to participate, preferably in a way that reflected the theme of the day. One restaurant created a special cocktail for the evening that cost $3.25; a boutique offered two pairs of earrings for $32.50 and several participants held prize drawings at 3:25 pm. At ATFCU, we had a random drawing for three $325 cash prizes. Names were drawn from a list of members who had conducted a transaction at an ITM by 3:25 pm on March 25.

The second audience was Abilene residents. We encouraged them to patronize the participating businesses. We used social media, TV ads, and our collaboration with the Chamber of Commerce for this purpose.