Success Story: Federal Home Loan Bank of Des Moines

Client Profile:

Founded in 1932, the Federal Home Loan Bank of Des Moines (FHLB Des Moines) is a valuable partner to more than 1,200 member financial institutions throughout Iowa, Minnesota, Missouri, North Dakota, and South Dakota. FHLB Des Moines provides readily available, low-cost liquidity to local lenders in all economic cycles to meet their communities’ needs.

FHLB Des Moines provides a reliable source of short-term and long-term, competitively priced funding. Members, in turn, use this funding to finance mortgages, home equity loans, commercial real estate, small business, rural agricultural loans, and for other local lending needs.

FHLB Des Moines holds an annual election process that nominates and selects a board of directors. The board of directors sets policy and oversees corporate governance for the organization.

Client Challenge:

As part of the Member Financial Services Team, my job is to deliver value to the members of the FHLB Des Moines. In this role, I manage our board of director elections and nominations.

In 2008, changes in federal legislation affected our organization. With the ratification of the Housing and Economic Recovery Act of 2008 – FHLB Des Moines’ formerly appointed board of directors now had to be nominated and elected.

We needed to quickly put in place a secure and accurate election process that aligned with the new federal regulatory changes.

SBS Solution:

Based on a referral from another FHLB, we met with Survey & Ballot Systems (SBS). SBS agreed to an on-site appointment with our legal team to discuss our election situation. Prior to the meeting, we had some reluctance with handing over control of the election. That changed during our discussion with SBS. We were impressed with the passion they had for helping organizations with elections. With the strong referral and a great meeting we decided to trust SBS with our organization’s voting.

SBS has been our election partner since 2008. During that time, the nominations process and director elections have smoothly evolved from paper-only ballot processes to an electronic online voting system. Thanks to collaboration with SBS, we are able to provide our members with convenient ways to choose leaders that will help guide FHLB Des Moines.

Around election time, I feel like we put SBS through some fire drills because of the fast-paced changes that pop-up.

“SBS is quick to react and always accurate. Whatever the adjustment, SBS makes it happen for our election.” ~ Kim Cross, FHLB Member Financial Services