The Headache: Money has been tighter this year, and will continue to be. Banks are far from Scrooges, but there's only so much to go around, and often one hears about more organizations needing aid.
Our Question: How has your bank addressed this challenge? And how is your approach working.
Come see what other bankers think, and add your own views
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Charitable contributions, your community, and your banks
Money is tighter this year, Banks are far from Scrooges, but there's only so much to go around. How has your bank addressed this ticklish challenge this year? How is it working?
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Laurie Stewart, president and CEO, Sound Community Bank, $339.5 million-assets, Seattle, Wash., told us:
“Supporting the communities where we do business, and improving the quality of life in those communities, is a core value for the bank and our community foundation. During these more challenging times we have managed to maintain a contributions budget which is a fair share of our earnings. We leverage that budget with volunteer hours from our employees. Both the bank and foundation focus their giving on organizations where our employees are participating. And when we support an event we do it with dollars and personnel.
“For example, at a summer ‘Light the Night’ event we sponsored a water stop. And a dozen volunteers and our mascot, Sounder the Whale, staffed the table and greeted all the walkers for the duration of the event. We sponsored the community festival and parade in Sequim and 50 employees and family members surrounded the float as it moved down the streets. Everyone was decked out in blue tee shirts and parade watchers frequently shouted out hellos.
“One woman called out ‘Thanks for my mortgage!’
“A fast-thinking loan officer responded, ‘Thanks for making your payments.’
We also make cash donations when our employees donate 25 hours to an organization. The bank makes a $100 donation up to $500 per year. If an employee uses vacation to support a charitable cause like a camp, we add three vacation days to the employee for every five they spend working for a charity.
“We have a spirited annual giving campaign and I am proud to report that for three years running 100% of our employees have participated!”
And, in case you missed it, last year Laurie herself climbed Mount Kilimanjaro for charity. After you read the answers below, you can read Laurie’s story in First Person Online
Below is a sampling of what we've heard from other community bankers. Add your own ideas and suggestions.
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today.
Let's hear your views and ideas below! (Editorial Note: Contributions to Pass the Aspirin may also appear in our print edition. While we will ask for your e-mail address, this is only as an aid to verifying identity and will not be used for any marketing or promotional purpose. The e-mail address will not be published.)
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Nick Pfeiffer, Marketing Officer, MidWestOne Bank, $1.63 billion-assets, Iowa City, IA
said:
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Money is tighter. The need is greater. So how did MidWestOne Bank adapt its charitable giving during the downturn in the economy? By not changing anything about our processes and giving even more. Our customer service surveying tells us that we are known in our markets as being generous and supportive of community projects and needs. We've built that reputation in our 77 years of existence. We're not going to let a few down years change who we are. MidWestOne's philosophy is to give to projects that will do the most good and benefit the most people. We work to establish relationships to foster the greatest amount of recognition and opportunity for bank employees to contribute in a hands-on manner. Our Bank operates within 19 markets. Each market maintains its own charitable budget and decision making. There is also a corporate budget for larger commitments and those that affect multiple markets. Additionally, the bank has established a foundation which supports long-range capital projects. It's very important that decision making is done locally. Our market presidents know their consumers better than anyone at a regional or corporate office ever can. They know they have the ability to work with the community projects that are the best fit for them, their staff, and their community. It isn't one-size-fits-all. In 2012 we will introduce a new initiative: The MidWestOne Bank Community Impact Grant. We will invite each of our branches to apply and compete for a one-time $50,000 gift to a project in their community. We aim to make this an annual program. As the saying goes, "dance with the one that brought you." We got to where we are by being a community bank. Even with a downturn in our earnings we stuck by our giving philosophy and have continued to increase our contributions over the past three years. |
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Larry Myers, president and CEO, First Savings Bank, F.S.B., $536.8 million-assets, Clarksville, Indiana
said:
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One of the smartest steps we took as a bank was the establishment of a charitable foundation. When we converted our mutual organization to a stock company, we set aside $1.2 million in cash and stock to fund it. The amount of money that is provided annually by the foundation was equivalent to the contributions we were making at the bank level. This allowed us to move a substantial portion of the contributions the bank was making to the foundation. This improved the bank's profitability and provided a more formalized review process for granting contributions. We established a foundation board consisting of bank directors and outside directors to review the requests. We defined very specific activities the foundation would fund, which makes it easier to sort through the requests. By bringing in the outside directors, we were able to extend our relationships with community leaders while not having to place them on the bank board. The bank still maintains a budget to fund other charitable contributions that fall outside of the foundation, though that amount is smaller than had been given in prior years. Our branches are given their own contribution budget to fund those local activities that are important to those offices, but may be too small to deal with at the bank level. By coupling the bank funds with the foundation money, we have been able to deliver overall more contributions to the community. |
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Rheo Brouillard, president and CEO, Savings Institute Bank and Trust Co., Willimantic, Conn.
said:
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Demands have been increasing over the last several years, and the requests do indeed exceed the capacity of both the bank's budget and that of our charitable foundation. As a result, we have tried to establish several parameters when considering providing support: 1. We have set an absolute limit of $50,000 for any capital campaign, with that in the form of a pledge spread over a 3 to 5 year period, depending on the amount granted. 2. We have directed our giving to two general categories: a. Grants to meet basic human needs (food pantries, homeless shelters, heating subsidies, and the like); and b. Grants to organizations that our employees are actively involved with. We want to make sure we support the efforts that employees make and to encourage them to continue to volunteer their time and effort to help local community organizations. |
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