While most of us spent the holidays stuffing ourselves around the dining room table, a group of friends turned that same venue into
the start of a grassroots movement that’s taking aim at those mega banks once
deemed “too big to fail” – with impressive results.
www.moveyourmoney.info
is an initiative that encourages account
holders to withdraw their money from such big banks and move those funds to
smaller, better-managed community banks and credit unions. Because of their
community-focused conservative approach, most of these institutions avoided the
risky lending practices that virtually devastated their bigger counterparts and
are still lending to local consumers and businesses.
Since
that first dinner, the idea has spread like wildfire.
As of this week, the site – which puts today’s big bank CEOs in the same league
as the infamous “Mr. Potter” of the It’s
a Wonderful Life holiday classic – has
attracted more than 1 million visitors who have searched for local community
banks and credit unions in nearly half of the country’s 40,000 zip codes. The mainstream media has also
picked up on the campaign and bloggers have added their two cents – most of
them praising the effort; some critical.
See what you think. Go to the site, check out the
Capra-inspired video and then use the tools and links provided to
find a community bank or credit union in your area. Having helped communicate
the benefits of our community bank and credit union clients to their respective
markets for years, I think you might be surprised by what you find.
