The economic crash of 2008 and the lingering recession to borderline depression is leaving a lot of people wondering what to do with what little funds they have. You probably have wondered more than once if a bank is truly the place to leave your money? Would cash be better? Some people remember a time when banks were so strapped that they couldn’t cash a check and are starting to keep piles of cash for emergencies. With all of their recent irresponsibility and blame shifting you are probably wondering if you should give up on banks altogether.

If this is how your mind is leaning you might want to check out some of the development banks that are sprouting up around the country. Development banks are small, for-profit, insured banks serving a small community of usually low to medium income earners. These banks are usually willing to take on outside customers to help support their community. They have a high SRI (Socially Responsible Investing) number as their main goal is to invest in their community by funding loans to smaller businesses. Your money would not be going to fund multi-national mergers and your bank would not be considered “too big to fail”. They have a smaller focus area and give most of the perks of larger banks, such as being FDIC insured, while exhibiting none of the risks exemplified by some of the large banking conglomerates in recent years.

By putting your money in the Blackfeet National Bank or the City National Bank of New Jersey you are able to appropriate your funds to a bank that thinks more like you. Instead of acting in interests of their major shareholders and board they are acting in the interests of the community that supports them. You will see that your money is invested in your neighbors instead of assisting an acquisition that will only support Wall Street at the expense of Main Street. If you are interested in having both a competitive rate of return and assist in the rebuilding of distressed communities, putting your money in a development bank is probably the right move for you.

Some of the community banks are even resurrecting the concept of social credit, allowing citizens to rebuild their standing within their financial institution more easily than they could within the punitive FICO score system. Moreover, by placing your money in a small bank you are sending a message to the larger banks. You are saying that you are a person, an individual worthy of being noticed, of being cared for, and that the banking relationship is symbiotic. They are able to make money because you, essentially, lend it to them first.