In the spirit of tomorrow's Move Your Money Day, I'm happy to bring a story that shows off just how admirable and community-oriented credit unions can be. You see, a friend of my wife posted a pretty interesting picture today:
Okay, the picture's a little fuzzy, so I'll explain. Our friend Will is a student, activist, and an officer in the Queer Advocacy Network at the University of Wyoming. The background of the picture is a laminated newspaper clipping, I think from the Laramie Boomerang, showing Will walking in a DADT repeal march that QAN organized earlier this year. In front of the clipping is a note from its sender, UniWyo Federal Credit Union. It reads:
Will,
Thanks for all you do in our community. Keep up the good work!
Your Friends at UniWyo FCU
Now, there are a million reasons to move your money out of a bank tomorrow - especially if it's in one of the too-big-to-fail-but-still-personal-enough-to-buy-your-senator giants - and put it in a credit union. Credit unions keep a community's money in the community. They don't put your money into "innovative investment vehicles" that crash the economy while still managing to fill the pockets of the people who thought it all up. They don't invest in awful schemes like mountain top removal coal mining. They don't spend millions to corrupt our democracy. They don't make a profit. They don't have to be bailed out by taxpayers. Etc.
This picture is another reason why credit unions are where it's at. UniWyo is an institution engaged enough in the community of Laramie to personally recognize one of its citizens for being engaged and active in the push for equal rights. Apparently this isn't the first time, either. Will also said they sent him another clipping earlier this year with a photo from a marriage equality event. It read,
We thought you might like to have this as a keepsake.
Would Bank of America do that?