Don't
Bank on it

Center for Urban Pedagogy and the Association for Neighborhood and Housing Development

We designed this Making Policy Public project with the Center for Urban Pedagogy (CUP) and Association for Neighborhood and Housing Development (ANHD) to help empower people to improve their communities and to help NYC reward responsible banks.

Banks profit from the billions of dollars that NYC invests in them every year, which NYC taxpayers fund. Banks are supposed to invest part of their profits back into the local community and the new Responsible Banking Act (RBA) became law in 2012 to help ensure that. The RBA provides New Yorkers with several opportunities to speak up about their community’s needs, how banks are responding to their needs, and how banks can improve.

“Don’t Bank on It” is meant to reduce the RBA’s complexity and show people how the law works, the importance of community participation to making the law effective, and the dramatic impacts banks can have in shaping communities. We did this with a diagram on one side of the poster to the right.

Another way of showing how banks can impact communities is by comparing two communities: one that receives investment (left side), and one that receives very little investment (right side).

We worked closely with CUP and ANHD, who also consulted their stakeholders and incorporated their insights into the final version of “Don’t Bank on It.”

“Don’t Bank On It” was officially launched at the first public hearing of the RBA, at Brooklyn Borough Hall on February 8, 2015. ANHD distributed copies of it to City Council members, other advocacy organizations, community members, and to the Community Investment Advisory Board itself, since it is responsible for making sure the RBA works.

Partners

Jaime Weisberg, Benjamin Dulchin, Jonathon Furlong, Ericka Stallings, all from Association for Neighborhood and Housing Development (ANHD)

Organizing Collaborator

Mark Torrey, Clara Amenyo, Christine Gaspar, all from Center for Urban Pedagogy

Design Collaborator

Christina Beard
Minh Anh Vo, Victor Schuft  (Papercut, Illustrations)

Special Thanks

Christine Gaspar, Sam Holleran, Valeria Mogilevich, Pema Domingo-Barker, Frampton Tolbert, Sandra Park, Barika Williams, Anne Troy, Tanisha Edwards, Ray Majewski, Mary Abbate, Susanna Blankley, Julia Watt-Rosenfeld, Peter Gee, Rolando Guzman, Sheila Garcia, Eric Williams, Roxanne Earley, Harvey Epstein, Sarah Desmond, Maya Wiley, Sondra Youdelman, Prem Krishnamurthy, Tomer Hanuka

We design physical spaces, printed materials, collaborative experiences, and digital platforms to support creative communities and elevate civic, educational, and environmental initiatives.

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