How to Start (and Run) a Bank That Puts People and Planet Over Profits

You could chronicle the history of New Resource Bank through the story of just a single phrase. From the bank’s low point to its high points, from its business model to the internal culture that powered its model, to the ultimate mark it left on the worlds of banking and finance, social justice and environmental sustainability. One phrase encapsulates all of it.

Vince Siciliano says it came to him one day in his San Francisco office, back in 2009. New Resource at the time was on its last leg, in danger of regulators shutting it down. The bank was founded with a unique mission — to be the first depository institution in the U.S. that would specialize in environmental sustainability lending. But less than three years in, it hadn’t yet figured out how to do that successfully.