A much bigger idea.

The tension

During the financial crisis, every bank was advertising that it was still lending. Struggling small businesses often couldn't qualify, so the message rang hollow.

The idea

Instead of saying it was there for small businesses, the bank spent its advertising money proving it. The Croghan Colonial Bank Small Business Reinvention Scholarship, created with Downtown Fremont, Inc., sent six local business owners to Jon Schallert's Destination Business Boot Camp in Colorado, with monthly coaching when they came home. There, they learned how to market and merchandise more effectively and how to draw customers in by becoming "destination" businesses: the kind of place people will go out of their way to visit.

When local businesses grow, communities get stronger.

The result

Owners who had never banked there began to, and some recommended the bank to individuals and moved wealth-management accounts over. The idea didn't stop in Fremont. The goodwill and tangible business results led the bank to bring the Small Business Reinvention Scholarship to every new market it entered. Before the open sign was even hung on the door of a new branch, the program had already introduced the bank to the community in a meaningful way.

The story also earned national press for championing the local community.