Unbanked By Choice

Sitting in our nonprofit boardrooms and doling out foundation grants, it’s easy to think we’ve got all the answers. We assume that folks with no bank account have no other choices; that they would happily join a bank or credit union if they were eligible. And we put our money where our misconceptions are.

If you talk with a person who is unbanked, they will often tell you the ways they’ve been burned by the banking system, through overdraft or account maintenance fees, credit score dings and snowballing loan payments.

It’s a lack of trust — a feeling that you are somehow being duped — in the financial industry that leads to an unbanked status, combined with a number of other economic and social factors. Even if they’re eligible, a person might be wary of returning to the same system that hurt them in the past.

I came across these video clips combing through our team’s archive. We filmed them back in 2015, when we were working with a local credit union to better understand the community’s needs and barriers to financial literacy, but I think their message remains relevant to the conversation.

The first step to solving social challenges like being unbanked is to step out of our silos and listen to what people really need.

If we’re not solving for the right problem, we’ll never find the right solution.

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