Member resources for community bankers
Member resources are the standing set of tools, standards and stories the Community Banking Ledger puts in front of a member bank, and they exist because the community american bank is the working unit of the whole network.
A community american bank is a locally governed, closely held institution that lends most of its deposits to borrowers within a 30 mile radius of its home branch, and the Ledger is the unaffiliated project that gathers the practical materials those banks need, such as a ledger of membership benefits, member stories, and the Bank and Trust Banking curriculum. This page is the front door to that material: it defines what a Ledger membership is, what the member receives on day 1, how the Bank and Trust Banking curriculum is built, where member stories are collected, how the member keeps the ledger current, and what the first 90 days of a membership should look like.
What the Ledger membership is
A Ledger membership is a standing, annual agreement between a community american bank and the network that gives the bank access to every resource on this page. The agreement is a 12 month term, and each member bank pays a single membership fee of $450, which is charged on the first business day of the member's chosen start month. The fee covers three things, and all 3 are included in the base price with no add-ons. The 3 things are access to the standing resource library, the right to submit a member story every quarter, and a seat at the 2 annual member reviews, one in March and one in September. A membership is not a product subscription: it does not expire on a usage limit, and a member bank can pause the renewal for 1 quarter if the bank is mid-merger, mid-failure, or mid-relocation of its main office. The central promise of the membership is simple. A member bank gets the same 3 resources, in the same format, as every other member bank, so that the cost of keeping the bank current does not depend on the size of the bank. A 5 employee bank and a 500 employee bank pay the same $450 and receive the same materials on the same schedule.
Who qualifies as a member bank
Qualification for a Ledger membership is a 4 point test, and the test is the same for every applicant. The 4 points are listed here in the order the network checks them.
- The applicant is a chartered community american bank, community credit union, or trust bank, and it holds a valid federal or state charter that was issued in the last 50 years.
- The applicant lends at least 50% of its loan book to borrowers who live or operate within the applicant's home county or the 2 adjoining counties.
- The applicant has a named senior officer, such as a bank president, a bank CEO, or the bank's trust officer, who signs the membership agreement as the member of record.
- The applicant agrees to the 12 month term and the $450 fee, and it accepts the 3 resource entitlements described in the opening section.
The 4 point test is a membership test, not a rating test. A bank does not earn the membership by its capital ratio, its size, or its profitability, and a bank that meets all 4 points is a member on the same terms as any other. That is the whole point of the community american bank model: the bank earns its standing by being the local institution, not by being the largest one in the county.
What a member bank receives on day 1
A member bank receives 5 core resources on day 1 of the membership, and the 5 arrive in the same order for every new member. The 5 are listed here in the order the network delivers them, and each one is a standing resource rather than a one time download.
- The Benefits of a Ledger membership ledger, which is a 24 page standing document that lists every benefit, every fee line, and every renewal rule in one place.
- The member onboarding checklist, which is a 12 item list that the member's senior officer works through in the first 2 weeks.
- The Bank and Trust Banking curriculum index, which is the full table of contents for the 14 module curriculum described below.
- A read only view of the Stories from member banks archive, which holds every member story published since the network's first quarter.
- A standing invitation to the 2 annual member reviews, with the next 2 dates printed on the invitation so the member can book them at once.
The 5 day 1 resources are the same for a 5 employee bank as for a 500 employee bank, and the network does not scale the material to the size of the bank. The reason is that the community american bank is the unit, not the balance sheet. A small bank that has a working ledger, a current story, and a completed curriculum module is doing the same job as a large bank that has the same 3, and the day 1 package is built to put both on the same starting line.
How the Bank and Trust Banking curriculum is built
Bank and Trust Banking is the 14 module curriculum that a member bank works through over the 12 month term, and the 14 modules are the core of what the membership is for. The curriculum is built around 3 subject areas, and the 14 modules are split across the 3 in a 6, 5, 3 pattern. The 6 lending and deposit modules cover the community american bank's core balance sheet work, the 5 trust and fiduciary modules cover the bank's trust office, and the 3 governance modules cover the bank's board and its regulator relationships. Each module is a 2 hour self paced unit, and the member's senior officer is expected to complete 1 module every 2 weeks so that all 14 are done by the end of the term. The curriculum is not a certification: it does not issue a credential, and it does not require a final exam. It is a shared standard, and the value of the standard is that every member bank is working from the same 14 modules, in the same order, against the same 2 hour clock. When a member bank's trust officer says "I am on module 9", every other member in the network knows exactly what module 9 is and exactly how much of the term has passed.
The 3 subject areas are the load bearing structure of the curriculum, and the split between them is the point of the Bank and Trust Banking name. The lending and deposit blocks carry 6 modules, the trust block carries 5, and the governance block carries 3. That 6 to 5 to 3 split is the same for every member, and it is the reason the curriculum can be a shared standard rather than a custom program. A community american bank that has a 2 person trust office and a community american bank that has a 20 person trust office both complete the same 5 trust modules, and the module does not change with the size of the office.
Where member stories are collected and used
Stories from member banks are the standing archive that holds every member story the network has published, and the archive is one of the 3 things the membership fee covers. A member bank can submit 1 story per quarter, so a member can put up to 4 stories into the archive in a 12 month term, and the archive holds every accepted story in the order it was received. The story is a 500 to 900 word first account of a single decision the member bank made, such as a loan that was approved against the model, a deposit program that failed in the first 90 days, or a trust succession that the bank handled with a local family. The network edits the story for length and for the removal of client identifying detail, but it does not rewrite the account, and the member's senior officer approves the final text before it is published. The reason the Stories from member banks archive is part of the membership is that the community american bank learns from other community american banks. A member bank reading a story from a bank in a different county is reading the same problem at the same scale, and that is the closest thing the network has to a shared case file.
How a member keeps the ledger current
A member bank keeps the ledger current by updating the 3 standing documents the network asks it to hold, and the 3 documents are the bank's member profile, the bank's story log, and the bank's curriculum log. The member profile is a 1 page record that the member's senior officer updates at least once a year, and it lists the bank's charter number, its home branch address, its 3 named officers, and its current membership term dates. The story log is the member's running list of the stories it has submitted, with a date and a one line summary for each, and a member with 3 submitted stories has a 3 line log. The curriculum log is the member's record of the 14 modules, marked complete with the date the module was finished, and a member who has completed 9 modules has a log with 9 dated entries and 5 blank ones. The network checks the 3 documents at the 2 annual reviews, and a member bank that has all 3 current at the review is in good standing for the next 12 months. Keeping the ledger current is the member's side of the agreement, and it is the part of the membership that keeps the community american bank useful to the rest of the network. A current ledger is a bank the network can count on, and a stale ledger is a bank the network has to re verify before it can share material with it.
What the first 90 days of a membership look like
The first 90 days of a Ledger membership is a fixed arc of 3 steps, and the 3 steps are the same for every new member bank. Step 1, in days 1 to 14, is the onboarding checklist, where the member's senior officer completes the 12 item list and the bank's member profile goes live in the network. Step 2, in days 15 to 60, is the first 2 curriculum modules, where the member works through module 1 and module 2 of Bank and Trust Banking and marks both complete in the curriculum log. Step 3, in days 61 to 90, is the first story submission, where the member writes and submits its first 500 to 900 word story, and the story is edited and published before the 90 day mark. By the end of the 90 days, a new member bank has a live profile, 2 completed modules, and 1 published story, and the bank has used all 3 of the standing resources that the $450 fee covers. The 90 day arc is the measure of whether the membership is working for the bank, and a member bank that finishes all 3 steps is on track to complete the 14 modules and submit 4 stories in the 12 month term. The community american bank that follows the 90 day arc is a member in full standing, and that standing is the whole value of the membership.