In part 1 of this series, we walked you through the Gun Safety Scorecard, the cornerstone of the Business Must Act campaign of Guns Down America. The scorecard weighs in-store policies, corporate action and political and lobbying donations to determine which businesses are doing their part to reduce gun violence and which ones are not. You can use the scorecard to make decisions about where to spend and invest your money in ways that support gun-violence prevention (GVP).
Banks, finance and preventing gun violence (or not)
As we described in our previous post, by visiting businessmustact.org and clicking on Filter Scorecard, you can see the scores of prominent brands in certain industries. Last time we showed you scores for companies in Coffee and Hardware; this time, tick the Bank box to see something like this:
Not a very pretty picture, is it? We couldn’t help thinking that, for one brand in particular, “What’s in your holster?” or “What’s in your bandolier?” might be more a more appropriate tagline than “What’s in your wallet?”
(We’re pleased to see the high marks for Amalgamated Bank, which bills itself “America’s largest B Corp bank,” a bank that favors transparency, accountability and social and environmental performance. It also claims to be “the bank for people who care what their money does in the world. When you deposit your money at Amalgamated, it supports sustainable organizations, progressive causes and social justice.” ActBlue, the company that processes your donations to SD4GVP and to many other progressive organizations, banks with Amalgamated.)
Is your bank loaded?
But let’s face it: If you’re a bank, you have a lot of money. And you probably have a lot of shareholders demanding that you lend and invest that money as profitably as possible, never mind social impact. Or maybe your ideas about social impact don’t yet extend to reducing gun violence because your customers haven’t told you it’s important to them. Few banks are designed to think beyond profit.
That’s why Guns Down America drilled into this sector even deeper, creating the Is Your Bank Loaded? report card. It’s a joint campaign with the American Federation of Teachers, Color of Change, Newtown Action Alliance, Survivors Empowered, This Is Our Lane and the Violence Policy Center. The report card rates the top 15 (by consolidated assets) consumer-facing banks in the U.S.:
The criteria are similar to those used in the Business Must Act campaign. Visit isyourbankloaded.org and see whether your bank has a score. If so, are you pleased with it? Maybe the tellers are friendly and you can’t beat the convenience, but what is your money doing while you’re asleep? You have options, and you can let your bank know that preventing gun violence is important to YOU.
A chance for businesses to be on the right side of history
In our previous post, we mentioned how much thought and discussion this topic provoked among the attendees at our recent general meeting. One of our longtime followers connected the dots between corporate responsibility and the death by gun violence of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson.
“These report cards should extend to pharma and healthcare companies,” said the follower. “Look at the kind of anger those companies generate. They should think of gun violence prevention as a way to differentiate themselves. If they took a leadership role and worked toward reducing gun violence, they could protect their brands and offset the ill will around them.”
Whether they do it because it’s the right thing to do or because they want to avoid attacks on their executives, all companies have a stake in this. We want them to act responsibly. And, like most things firearm-related in this country, that means we have to lean on them.
What can I do?
Both Business Must Act and Is Your Bank Loaded? tell you how you can take action to let low-scoring businesses know that GVP is important to you.
Don’t misunderstand: the objective of these campaigns is not to lay a guilt trip on either you or the company. As stated in the FAQ, “We believe that consumers have unique leverage to push the businesses they patronize to live up to their stated corporate values and give back to the communities they serve.”
These brands may be incomparably generous in many other ways: neighborhood involvement, diversity initiatives, youth sports teams, educational assistance, maternity and paternity leave. They may be among the best friends some communities have. But if they are truly community-minded in those ways, they will be open to seeing that gun violence is another high priority for their customers.
In our final post of this series, we’ll look at the other side of the coin: a scorecard for companies that proudly glorify firearms.
John White is SD4GVP Treasurer and a board member.