How Do I Sign Florida Banking Living Will

How do i industry sign banking florida living will

it's very clear to me that how we invest capital and how capital flows and in particular how banks what banks finance is very much a critical leverage point perhaps the critical leverage point in in resetting an economy in a way that actually is is regenerative and therefore sustainable over a long period of time we live today at the intersection of an old economy that measures wealth and hourly based mostly on short-term financial gain and a new regenerative economy that measures wealth in terms of the health and well-being of all human communities and all natural life capital institute is dedicated to exploring this crossroads and to supporting the transition to a regenerative economy and we found a great place to study this transition and how difficult the challenges can be with first Green Bank first screen was founded by Ken laro a successful Central Florida banker who set out to build a profitable Bank driven by his passion for the environment as it has turned out he has faced many challenges along the way this area is was historically rural and agricultural very very low population it's exploded with as a bedroom community of Orlando there's a lot of sprawl a lot of unmanaged growth which is rips my heart out honestly I'm just determined to not let this place slip away and go the route of many other areas in Florida in 2006 after the successful sale of the first bank he founded Florida choice Ken went on a soul-searching cross-country trip I started a bank in 99 and sold it in 2006 right at the peak and got all the money and made a bunch of people a bunch of money and had a non-compete and couldn't work in the industry for a number of years so my wife and I bought a little mini meth and we put a trailer on the back of our bicycles a fishing gear and we needed circumnavigated the country and before I left my brother gave me a book let my people go surfing which is autobiography of the launch and hard the founder of Patagonia clothing and it was it was his life and how he reluctantly became a business man and with the ethos that you could do right by doing right and and everything every element of his business is operated and developed under that premise and I thought well Jesus if he can do that in a clothing industry which is a pretty rough industry for environmental sustainability or regeneration or you know I can do that in the banking industry and banking is anything I know so why not try it so I googled green banks and that led to the concept of first Green Bank and we came back and called my attorney and gave him the idea and he said well yeah let's let's go forward with it so we filed the application and went through the process of raising capital we raised seventeen point two million dollars in the worst capital environment there could ever be in 2008 and on December 22nd 2008 we were granted the last bank charter ever granted in the state of Florida and there's been nonsense and we just passed our six year anniversary in business and our financial performances in the the top quartile of all banks in the state of Florida first Green Bank was indeed outperforming on a financial basis but now the hard work for a bank with a values mission lay ahead at the beginning of 2015 only about 11% of first green banks loans could be considered loans to values based businesses so now the question was could first Green Bank also outperform as a values-based Bank a bank fully committed to regenerating the community and the economy in which it operated in June 2015 Capital Institute visited first Green Bank with Stewart Cowan Stewart uses systems thinking to help regenerate communities and organizations he asked Ken and his staff to imagine the bank is participating in a larger story that was about central florida's regeneration so we're seeing the beginnings of a regenerative economy here in Central Florida that the seeds are here in a single Community Bank like first Green Bank can be a hub can be that connection point for lots of businesses that want to work with each other I think really a regenerative economy is an ecosystem of organizations it's not about separate kind of visionary one-off businesses that have to figure out how to build all of this from scratch it's about that community that ecosystem of regenerative businesses they're playing off of each other they're learning from each other and they're literally exchanging materials and services it's they're circulating in January 2016 knowing the difficult challenges that lay ahead for first Green Bank we asked Vincent Stanley Patagonia's director of philosophy to visit with Ken at his lakeside home Vincent asked Ken to focus on where first Greene was succeeding in having a regenerative impact in Central Florida and to continue to build from there in the past year there did the values you hold and that the bank represents give you an opportunity to make a kind of loan that hasn't existed before to be funny opportunities therefore kind of creative creative working in banking you couldn't have done it before i well the one thing that comes to mind is our solar loan program that we offer for residential and commercial solar installations it's a product we developed in this Bank but we refined it over the last seven years we just kept saying okay what what makes it irresistible what makes it where it's a no-brainer to the point where I think it's the best solar financing program in the country we've never even had a ten day delinquency in our entire portfolio of our solar loans and I think we're at about two million dollars now which isn't a big number but it's a large number of loans so we're really encouraged and enthused by vinson also encouraged Ken to reflect on how his deep roots in the place he was born opened up a path for first Green Bank to be a powerful agent for change in Central Florida I think there's a looking from the outside I think there's a really strong advantage of doing what you're doing in a place in which you're really rooted so you're really testing the values you've come to hold against the values of the place that you came and you're doing something in that community that will also change over time it will change the community first Green Bank can be proud of more than its innovative solar and hybrid vehicle loan programs the bank also actively seeks out borrowers like you Kent an organic blueberry farmer who converted his land from conventional citrus farming and is committed to living in right relationship with the land he cultivates this all started for me about 10 years ago 15 10 to 15 years ago I met Ken laro I live on a farm that's been in my family for four generations since 1890 and it was up for sale and my family decided they couldn't hold on to it anymore and I looked for a banker who would understand what I was trying to do and in buying it and making a living from it and trying to do something a little bit different for the local economy trying to preserve a piece of Central Florida history building a solid portfolio of values based loans like the one that first Green Bank extended to you Kent's farm takes time and time did not appear to be on first Green Bank side precious to sell the bank rebuilding Ken talked with Vincent about how his track record as a banker who turned green to gold was in many ways a double-edged sword he knew that it was raising investor expectations for a quick sale of the bank perhaps before the values mission could be fully realized one of the hardest things is shareholder expectations which of course I helped set from the start that the model in Florida banking is you started back and you sell it there's a liquidity event and it's historically hasn't been real hard to to delay in investors because that was the model and they knew you can kind of calculate what their return would be but I'm all I've been trouble since fairly early on that the values proposition will go away if if the bank was to sell and so I've gone through I probably every iteration there is of what could this look like how can it in was it look like at the end of the day from converting to a V corporation to an IPO to C key values aligned institutional investors whether it be a family office or a foundation the could provide a liquidity event for the people that wanted it and maybe that one to stay in for a longer play to trying to find a dance suitable dance partner that would be values aligned in the values base for the institution space and I've tried a bunch of them already and they haven't come to fruition how should and how could a values-based Bank grow Capital Institute asked author and regenerative business advisor Carol Sanford to explore those possibilities with Ken and what I heard you describing is how do you really grow this business not just grow it and scale but grow it in terms of what you're able to achieve as a result of because the intention is in front of the growth right now you take the story what you feel how deeply you feel it and use it to grow a business so what's exciting to me is you're not going to grow it anymore but it wouldn't be the way other people would think about growth it would be this deeply embedding of the values you have in how you grow and not being torn between those just being fully on top of that and I also can hear the idea of how much you could change an absolute industry which is so archaic I mean banking is just it alone when all that stuff is very much based on what we were doing in the 18th century from everything I've read and this innovation the idea of how you're gonna grow by innovation is this exciting tomorrow also ask Ann to experiment with creative ways to engage his staff to invite them to be true collaborators in the banks regenerative journey I mean the other thing was fun talking with you about is what your change and how you want to engage with your team because part of what it takes to bring that focus inside is to engage all the members of you know they're not just your direct reports but everybody connecting to that and having them and not just be about you but it everybody feeling like it's about the bank and it's about the bank and what it can do in the industry the research shows that if you develop people while you're engaging that means you have them grow as people you have them do reflecting on themselves you have them observe what's happening to them while they're working you teach them a different framework for doing and both of you are entering into a space that you're learning while you're creating and I mean learning at a personal deep level that then it goes much deeper and you get a little destabilized in the process because you're able to do something you aren't usually doing but we also discovered in talking to first Green Bank staff was that many were yearning for that kind of exciting destabilizing leadership that would provide a space for everyone in the bank to draw on their potential to help the bank broaden and deepen its regenerative impact in the places where it was doing business among them were two ministers that had originally been drawn to the bank because they saw it as a place where they could bring their spiritual values to the working world in a meaningful way I see things the potential within first Green Bank to change the earth is significant but all the visits potential because as I've said before I say again you can put signs on the wall on every wall and you can say this is a regenitive Bank this is a environmentally conscious Bank you can plaster those all over every wall put them in the bathrooms and the break rooms in the conference rooms on the TV screens everywhere you want to they can be everywhere and yet mean nothing they have no power because the sign doesn't have a power doesn't speak it doesn't have a voice it doesn't have energy what has energy is the people that are in the building the people that are in the organization and at some point it has to get to a place where it's no longer the signs on the wall but it is the the vision becomes the life it becomes the blood of the organization and it literally is contagious to every person that walks in the building they don't have to see a sign that says we're regenitive they feel it so so before I came in the bank a couple years ago I actually was a you know Methodist minister and I did this thing called church planting and when you church planet you develop a church from from scratch I guess and you got you you talked to people about the vision of of a different kind of church a new way of doing Church and you you offer that vision to people and you try and get people to to come and live into the vision and be a part of of that new way of doing church and I I think that's where we're trying to go more here in the bank and that's the hope that I have that we can develop in this Central Florida region is that we can send tentacles out throughout Central Florida and just have people live differently because they're banking with us John Fullerton capital Institute's founder than a former Wall Street banker spoke to to first Green Bank board members dr. Robert Burton and Randy strode what emerged from that conversation was that both were authentically committed to first green banks holistic values but at the same time they're struggling with the expectation that they'd held from the start that they would reap the financial rewards from their investment when the bank was eventually sold and I just really believe didn't care and I came to Florida I afro foo Manchu was single and bell-bottom trousers going to get and I was once at the Florida alligator Lake Erie the bald eagle you name it I was going to do it and then found out maybe how shallow I was I got married and that financial responsibilities three little boys and that all went by the wayside mm-hmm but then I have an opportunity now to go back to those roots and yeah I'm just all that guy told us Susan I said you know for some reason wanting and breasts can make it easy said that had that kind of effect on me and it's just it's good it's good synergy I think between Karen I John Fullerton spoke up first Green Bank as the precious asset it had he said a vital role to play in an economy where so much was at stake so real investments you know what we invest in and bank lending is way more important than what we spend a lot of time pay attention to which is security straight and so the securities trading to become the financial system but that's just pushing paper around between you know one owner and another owner and it doesn't actually translate into what changes on the ground where is a bank you know a relatively small back length four-screen bank but it's actually making loans primarily into the real estate industry and and you guys know way better than I but this part that country is growing like crazy and how it grows is is really very important so the impact that a bank like for its green bank can have on these issues of environmental sustainability are are remarkably significant and so so I've gone from being interested in working on sort of high finance on Wall Street to now being much more interested in real banks that are making real loans on the ground and a productive real economy it takes time to build a business and and the conventional wisdom and conventional approach to community banks was to start and grow and sell and yet that doesn't really match with the you know a 25 year mission of a bank much less any other kind of business so now what we do when we've got this precious business building that it may be even if it was sold to let's just pick on my old friends JPMorgan Chase and we disappear and I think that a bank with a great idea that appeals to Millennials and people are concerned about the environment if they grow up quickly and in a in a meaningful way in a profitable way that just speaks to the greatness of the idea and so I don't think they're necessarily in conflict growth and profitability and success of the economic model yet I think it's going to be also driven by the the social model how you how you have an impact in the world you know promoting solar conservation and and having a forum in which you can actually speak that truth to the rest of the world and the bigger you are the more successful you are the louder yo r voice so it's like look at it that way so and as far as you know I'm throwing it to sell it we talked about it we had a board retreat and we if we're gonna sell we want to have those values on the same side on the other side of the table of the people requiring us if they don't have them then maybe we can inculcate into that maybe we can impregnate them with that set of values which like Lenalee Unilever if you've been in Gerry's need to maybe have an impact on the world that way but you know I represent a consortium investors and we put a lot of money into this and we want to see a return so there's only three ways banks can make money and this give you dividends go public and you gotta shares of stock and all the benefits of that or else you can be sold and so those are the three ways to create a net return on your investment but it's there another possibility of a net return on your investment that's defined in greater than financial terms david korres 'land an advisor to the Global Alliance for banking on values thinks so he talked with Ken about how he might begin a conversation with his investors that would define returns in terms of what you get back to your community and the world you leave behind for your children and your grandchildren because if you if your investors end up with shares solid return that they give to their children and their grandchildren that's also real that's real Ben that's real wet and at what point next question what's your trade off what's the trade UPS you want to inspire them to between what you're doing for your spirit what you're doing for your pocketbook yeah so that's a safe financial return and a super values return in terms of what you're doing for your community it's a different way of thinking about meeting investor demands and then getting and inspiring that's terrific that's the--that's that's what I want I want to leave my grandchildren share of stock that I know will give them solid income at the same time leaves the community which they live better off with jobs first Green Bank now finds itself at a fork in the road there are many possible scenarios for its future what is certain is that the women and men who have joined first Green Bank and have had a taste of a new way of banking and doing business in the world will be forever changed we're certain that they will go on to change the face of banking and to participate in new kinds of collaborative regenerative businesses that will transform the heart and soul of our economy in Central Florida and beyond from the people who do the real work who don't get the awards who don't go up to dinners and fancy places for meetings you know what's it like to operationalize a vanity space regenerative Genda inside a bank in central florida that to me is what's really interesting I mean operationally it's fantastic because we feel like we're coming to work every morning for much more than just a paycheck or to really make an impact on the community at Central Florida specifically it's been great to see such a immediate sort of impact where if we were in a market that was already sort of oriented to sustainability or social responsibility on a large broad scale it may be it may be not so obvious but here I kind of sometimes joke or equate it to green water to the desert and you just immediately see that sort of impact where the education and the influence aspect of what we do really takes root and almost perpetuates itself it has truly been a journey for us and and people ask all time well what what's a Green Bank I can't tell you that whatever it is and whatever we do and whatever you do to try to become a values-based or maintain a values-based business it's really really hard and anybody that says otherwise is it's not being truthful or transparent you