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My mother has worked at Vancity for 13 years. She started out as a human cash machine, and quickly worked her way up to one bad ass bank manager. Her office is decked out with awards like freakin wallpaper, she makes banking so bloody easy for me. Every time I walk into her branch, you can tell her co-workers have immense respect for her, and I’m very proud of her. Plus, I can always pull out the line “Do you know who I AM?! Do you know who my mother is?!”, if anyone gives me shit.

When I was a kid, I hated having a Vancity bank account. There were practically no branches or bank machines that didn’t charge me a buck so I could take out 5. Paying a buck when you only had 5 to take out really hurt. However, things have changed. I now have more then 5 bucks in my bank account, I rarely use cash, and Vancity has matured into a company with values and actions similar to what I hope to build Rilli on.

Vancity works towards building profits, socially responsible projects and environmental projects. Their achievements in all of these areas are pretty impressive and constantly developing. This is much like operating with a Triple Bottom Line, however I do not know if they actually do, or are officially aiming for that or not but I do know that will be Carbon Neutral by 2010. None the less, with a recent sexy rebrand spanning all media and space design, a new socially and environmentally responsible change driven campaign, slick contextual marketing, and some really awesome programs in place (some for a long time, I just haven’t even known about them) they are making me happy in several ways.

Photo: Helen Carruthers
Note: Apparently this billboard has a permanent desk and outlets that are connected to the solar powered batter at the base of it. So… if you wanted to charge your laptop right next to a construction site… you… could….

Here are some cool things that they do:

Enviro Visas (all of them are enviro visas)
On all of their Visas, 5% of all profits they make goes towards local environmental projects. Local projects can apply for the funding, and members vote to decide which ones get chosen.

Shared Growth Accounts
A Shared Growth chequing account is like a regular chequing account plus one extra benefit: the balance is directed to a deposit pool used to invest in meaningful social, environmental and economic benefits to local or global communities. You always have guaranteed access to your cash money, but it is also used for awesome things.

Peer Lending
Peer lending is a credit arrangement in which a small group of borrowers guarantee each other’s loans in lieu of providing collateral. The standard barriers acquiring loans that people encounter at other lending institutions — lack of collateral, poor personal credit history or full-time employment — do not necessarily apply under this program. Instead, it is based on commitment and ability rather than assets.

They do other cool stuff as well like bike sharing programs and so on and so forth. Also they have really sexy print work. :) Props to TBWA Vancouver.

You can peep some more info at The Vancity Website.