Page 20 - BusinessWest February 7, 2022

The People Have Spoken
Customers at Some Banks Have a Say in Grant Decisions
The numbers speak for themselves: 3,500 votes, 373 nonprofits, $15,000.
That’s roughly the number of Monson
Savings Bank (MSB) customers who cast votes in the bank’s 12th annual Community Giving Initiative, the number of different nonprofits they wanted to receive donations, and the total money being given to the top 10 vote getters.
“Each and every organization is a well-
“There are so many nonprofits doing great work, but we don’t know them all; we couldn’t ever know them all.”
deserving nonprofit, and it is clear why they were chosen by our community members,” said Dan Moriarty, president and CEO of Monson Savings Bank. “Each nonprofit provides tremendously valuable resources to our communities and their residents.”
The 2022 winners of MSB’s Community Giv- ing Initiative, announced two weeks ago, include Academy Hill School Scholarship, Behavioral Health Network, I Found Light Against All Odds,
Miracle League of West- ern Massachusetts, Shriner’s Hospitals for Children, and Women’s Empowerment Scholar- ship, all based in Spring- field; Rick’s Place and Wil- braham United Players, both based in Wilbraham; Link to Libraries Inc. of Hampden; and Monson Free Library in Monson.
“It follows our philoso- phy of giving back to the local communities. Our local communities help us, so we try to find ways to continually give back, and there are various ways to do that,” Mori- arty told BusinessWest.
Dan Moriarty (left) and Michael Rouette say it’s important to give customers a say in which nonprofits Monson Savings Bank supports.
“There are so many
nonprofits doing great
work, but we don’t know
them all; we couldn’t ever know them all,” he added. “So this is a good way to reach out to the community and all the nonprofits out there by having their followers introduce them to us. It’s been great, and very well-received. We’ve received thousands of votes every year for non-
profits people think are doing worthy things. That’s why we started it, and why we continue to do it.”
MSB isn’t the only bank running such a pro- gram, however; other banks have involved the community in giving initiatives as well, perhaps none longer than Florence Bank, which launched
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20 FEBRUARY 7, 2022
BANKING & FINANCE
BusinessWest