How is Common Good Bank different from a credit union?
Common Good Bank Community Divisions are designed to be not-for-profit, community-spirited businesses. So why not organize them as credit unions, an already-existing legal structure for tax-exempt, nonprofit, democratic financial institutions? And how is the Common Good Bank model any different than a credit union in the first place? The short answer is that banks can do more than credit unions. By combining the community spirit of a credit union with the power and growth potential of a stock-based bank, Common Good Bank can do far more than either a bank or credit union can do alone. Greater democracy is at the center of this greater power. Like most democratic systems, credit unions and mutual banks are representative democracies. So you only get to elect the people who make the decisions — you never get to participate in any interesting decisions yourself. In particular, you don’t get to decide what the bank should invest in or where the profits will go. Mostly this is because of t
