Milwaukee is home to the only bank in the country founded by African American women, and yesterday marked its 10th anniversary. Legacy Bank was founded by Margaret Henningsen, Shirley Lanier and Deloris Sims. Sims says the mission has always been to improve the community. WUWM’s LaToya Dennis has more.
Legacy Bank sits on the corner of Fond Du Lac Avenue and 21st Street on Milwaukee’s north side. The neighborhood isn’t exactly the most desirable. The bank is surrounded by dilapidated buildings, a Lena’s Food Market and a liquor store. It’s nothing like what it used to be.
“This was a thriving business community.”
That’s Deloris Sims. She’s one of the founders of Legacy Bank. Up until recently she acted as president and CEO, now Sims is chair of the board. “The demographics changed actually when they were going to put the Park West freeway corridor, and they relocated people out of the area. And then once that changed then the demographics of the area changed and the businesses left,” Sims says.
Sims says even still, she and her partners believed in the neighborhood, which is why they decided to locate here.
“I knew that it could be thriving and good again one day if we would bring a business here who cared about the area, and just really focused on 10 blocks all around this area to improve it,” Sims says.
North Avenue, a major thoroughfare, is within that 10-mile radius.
“The whole North Avenue Corridor, we jump started on a lot of the businesses, did some very high risk lending to get it looking better. We didn’t do all of it, but we were like a trailblazer and other banks came in and did other things so you see a lot of new buildings,” Sims says.
But Sims says that risky lending was done during better economic times. She says Legacy is weathering the recession well. In fact, every year for the past 10 years it has been able increase its profit margins by double digits. However, she says that doesn’t mean the bank isn’t taking a hit in this economy.
“I can’t think of any industry that hasn’t been touched by this recession. And anytime your business customers have problems, you have problems,” Sims says.
Sims says the bank has had customers simply walk away from their businesses, leaving the bank with the mortgage. She also says Legacy has restructured a number of loans so small business owners can continue to pay. As far as mortgages are concerned, Sims says her bank doesn’t give to people for homes they can’t afford, so defaults aren’t an issue. Cam Fine is president of Independent Community Bankers. It’s an advocacy group based in Washington D.C. He says Legacy is a good example of what’s happening across the country-- community banks thriving in a down economy. He says that’s because the smaller banks get to know both their customers and the needs of their customers.
“Community banking is very personal. It’s a very one-on-one relationship business,” Fine says.
There are around 8,000 small community banks around the country. They’re defined by having $10 billion or less in assets. Since January of 2008, 74 of them have failed. Deloris Sims says that’s simply not in the future for Legacy because it has always done business responsibly.
“We wanted to build a legacy in our community, not a failed bank in our community, so failure’s not an option for us. We’re going to succeed,” Sims says.
Legacy Bank started a foundation two years ago. Through that foundation, the bank is planning to build 51 new homes in an 11 block radius near the bank.
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