Several AU students formed a Community Investment Campaign this semester and are currently developing a proposal to encourage the administration to transfer 5 percent of the endowment’s cash assets into community banks and credit unions, according to the campaign’s organizer Mary Schellentrager.
The proposal, which they hope to propose to AU President Neil Kerwin, would call for approximately $4.3 million to be deposited into “Community Development Financial Institutions,” such as the City First Bank of D.C. Such banks help develop small businesses and communities that do not have good access to financial services, according to Schellentrager, a senior in the College of Arts and Sciences.
“Since 1998, City First Bank has been providing economic opportunities to underserved communities.,” Schellentrager wrote in a Huffington Post blog. Their efforts have resulted in 2,000 jobs and more than 1,400 units of low-income housing for these communities. Between 2004 and 2007, City First lent out over $150 million to community members who used the funds for community development projects, such as small businesses and for achieving personal financial goals.”
The group, currently comprised of about eight students, is working within the Community Action and Social Justice Coalition and hoping to gain more student support.
The Community Investment Campaign is circulating a petition to present to Kerwin. The petition currently has 39 student and alumni signatures encouraging the board to approve the proposal.
“We all feel that American University should be doing more to lessen inequality in D.C.,” Schellentrager said.
Schellentrager is a mid-Atlantic student organizer for the Responsible Endowments Coalition, a national organization that promotes responsible investment at colleges and universities. Her work there prompted her to begin the Community Investment Campaign, a movement that is “using the privilege and power that we have as students for social change.”
The Move Your Money campaign is an effort by the Huffington Post to get the public to invest in small, local banks rather than ones that are too big to fail.
AU Associate Vice President of Finance and Assistant Treasurer Douglas Kudravetz declined to comment because he has not yet seen the proposal.
You can reach this staff writer at sdazio@theeagleonline.com.
