Member Spotlight: Greater Community Bank
Today’s Member Spotlight focuses on Greater Community Bank from Rome, Ga. In the following interview, Marketing Director Kristy Brown explains what is unique about this local community bank.
Founded 19 years ago by former Rome Mayor and career community banker Tom Caldwell on the principles of small-town banking, personal relationships, community service and a common-sense business model, we take our name, Greater Community Bank, seriously. We offer a top market portfolio of sophisticated financial services in two markets while being ever-mindful that we are, at the end of every business day, a community bank.
At an early age, David Lance, president and CEO at Greater Community Bank, was taught community and banking go hand in hand. His dad, Bert Lance, was director of the Office of Management and Budget during President Jimmy Carter’s administration. The younger Lance would be quick to share with you his dad’s funny but very successful campaign Full Service Bull Service, a program designed to improve the quality of livestock by leasing bulls to local farmers in northwest Georgia. Our bank continues today to lend to local farmers. Money that is, not bulls.
A most unique experience and one of our proudest was founding the Calhoun-Gordon Community Foundation in 2005. Lance and other bank leaders raised $2 million in a short amount of time to create the largest endowment in the history of Gordon County. The same officers continue to be involved in the grant processes that funnel a staggering investment into the support for non-profits operating in the community. But our benevolence doesn’t end with those relationships. The bank has been central not just to the financial support of other agencies but the dedication of employees who serve on the boards of those agencies, lending their business acumen and professional experience to guide the non-profits toward successful business plans and then funding the loans that the agencies need to accomplish their programs of work.
Calhoun’s GEM Theatre and United Way of Gordon County in particular have benefited from the innovative thinking, creative outlook and hands-on involvement of Greater Community Bank. Donna McEntyre, executive vice president of the bank, is widely credited for bringing the single most successful fundraiser in Gordon County history to the community. After visiting Rome’s Celebrity Dance Challenge, McEntyre’s passion for giving back made her immediately encourage her hometown to create a similar signature event: Calhoun’s Dancing with the Stars. To date, the fundraiser continues to gain popularity and has crashed its own ceiling year after year, having put more than $600,000 in the coffers over the last four years. As a corporate financial sponsor and even as competitors in the contest, Greater Community Bank sparked the fire that still burns.
The bank’s concern for the disadvantaged grew into a strong relationship with our customers in both markets we serve. Our employees serve on boards, in community kitchens, raise funds for needy families, and collect toys and food donations annually. Watching the joy our employees have for the opportunity to give back every year as they serve are some of our proudest moments.
Chairman Bob Berry, a distinguished Georgia super lawyer, is a legacy in Rome. You know the old saying, “it all starts at the top”? Indeed it does literally for Greater Community Bank. Bob has been extensively involved in promoting a regional emphasis for recruitment and awareness of industrial, business and educational projects. For more than 20 years, Berry’s favorite project has been serving as emcee of the Affair of the Heart Awards Gala. The Heart of the Community Awards of Honor is designed to honor those “heroes of the community” who, through their volunteer and community service, are the Heart of the Community.
Volunteers make the difference between a good place to live and a great place to live. We all know bankers make great volunteers. That’s why we believe in our motto, “Live Better. Bank Greater.”
We celebrated Community Banking Month with tag teams! Our customers have embraced us as we have blanketed our community with car tags and magnets depicting our brand. It has been an opportunity to salute community banking and all it stands for as well as put our new brand on hundreds of rolling billboards!
When it’s all said and done, Greater Community Bank is about the greater community.