1. Punch in your ZIP code on the Move Your Money website (moveyourmoney.info/find-a-bank) to find the "stable" community banks in your area.

Caveat: Don’t assume that the recommended banks are, in fact, healthy.
MYM has teamed up with Institutional Risk Analytics, a Southern California ratings firm, to recommend community banks that have earned a B or above in its proprietary grading system of financial stability, based on quarterly data filed with regulators. According to IRA’s number crunching, roughly two-thirds of community banks nationwide earn that grade. Unfortunately, the grades aren’t always reliable. In 2009, San Rafael’s Tamalpais Bank went from an A+ to a B to an F (i.e., from absolutely safe to surefire flop) in two quarters, thanks to the reckless lending it engaged in while receiving an A+. Georgia’s Integrity Bank went from an A+ to an F in one quarter. Whoops!

2. Check out a bank's community-lending score.

Federal examiners periodically monitor banks’ compliance with the Community Reinvestment Act (1977) and make their grades, along with more detailed reports called CRA Performance Eval­uations, available online (see below). The marks cover how a bank’s lending serves its community, small businesses, and less affluent customers. But keep in mind that these evaluations use imprecise criteria and may be several years old.It doesn’t help that banks are granted some leeway in defining their community’s geographic boundaries. Ideally, there’d be a service or metric that rates banks on their overall community-mindedness using reliable financial data. But that doesn’t exist yet, so people trying to make a progressive statement about how their deposits are used—“Move Your Money is a social-investing phenomenon,” says Dennis Santiago, CEO of Institutional Risk Analytics—have no surefire way of doing so. Rob Johnson, Move Your Money’s cofounder, imagines someday letting people rate a bank’s reputation on the MYM website, but until then, you’re on your own.

Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation
fdic.gov/crapes/

Federal Reserve
federalreserve.gov/DCCA/CRA/crarate.cfm

Office of the Comptroller of the Currency
occ.treas.gov/cra/crasrch.htm

Office of Thrift Supervision
ots.treas.gov/?p=CRASearch

3. Go to government-required reports and follow the money.

If a bank is publicly traded, read its quarterly (10-Q) and annual (10-K) filings to the SEC online at SEC.gov for discussions of its business plan and lending practices—especially the types of loans and locations. If it’s not publicly traded but you have a finance background, review the call reports that all banks file quarterly with the FDIC, which are publicly available at FDIC.gov, and break down their deposits and lending in dollar amounts. If you don’t want a bank that takes big risks with its capital, be wary of rapid growth of assets; real-estate lending outside the bank’s market area; large numbers for brokered deposits, construction lending, or delinquent loans; and signs of credit trouble for the bank. If a bank is privately held and you’re not a finance pro who can parse call reports, you’re out of luck.

4. Sniff out the bank's president and its board however you can.

Caveat: How well can you really know your congressperson, anyway?

Ultimately, the qual­ity of a bank rests with its principals and directors. Most bank executives are clever about PR, especially now that Move Your Money has become another way for smaller banks to attract depositors. Nonetheless, the virtue of some banks and the ego and greed of others may shine through when you meet their representatives at Chamber of Commerce meetings. Ask acquaintances about them, or do some research in the San Francisco Business Times or other media. If you want a bank that’s focused on the long-term health of your city or county, be alert for countervailing signs, such as overly ambitious growth plans, complaints about how the local community “limits” the bank’s vision, and a long history of close ties to developers who’ve crashed and burned in past busts.

5. Interview prospective banks.

Caveat: They will spin you. But how they do it will help you develop a hunch about the bank.

When checking out a bank, don’t settle for the same old routine about low checking fees and interest rates or worldwide ATM access (“the ATM-anaesthetized mind,” as MYM’s Johnson dismissively calls it). And don’t accept its inevitable claim of being a true community bank. Ask specific questions about how much lending the bank does locally and how much of its portfolio goes to small businesses. Sometimes the answers—or lack thereof—will tell you all you need to know.

For more on where and why to move your money, read "It's a Wonderful Bank."