Community banking: put your money where your house is.

• Author: Lombardo, Cara

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In late 2009, Arianna Huffington made an appeal to Huffington Post readers. She described an idea that came up at a dinner party for countering Wall Street's growing power over Main Street.

"The idea is simple: If enough people who have money in one of the Big Six banks ... move it into smaller, more local, more traditional community banks, then collectively we, the people, will have taken a big step toward re-rigging the financial system," Huffington wrote in a joint column with Rob Johnson, a fellow dinner party attendee. "Lets turn big banks into smaller banks. We'll all be better off--and safer--as a result."

The dinner party guests coined the campaign "Move Your Money," set up a website, and promised lots more to come. But little did, and the movement quietly disappeared. Its website, MoveYourMoney.info, now belongs to a sports gambling blog written in German--and Huffington has moved on to urging people to get more sleep.

Stacy Mitchell is not surprised. The co-director of the Institute for Local Self-Reliance, a nonprofit focused on strengthening local communities, notes that moving one's bank account or mortgage "is not as simple as changing grocery stores."

To succeed, Mitchell says, campaigns to promote banking alternatives must be localized. It's easier for people to see how making the choice to work with a local banker--and encouraging neighbors to do the same--helps their community flourish. She thinks the public is ready to embrace these alternatives, given high levels of public dissatisfaction with big banks.

Nearly twenty states have considered implementing public banks in the past six years, according to the Public Banking Institute. The group, founded by lawyer and author Ellen Hodgson Brown, envisions "a transformed monetary and banking system that functions in the public interest" and aims to return control of money and credit back to states and communities.

But so far, there have been only a few successes, due in part to pushback from the banking industry. "Basically, they've put their fingers in the gears ... to slow down the progress," says Walt McRee, chair of the Public Banking Institute. He says the political influence of large banks has sabotaged or limited many proposals.

For instance, in Colorado, a group petitioned for a public bank referendum to be put on this Novembers ballot. The Title Board of Colorado approved the addition, but McRee says the referendum was knocked off the ballot due...