At 9am this morning, February 28th, almost 100 community members and leaders will gather at the R.L. Taylor Community Complex to discuss barriers to banking for low-income residents and the so-called “banking desert” in North Sarasota. According to Prosperity Now, 21% of North Sarasota residents were either unbanked or had a bank account but still used alternatives like payday loans or check cashing services. United Way Suncoast has organized the area’s first Financial Inclusion Summit as part of the Bank On Suncoast initiative. Key initiative partners and speakers at the Summit include representation from Gulf Coast Community Foundation, Cities for Financial Empowerment Fund (CFE Fund), the City of Sarasota, Manatee Community Federal Credit Union, Suncoast Credit Union, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) and Wells Fargo bank. The keynote speaker will be Anthony Barrows, Managing Director at ideas42, a behavioral science research group leveraging the power of behavioral science to design scalable solutions for society’s most difficult problems. City Deputy Manager Marlon Brown and City Commissioner Willie Shaw are also slated to give remarks.

United Way Suncoast