Move Your Money Movement Surges In Social Media

Take the pledge to Move Your Money!

In the past week, Move Your Money evolved from a New Year's Resolution into a national movement.

Press coverage spans the spectrum from mainstream outlets to advocacy blogs and progressive organizations -- from Dissident Voice and Democracy Now! to the Los Angeles Times, Newsweek, CNN's Rick Sanchez and MSNBC's "The Ed Show".

Press coverage hardly captures the whole movement, however. Across social media sites like Facebook, YouTube and Twitter, a surge of grassroots organizing is showing how Americans are making the Move Your Money initiative their own.

Just minutes after Arianna Huffington announced the campaign, Facebook users became fans of the project -- over 7,000 in seven days -- and started sharing their stories through the Move Your Money fanpage as well as the Huffington Post page. Facebook user Carol Merrill commented on her experience:

Reclaimed all my money from Chase & moved to Schools...very happy with the move. It's like going to Cheers...everyone knows my name!

Others are taking even greater initiative on Facebook by starting specialized groups centered around the Move Your Money campaign. Nearly 500 people have organized around an initiative started by conservatives and libertarians who advocate for the campaign in a Facebook group, Time to Bailout From the Bailout Banks & the Dollar.

The group's description reads:

It is time that Americans began to vote with their money and tell the Wall Street bailout banks & the Federal Reserve paper dollar where to go...

Yes, we agree with Gary North and Arianna Huffington to move your funds out of the bailout Wall Street banks and financial institutions as this and future generations will be saddled with this illegitimate debt and drain on the American economy for decades to come.

On Twitter, a similarly grassroots trend has surfaced. Supporters of Move Your Money claimed a hashtag -- #moveyourmoney -- almost immediately after the campaign was launched, which has since been appended to thousands of tweets.

Some recent examples:

@samberm: Found a community bank...across the street! www.1cbv.com We'll be moving our money this weekend! #moveyourmoney

@lanewood: Grew up in a community based banking family. My current bank had to be bailed out. Thinking about #moveyourmoney http://bit.ly/78xJHT

One tweeter from Norway even weighed in with worldwide empathy for Move Your Money:

@forteller: The project has a Fantastic video. It actually brings tears to my eyes. Watch it and #MoveYourMoney http://moveyourmoney.info

Ultimately, YouTube may prove to be the most powerful medium through which Americans can share their stories. Currently, the original Move Your Money video has been viewed on YouTube's site 313,000 times.

The movement has not just inspired conversation, it has incited many people to act. Just a couple of weeks ago, Stephanie Frost was just a fed-up consumer from Atlanta. When she filmed herself closing her Bank of America account, over 50,000 people watched her video on YouTube and over 750 commenters joined in the conversation on the Huffington Post.

In an email regarding the impact of her video, Stephanie wrote:

Overwhelmingly, the blog comments and comments on YouTube have been things like, "You've inspired me! I'm moving my money immediately!" And, keep in mind that switching banks isn't like switching grocery stores. It's more complex...

While the Move Your Money campaign won't put Bank of America or any of the other large banks out of business, in the age of social media, it does send a message. And, that's really the point.

Here at Huffington Post, we're beginning to track how many people have been inspired by Move Your Money. If you're one of them, make a pledge in the box below. Simply click "Take the Pledge" to join the thousands of Americans who are already moving their money.

Pledge to Move Your Money!

Take the pledge, join the movement, and invite your Facebook or Twitter friends to get involved.

Pledge on Facebook or Twitter:

Comments

[DOGOODER123]

10:52 AM on 02/28/2010

This is a fantastic idea, but I just heard about it on Sunday Morning. I try to keep in touch, how did I miss this?? If I did I know about 100 people who did too. Someone needs to get a add up on TV and repeat it hundreds of times just as is done for deoderant!! What I recently heard is that banks now are doing something unheard of, they are joining together, a sort of bank union to do guess what! fight regulation! They have almost detroyed the world, we proped them up and now will be exposed to higher costs that they will pass on to us due to the bailout surcharge and THEY DON'T WANT TO BE REGULATED???? THEY ARE SPENDING MILLIONS ON LOBBYISTS TO KEEP FROM BEING REGULATED??? WASHINGTON NEEDS TO KEEP THEM OUT AND PROTECT US!!! Also, ALL BANKS ARE GOING TO HAVE TO PAY THE BAILOUT SURCHARGE RATHER THAN JUST THE BANKS THAT TOOK THE TARP!!! THE BANKS THAT DIDN'T PARTICPATE SHOULD NOT HAVE TO PAY, THAT WAY THE CONSUMER COULD GET A BREAK VIA USING A BANK THAT DIDN'T NEED TARP!!! THIS WOULD ALSO SEND A MESSAGE TO THE BOARDS WHO VOTE ON EXECUTIVE GROUP PAY THAT THE LEVELS WHICH THEY HAVE REACHED ARE UNACCEPTABLE!!!! WE SHOULD ALSO LAUNCH A CONSUMER MARCH ON WASHINGTON!!!

[divinemauler]

04:16 PM on 02/12/2010

Dude, I have to earn some interest, miniscule that it is currently. The small banks offer nothing.

[thepheonix]

05:52 PM on 01/14/2010

I am glad that people finally get it. If you want to punish a company or industry. You do it through the "Free Enterprise System". Just remember one thing. They are huge and they have subsidiaries. So you have to know them all to really hurt them.

[DarcieRN]

10:18 AM on 01/13/2010

Just moved everything - checking, savings, credit card - to local 5-star credit union in Macomb County, Michigan - what a great feeling. Rates are better, service is better, and then there are all the things that the CU is NOT doing, like paying out multi-million dollar bonuses to the CEO, speculating with derivatives, etc......

I think the credit unions and community banks should all put large "Move Your Money" lawn signs in front of their buildings so they'd be a bit easier to find.

[capybara1950]

02:35 AM on 01/13/2010

I looked up my local "community banks" through the "Move your money" site and have gotten all pertinent info from the nearest one. When I phoned the bank to collect info that wasn't on their website, 'deja vu', a human being answered. I'm 59, so this shot me back decades. The next nice surprise was that all the interest rates earned on CDs, savings and checking accounts are all higher than at the big banks, with lower required minimum deposits. So beyond the activist statement I'm making with my move, I'm also making a positive financial choice.

I hope enough people bother to do this to make the pols and crooks at least nervous.

[pjwrites]

02:46 PM on 01/11/2010

I'm not so sure this is a good thing. Ruining the folks who just got all of our money and our kids money and our future kids money? Yeah, they'll be out of business, but where will we be and how will we get it back?

[Alessandro Machi]

10:07 PM on 01/12/2010

Any profits the big banks generate appear to be going to create derivative schemes, foreign investment, falsely seeding wall street, and banksters bonuses. None of those shenanigans helps you, your family, or main street.

http://www.bloggersagainstchasebank.com
http://www.parallelforeclosure.com
http://www.daily-protest.com

[bobm0001]

02:21 PM on 01/11/2010

I have a large CD in Bank of America that matures later this month. It'll be moved to my credit union.

[sambrownell]

11:20 AM on 01/11/2010

If you are interested in this movement you should read this article that explains why it makes more sense to move your money to a credit union - http://www.creditunions.com/article.aspx?articleid=3440

[my whitehouse]

11:06 AM on 01/11/2010

welcome to the 'new normal' - no jobs, but record bonuses for wall street. A cabinet largely indifferent to the struggle of average Americans. What a joke.
hat tip to http://iamned-website.blogspot.com

[Notmi Relnam]

10:17 AM on 01/11/2010

This is a start. But we need to do more!!!!!! It is OUR MONEY

Stop Complaining and Start Action! We have to stop these crooks. We have to take back control of OUR money!!!!!

This is a Standard way of Big Business and Government. We need to take control back. We need to use the system to defeat these robber barons. Take any money you have and move it to a LOCAL credit union or bank. Fill out a new W4 (at your place of employment if you are one of the lucky ones that still has a job) and claim 99 dependents so most of your tax money goes directly to you. This is all perfectly legal and if enough people will do this they have to take notice………….

[dmsdzinr]

09:54 AM on 01/11/2010

COME ON PEOPLE! This is a totally legal, incredibly simple yet amazingly effective way to put these "too big to fail" banks in a Major Hurt Locker!!! YOU have the power, SO USE IT!

[my whitehouse]

07:13 PM on 01/10/2010

hat tip to http://iamned1114.blogspot.com

[frisbeeredcat]

04:54 PM on 01/10/2010

I have a question about all this. Even though you put your money in a small neighborhood bank, the bank takes the money and invests it whereever they wish and they also buy, borrow and sell between other banks and I bet some of them are the big banks you are trying so hard to avoid. A bank only has maybe 10% cash on hand, if that. Everything is connected. So what exactly are we accomplishing here?

[Alessandro Machi]

06:54 PM on 01/10/2010

No, they reinvest it locally, that is the big difference. The too big to fail banks use your money to over charge on their credit card interest rates, to pay themselves huge bankster bonuses, to keep the president in the palm of their hands, and to come up with crazy dumb derivative schemes that only help themselves in the bonus department and no one else.

http://www.robotsagainstchase.com
http://www.bloggersagainstchasebank.com
http://www.parallelforeclosure.com
http://www.daily-protest.com

[my whitehouse]

10:17 AM on 01/10/2010

time to move your money

hat tip to http://tradingredirec.blogspot.com/

[gericare77]

09:43 AM on 01/10/2010

Protest Campaign Targets the Big Banks
Long before the financial crash that started the recession, most people felt that that the big banks were ripping us off. Think about ATM fees for a moment. Banks installed them and encouraged their customers to use them in order to save money. They needed fewer clerks and big branches and customers benefited by being able to obtain cash around the clock at hundreds of thousands of locations around the world. Then big company greed took over. The Huffington Post has proposed that we all take action to show the big banks that we’re not happy. They’re urging people to move their business from the big banks to safe, local banks. [...]
http://silverbuzzcafe.com/?p=6979