Ryan Coaxum wears a lot of hats. As Senior Vice President of Community Development and External Affairs at Galveston-based Moody Bank, he leads corporate affairs: community development, public relations, external communications, government affairs, corporate philanthropy and stakeholder engagement. He also still carries a lending and deposit portfolio. One day is all customers, the next is all community needs, and some days he’s on Capitol Hill or at the Texas State Capitol advocating for the industry. In his words, “no two days are the same.”
In this episode of Bound by Banking, Ryan explains why the Community Reinvestment Act should be the floor and not the finish line. He walks through what it looks like to treat community development as a growth engine, why so many banks never get past the checkbox, and how his own unconventional career path shapes the way he tells banking’s story to the next generation.
The CRA Box Is Already Checked. Now What?
Every bank is bound by the Community Reinvestment Act, which requires showing up in low- to moderate-income communities. Ryan’s view is that for a long time, a lot of banks did that work because it was federally mandated, then checked the box and moved on.
At Moody Bank, he says, that box is “done and put away.” The real work is what comes after. Moody takes what Ryan calls a “whole of community” approach. It still invests in the core CRA areas like affordable housing, financial literacy, and workforce and economic development, and then it goes further into arts and culture and education.
His reasoning is simple. When a customer is well-rounded in all of those areas, and the bank helped get them there, you end up with a stronger customer. “A stronger customer is a strong community.” For community bank marketers, that changes how community investment gets framed internally. It isn’t a cost center sitting next to the marketing budget. It’s how you build the customer base you want to bank for decades.
Be the Bank They’d Pick Even Without the Best Rate
Ryan recently wrote an op-ed for the American Bankers Association’s journal built around a simple comparison. There’s a Texas grocery chain he loves (HEB) because it does so much more than sell groceries. After a disaster, he said, if he saw both federal government trucks and grocery store trucks pull up, he’d choose the grocery store.
That’s the model he uses at Moody Bank. Good products and good rates matter, but so does how the bank shows up: at church, at Little League, at whatever people care about. The payoff shows up when rates aren’t the most competitive. Customers stick around because, as Ryan put it, “they show up for us.”
That’s the test he’d give any bank: Would customers still choose you if you didn’t have the best rate? If the answer is yes, that’s the real ROI of community work. He points to other Texas brands that do this well, like Kendra Scott and Tito’s with its Love, Tito’s program, as proof that showing up is a learnable strategy, not a mystery.
Showing Up Is the Strategy
We asked him what tactics other banks leave on the table, Ryan’s answer was “very simple and not simple at the same time” by showing up for the community.
The day before we recorded, one of the area school districts he has a relationship with asked him to join an event alongside Apple to talk about the future of AI and technology in the community. He went as a community partner, not a salesperson. That’s the job, he says. When banks stop at a satisfactory CRA rating, they lose any reason to show up. At Moody, “the job is not even close to being done.” The bank keeps asking where its corporate dollars can go and what programs it can build so it can look back and say it helped someone reach the next rung in life.
So why don’t more banks do this? Ryan is candid. It takes time, money and effort, and many banks don’t have someone in a role like his who can plan, roadmap and strategize community work. That’s a salary that could otherwise go toward the traditional loan and deposit side. For a lot of banks, it’s easier to let the CRA officer check the box and keep moving.
The banks that do invest see it come back. Ryan regularly has people come up to him after he speaks or attends an event and say they bank somewhere else, don’t feel paid attention to, and love what Moody is doing. Can they bank with Moody? He’ll also simply ask people whether they’re happy with their banking relationship. He doesn’t push a hard sell. He focuses on putting the bank’s best foot forward, and the business follows.
Let Your Values Be Part of Your Brand
Moody Bank has an advantage many banks don’t: the Moody name. The Moody family has deep roots in Texas, and its sister organization, the Moody Foundation, shows up across Texas college campuses. UT, Baylor and SMU all have schools or buildings carrying the name.
Ryan sees that giving-back culture as ingrained in every Moody organization, the bank included. “You got the Moody name on it. How are you gonna give back?” Most community banks don’t have a foundation with that kind of footprint, but the lesson carries over. Your brand promise has to match how you actually behave in the community.
It also matters because of what banks help people with. Ryan pointed out that banks are there for some of the hardest moments in people’s lives, like buying a home or getting a loan to start a business. By his rough estimate, around 65% of new business loans come from community banks before those businesses grow into regional or larger banks. As technology pulls people further from human connection, that kind of trusted relationship is exactly what customers are looking for.
Your Story Is a Recruiting Tool
Ryan didn’t take the traditional path. He started in banking without a degree because he saw banking as a pillar of community. His “three Cs” are capital, community and culture. Then one of his first bosses asked where he saw himself in the industry and told him he could do all of it, but he’d stay at that desk if he didn’t finish his degree. Ryan was a little offended because it was so real, but he enrolled in classes that same day on his lunch break, and graduated magna cum laude in 2018.
He doesn’t regret how it played out. It gave him what he calls a better testimony. When someone tells him they want to go back to school but can’t afford it, he can relate, and he can point them to options like Huston-Tillotson University in East Austin.
That relatability ties into one of his biggest goals: getting more young people into banking. Ryan believes the industry hasn’t done a great job marketing itself. People grow up wanting to be doctors, engineers or lawyers, but “nobody really wakes up and goes, ‘You know, I wanna be a banker.'” So he travels to Texas universities, and soon to Arkansas, to tell the story. He wants people to see that bankers don’t all fit one mold. “You’ll never meet another banker like me,” he tells them. Nothing makes him happier than hearing a customer say, “That’s my banker.”
Watch the Full Conversation
Ryan’s message for community bank marketers is clear: compliance is the minimum, and showing up is the strategy. Build a whole-of-community approach, measure success by whether customers would stay without the best rate, and let real people tell your bank’s story.
Watch the full episode of Bound by Banking with Ryan Coaxum.
