Survey from Wells Fargo – The Bank of Doing – also reveals priorities across America for addressing the most pressing needs in their communities
SAN FRANCISCO – Wells Fargo & Company (NYSE: WFC) – Americans are rolling up their sleeves and pitching in to help their neighbors – and are eager to do even more throughout their communities. According to results from a national survey released today by Wells Fargo and Ipsos, Americans helped their neighbors on average six times in the last year without expecting anything in return and 77% did so at least once. Furthermore, 73% of Americans strive to support their communities by shopping local and on average Americans shopped at or supported a local small business 11 times in the last year.
More than half of Americans would like to volunteer more time (57%) and donate more money (57%) to local organizations; and 53% wish they knew where to go to learn which organizations in their community are looking for volunteers or donations.
Wells Fargo commissioned the online survey of more than 5,000 U.S. adults to understand how Americans give back and what they prioritize most in their communities. The survey is part of The Bank of Doing campaign, which reinforces Wells Fargo’s longstanding commitment to helping strengthen communities in key focus areas: housing access and affordability, financial health, small business, and sustainability.
“As The Bank of Doing, we have an important responsibility to strengthen the communities we serve – and we’re glad to see our fellow Americans are taking action to help others, too,” said Kristy Fercho, Head of Diverse Segments, Representation and Inclusion at Wells Fargo. “We’re committed to helping make communities more sustainable, empowering diverse small businesses, and creating greater access to financial health and affordable homes for more individuals so they can grow generational wealth and help improve America’s local communities.”
Affordable housing tops America’s to-do list
The survey also asked what Americans would do if given $1 million to spend in their community. On average, respondents would allocate the most money toward affordable housing investments.
Overall, the top three areas in which Americans believe their local community needs more financial investment are in the availability of affordable housing (70%), the condition of roads and sidewalks (69%), and support for small businesses (67%).
The good news is survey respondents also believe that progress has already been made in their communities. For example, many Americans are satisfied that their local communities have made improvements in small business support (60%), internet infrastructure (60%), and job creation (46%).
Additionally, the survey identified what each state’s residents would prioritize for financial investment in their home state. Check out America’s to-do list by state (PDF).
What The Bank of Doing is doing
Wells Fargo has a longstanding commitment to supporting the people and communities it serves – through volunteerism, financial investment, financial health, and more. The Bank of Doing has:
- Donated $525 million to support housing affordability solutions since 2019.
- Enabled 178,000 small businesses to create or preserve more than 222,000 jobs through a $420– million Open for Business Fund to organizations that support small business owners.
- Donated more than $107 million across U.S. higher education for diverse scholarships and student programming.
- Originated or committed approximately $129 billion in sustainable finance, representing approximately 26% of our goal to deploy $500 billion of sustainable finance between 2021 and 2030.
Wells Fargo empowers employees to donate their time and talent to thousands of charitable organizations. In 2023, Wells Fargo employees provided approximately 800,000 hours of volunteer service.
“The Bank of Doing goes far beyond the investments we make,” added Fercho. “It is the sum of the impact we can have when we work together to tackle societal challenges and support our communities.”
Learn more about what the company is doing to make communities stronger by visiting www.wellsfargo.com/impact.
About the survey
An online survey was conducted among 7,067 total adults age 18+ from the continental U.S., Alaska, and Hawaii by Ipsos on behalf of Wells Fargo from May 31 through June 15, 2023. The sample consisted of 5,077 adults 18+, divided evenly across each state in the U.S., for a minimum of 100 respondents from each state, and 1990 adults 18+, within 14 targeted media markets within the U.S. Weights were applied to national and state data cuts to match the Census on age, gender, region, race/ethnicity, and income. The targeted markets were also weighted to Census data on age, gender, race/ethnicity, and household income.
The precision of Ipsos online non-probability polls is measured using a credibility interval. In this case, the poll has a credibility interval of plus or minus 1.4 percentage points for all respondents, plus or minus 1.7 percentage points for the national sample, and a range of 11.0–12.0 percentage points for the individual states.
About Wells Fargo
Wells Fargo & Company (NYSE: WFC) is a leading financial services company that has approximately $1.9 trillion in assets. We provide a diversified set of banking, investment and mortgage products and services, as well as consumer and commercial finance, through our four reportable operating segments: Consumer Banking and Lending, Commercial Banking, Corporate and Investment Banking, and Wealth & Investment Management. Wells Fargo ranked No. 47 on Fortune’s 2023 rankings of America’s largest corporations. In the communities we serve, the company focuses its social impact on building a sustainable, inclusive future for all by supporting housing affordability, small business growth, financial health, and a low-carbon economy. News, insights, and perspectives from Wells Fargo are also available at
Wells Fargo Stories.
Additional information may be found at www.wellsfargo.com
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/wellsfargo
Contact Information
Media
Alison Walsh
(917) 301‑2962
Alison.H.Walsh@wellsfargo.com