Every holiday season, $220 million-asset Community Bank of Cameron in Cameron, Wisconsin, supports local food shelves with food donations. But last October, the bank launched “Bankin’ on BBQ,” a charitable project encouraging community members to purchase bottles of the bank’s specialty barbecue rub instead of making food donations, with the proceeds going to local food shelves. The bank organized challenges and raffles to both sell more bottles and bring the community together.
The barbecue rub is a secret recipe crafted by a customer who had helped make the rub as a gift for the bank’s large commercial clients in the past. The idea to sell the rub was originally a marketing joke. The staff had a variety of ideas, including a life-size cardboard cutout of the bank’s president in the lobby promoting the rub, which they did end up doing.
“[The idea] took on a life of its own,” said Ted Gerber, president and CEO of Community Bank of Cameron. “It went from what could we do to help raise money for local food banks to pictures of me holding a thing of this spice rub and then selling it to our customers to raise money for charity.”
Among the bank’s three branches, the one that sold the most bottles was rewarded with a meal cooked by Gerber, with the top-selling employee receiving a gift card. Customers were entered in a raffle for a Blackstone grill for each bottle they purchased, with the bank covering all production fees so that 100% of the proceeds went to local food shelves.
“We’re a family-owned bank,” Gerber said. “For us to be able to give something to people around the holidays, [like] a good meal—that is something important to us.”