Is Citizens Bank Of Morgantown Woke?

Company Overview

Citizens Bank of Morgantown is exactly the kind of institution that big-bank refugees keep saying they wish still existed: a small, locally owned community bank that answers to its neighbors instead of to Wall Street and the activist class. Headquartered in Morgantown, West Virginia, it bills itself as "Morgantown's only locally-owned bank," serving families, small businesses, and farmers across Monongalia County. Important note for shoppers doing their homework — this is NOT the giant national "Citizens Bank" run by Citizens Financial Group out of Rhode Island. It is a separate, independent, state-chartered community bank, FDIC-insured (Cert #22954), with a single hometown footprint rather than a multi-state branch network.

The bank's pitch is refreshingly old-fashioned. Roughly 95% of every dollar deposited is lent back into the local community, turning deposits into mortgages, small-business loans, and personal accounts for people the bankers actually know by name. Leadership is local too, with President Brian Camp and a hometown lending team making credit decisions in Morgantown rather than routing them through a distant corporate risk committee. It carries a 5-star safety rating from Bankrate and markets a heritage of serving the community for roughly a century. This is relationship banking — checking, savings, CDs, IRAs, and mortgages including FHA, USDA, VA, and first-time-buyer options — not a sprawling financial conglomerate chasing speculative trades.

ESG & Sustainability

Here is where Citizens Bank of Morgantown shines for values-based customers: there is no evidence of an ESG (Environmental, Social, and Governance) framework, no ESG-based lending policy, and no published "sustainability report" full of carbon pledges and social-justice metrics. And that is precisely the point. The bank's stated mission is to turn local deposits into local loans — financing homes, small businesses, and working families in Monongalia County — not to police customers' carbon footprints or steer credit according to political climate scorecards.

Contrast that with the national megabanks. Institutions like Bank of America, Citigroup, Wells Fargo, and Fifth Third publish glossy ESG reports, adopt net-zero financing commitments, and in some cases have pulled back from lending to industries that fall out of political favor. Those mandates can quietly shape who gets a loan and who gets shut out. A community bank like Citizens has no such apparatus. Its "ESG policy" is simply lending to the people down the street and keeping the lights on for the local economy. For customers tired of their bank moonlighting as an environmental and social activist, the absence of an ESG bureaucracy is a feature, not a flaw.

DEI Programs

Our research turned up no corporate DEI (Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion) program, no diversity hiring quotas, no race- or gender-based lending targets, and no public DEI officer or commitment statement from Citizens Bank of Morgantown. For a small, locally owned bank, this is entirely normal — and welcome. The institution hires from its own community and serves its own community, judging customers and employees by character, creditworthiness, and competence rather than by demographic checkboxes.

This stands in sharp relief to the large national banks, several of which built out elaborate DEI departments, tied executive pay to diversity metrics, and ran identity-based programs that have since drawn legal scrutiny and customer backlash. Citizens Bank of Morgantown carries none of that baggage. There is no indication it has imported the divisive language of equity audits or DEI training into its operations. What you get instead is a team that treats every customer the same — like a neighbor — which is how banking is supposed to work.

LGBTQ+ Advocacy

We found no record of Citizens Bank of Morgantown sponsoring Pride events, running rainbow marketing campaigns, or pushing LGBTQ+ political messaging to its customers. Critically, the bank does not appear on the Human Rights Campaign's Corporate Equality Index (CEI) and has no CEI score on file — unsurprising, since the HRC index is overwhelmingly populated by large national corporations that actively court the rating by adopting HRC-recommended policies.

The contrast with the national banking giants could not be clearer. Companies like Wells Fargo and Bank of America have chased high CEI scores, plastered their logos on Pride parades, and turned banking into a stage for social messaging. Citizens Bank of Morgantown simply does its job: opening accounts, approving loans, and serving the families of Morgantown without injecting contested social campaigns into the customer relationship. For consumers who want a bank that stays in its lane, this neutrality is exactly what they are looking for.

Political Activity

We found no evidence of significant political action committee (PAC) activity, partisan corporate donations, or executives using the bank as a megaphone for political causes. Small community banks like this one rarely operate corporate PACs or funnel money into national political campaigns, and Citizens Bank of Morgantown is no exception based on the available record. Its leadership keeps its public profile focused on banking, lending, and local economic growth.

This matters because the large national banks have repeatedly drawn fire for politically lopsided giving and for taking corporate stances on hot-button cultural issues. Citizens Bank of Morgantown shows no sign of weaponizing customer deposits for political ends. There is no activist agenda riding along with your checking account here — just a hometown institution that keeps its money and its mission rooted in Monongalia County.

Consumer Impact

For values-based banking customers, Citizens Bank of Morgantown is close to an ideal pick — and its woke score of 3 out of 100, firmly in "not woke" territory, reflects that. There are no ESG lending mandates dictating who deserves credit, no DEI quotas reshaping hiring, no Pride campaigns turning your bank into a billboard, no HRC scorecard chasing, and no partisan political spending. What remains is the original promise of community banking: local ownership, local decisions, and local reinvestment, with roughly 95 cents of every deposited dollar working right there in Morgantown.

If you are a conservative or simply a customer who wants a financial institution that focuses on service rather than social engineering, this is a textbook example of where to take your business. Switching from a national megabank to an independent community bank like this one keeps your money out of the ESG-and-activism machine and puts it to work building homes, funding small businesses, and supporting families in your own backyard. The bottom line: Citizens Bank of Morgantown earns its "not woke" rating not by loudly opposing the activist agenda, but by quietly refusing to participate in it — and that is exactly what a lot of Americans want from their bank.