Public Banking for Public Prosperity:

A Declaration of Financial Independence

2026 National Public Banking Institute Conference Prospectus

The movement to create publicly-owned banks in America has acquired national momentum and a new urgency. With systemically growing economic inequities and financially-challenged government institutions, the adoption of public banks for safer, more productive management of public funds is being recognized as a proven and transformative institutional alternative.

Since 2011, the Public Banking Institute (PBI) has educated and mobilized a national network of advocates in over 30 states. Now, during our Nation’s 250th birthday, it’s time to honor our historical past by empowering a new era of civic commitment to establish public financial institutions that are “of, by and for the People”

This national conference takes place in Philadelphia from October 22nd to the 24th and will bring together prominent voices and experts from economics, banking, public policy, academia, government, community development and public activism. 

The conference, titled “Public Banking, Public Prosperity: A Declaration of Financial Independence” intends to catalyze the national public banking movement at an historical time of challenging national issues of economics and democracy.  With a focus on unifying organizational collaborations to facilitate public bank adoption, a practical new strength will emerge to expand and carry the movement forward.

Among planned conference topics:

-       Examining the Public Money Predicament

-       Creating a Revolution for Democratically-controlled Public Finance

-       The Impacts of Wall Street’s Hold on Public Dollars

-       The Public Bank Solution

-       The Critical Partnership of Community Banks

-       How Banks Create New Money and Why We Can Too

-       The Bank of North Dakota’s president Don Morgan

-       Reviving Local Economies and Economic Sectors

-       Empowering the Public Banking Movement

-       Launching the new Public Banking Community Action Network

-       A Study of Local Public Banking Effort

-       Creating Public Financial Catalysts

Invited Speakers Include:

Don Morgan, President, Bank of North Dakota

Dr. Scott Ferguson – University of South Florida

Chris Armitage – the Existentialist Republic

Dr. Richard Werner, International Banking Expert, Economist, Professor

Oscar Perry Abello

Dr. Chris Desan, Harvard University

Dr. Ellen H. Brown, Author & Activist “Web of Debt” and “The Public Bank Solution”