How Texas Capital Bank’s strategic community investment pays off

The biggest challenge Effie Dennison and her team at Texas Capital Bank face every day is figuring out where to make investments that will yield the greatest impact.  

Dennison, executive vice president at the Dallas-based bank, is head of Community Development and Corporate Responsibility,

Texas Capital Bank has about 10 branches across the state and four financial centers in Dallas, so Dennison and her team have to be strategic about their investment approach. They zero in on areas close to the bank’s branches or where the bank wants to go, meet with stakeholders to identify community needs and prioritize those needs.  

The company looks to its nonprofit partners to define its investment goals and baseline of what it's solving for. Often, the baseline is an absence of community resources like medical facilities and grocery stores. But sometimes, such as during the pandemic, the organization may have to pivot to meet immediate needs like education and access to reliable Internet.  

“When you’re looking at underserved communities, it’s not rocket science to (figure out) where to start,” Dennison said. “Sometimes it can be (hard) because it’s so overwhelming. That's why you have to narrow it down to say, ‘Great program. Right now, we’re focusing on this for the next three years. These are our partners.’ We still look at other partners that come in. But for those strategic impact areas, we hone in on those three partners, and typically, it’s a three-year commitment.”  

What makes Texas Capital Bank (Nasdaq: TCBI) different, Dennison said, is Dallas is its home, so all of the investments it puts into North Texas and the state impacts its employees, clients, customers and the bank itself. 

“it’s a win-win,” Dennison said. “When you are doing business with the bank, that money that’s designated to our group goes right back in the communities where our clients and their employees work, live and play.” 

For Dennison who grew up with an educator and a Baptist minister as parents, her role at Texas Capital Bank perfectly aligns with who she is and her personal mission of service.  

The trajectory of her career changed because of one job. She had been hired, sight unseen, as an executive assistant to the CEO of a commercial real estate syndication company in Dallas but arrived on her first day to find the position filled.  

After waiting a couple of hours in the lobby, she was offered a role as an assistant in the legal and tax department where the general counsel encouraged her to attend real estate classes. She went to her first class, principles of real estate, and a light bulb went off in her head.  

“Every word that the instructor said, I just hung onto it,” Dennison said. “I just knew this was something that I enjoyed and loved. I wanted to learn more, and it was never enough for me just to go to one class.”  

When she later entered her first community development role at Wells Fargo, Dennison knew she found her passion. The position allowed her to invest in under-resourced communities and help make residents’ vision for their neighborhoods come to life.  

“I came out of communities where we didn't have a lot, but the potential was there,” Dennison said. “When I came up, you still had thriving, bustling Black-owned businesses...Now you go to those same areas, and they're either boarded up, or there's a void. The opportunity is still there to see a community from where it is today (and) what the people there want for their community.”  

Dennison has served in her current role for nearly five years and been with the bank for a total of seven years. In addition to leading the organization’s strategic investments, she also focuses on employee engagement, philanthropic giving and serves as the president of the bank’s community development corporation.  

As the bank’s lending arm, Texas Capital Community Development Corp. provides loans for affordable housing developments, businesses creating jobs and revitalization and stabilization projects. The subsidiary also invests in equity funds for small and mid-sized companies and in minority deposit institutions. Last year, the CDC invested $10 million into equity funds for small businesses, real estate development, public welfare and minority depository institutions.  

The RedBird Mall redevelopment project is an example Dennison gives of the type of project the corporation is interested in funding. The corporation was an early investor in the project, and when Dennison met with RedBird lead developer Peter Brodsky as he was looking for funding sources, she wanted Texas Capital Bank to be the first bank he thought of.  

“The CDC financed those first two loans,” Dennison said. “I courted (Brodsky) like a date because knowing how tenacious he is, (I knew) this project was going to happen. Texas Capital Bank needed to be a catalyst to help jumpstart this development because typically when you come in and it’s a catalyst project, everything around it starts redeveloping."

Dennison also completed a personal goal and launched the bank’s foundation, Texas Capital Bank Foundation, last December. The bank always aimed to be charitable in its giving, but philanthropic donations were a line item in its budget. The foundation creates a formalized process for how the company donates and allows the organization to double its efforts. 

“As the bank continues to grow and define itself as the bank for Texas, we need to put more structure around our philanthropic giving,” Dennison said. “Not only was the structure a component of that, but it was also a doubling down of the grant offerings that we were giving. It provided structure and opportunities for more of our leadership to be involved in our giving process.”  

When asked what advice she would give a woman starting her first CDC role, one word popped into Dennison’s head: embrace. She’s learned throughout her career that when you’re authentic and embrace other’s viewpoints, experiences and pain, it is reciprocated.  

“The work that you’re about to embark, it matters,” Dennison said. “Now it’s your job to make sure every stakeholder understands that what you’re about to do is going to make a difference for your bank, community, employees and even for you. You're going to be different 10 years and 20 years from now because of this job that you took.”