Sixty years ago, Bell Bank opened as a single branch in a north Fargo shopping center — teller windows borrowed from a nearby five-and-dime because the real ones hadn't arrived in time for opening day.
Today, it's one of the nation's largest family- and employee-owned banks, with nearly 2,000 team members across Fargo-Moorhead, Minneapolis-St. Paul, Phoenix, and beyond.
Bell Bank has paired that growth with a people-first culture and a longstanding commitment to giving back, most visibly through its Pay It Forward program. As a partner in the Emerging Prairie ecosystem, their work contributes to the environment where innovation and community can grow together.
We sat down with Bell Bank's Chief of Staff, EVP & Chief Culture Officer, Julie Peterson Klein, to talk about 60 years of history, the philosophy behind Pay It Forward, and what it takes to build a culture rooted in community.
Q. For readers unfamiliar with Bell Bank, can you share a bit about the organization and what makes Bell distinct as a family and employee-owned bank rooted in Fargo?
A. Bell Bank is celebrating our 60th anniversary this year, as we were founded in 1966 as a single bank branch in the Northport Shopping Center in Fargo. We’ve remained family-owned ever since, with the Snortland, Fairfield and Solberg families (all with ties to smalltown North Dakota) as our majority owners – and our team members becoming employee-owners through the ESOP launched in 2017.
From the start, our core values – creating a family atmosphere, providing unequaled personal service and paying it forward in the community – have stayed the same. Along with our “bottom line” mission of “Happy employees! Happy customers!” those values have led to a history of amazing growth and success. Bell is now one of the nation’s largest independently owned banks. We have nearly 2,000 employees in our hub markets of Fargo-Moorhead-West Fargo, Minneapolis-St. Paul and Phoenix as well as in other offices and locations around the country. Our people-first culture has made Bell an award-winning place to work and do business. We’re consistently named a Top Workplace, a Best Bank to Work For, and to People magazine’s list of 100 Companies That Care.
Probably the most unique aspect of Bell, and the thing I get asked about the most, is our Pay It Forward program. Since it was launched by president and CEO Michael Solberg and his wife, Charleen, Pay It Forward has empowered our team members to give away millions and millions of dollars to individuals, families and organizations in need.
Q. Bell's "bottom line" is "Happy Employees! Happy Customers!" How does that people-first culture shape the way Bell shows up for the Fargo-Moorhead community?
A. We believe that if you create and maintain a positive workplace, where people are treated like family and proud of the work they do and the company they work for, those happy team members will in turn take great care of their customers, as well as their friends and neighbors throughout the community.
There are countless stories of people at Bell going the “extra mile” for their customers or even for complete strangers – at Bell, our employees can recognize their colleagues for this by nominating them for “How Bell of You” recognition. (Credit to Marc de Celle, the wonderful local author of How Fargo of You, for the inspiration.) That kind of helpfulness is also woven into the Fargo-Moorhead community and our region. If there’s a special event or organizational effort, you may well find the Bell stamp on it somewhere, providing sponsorships, leadership, volunteer time or other support.
Q. Bell Bank has been a longtime partner of Emerging Prairie. What originally drew Bell to support EP's work, and what has kept that partnership strong over the years?
A. Our values and approach as a community bank dovetail perfectly with Emerging Prairie’s mission of connecting people in ways that uniquely promote economic growth and development across North Dakota and our region. Obviously, a focus on healthy growth and development benefits us all – or as Emerging Prairie puts it, “all boats rise with the tide.” Over the years, Emerging Prairie has been able to tap into “legacy” leadership as well as younger generations of entrepreneurs and business leaders. That’s a powerful combination that’s good for Fargo and our region. At Bell, we have been proud to participate in Emerging Prairie events and programs, as well as providing volunteer board leadership. TedxFargo is just one example of an event that has continued to grow, showcasing regional talent and thought leaders. Personally and professionally, I’ve been honored to serve on the advisory board for TedxFargo for the past several years.
Q. The Pay It Forward program has empowered more than $32 million in grassroots giving since 2008. Can you share the origin story of Pay It Forward and how it has evolved over the past 18 years?
A. Pay It Forward was the brainchild of our president and CEO, Michael Solberg, and his wife, Charleen. Michael talked about the concept at our company wide Christmas party in 2007, with the amazing announcement that every bank employee was going to receive significant funds to “pay it forward” by giving to individuals, families, nonprofit organizations or causes.
At the time it was announced, our new Pay It Forward program received coverage from People magazine, CBS Nightly News, Good Morning America and more. Maybe we should have anticipated that kind of attention – but our private ownership simply did this from their hearts. I don’t think we realized how unique it seemed for any business, including a bank, to give to the community in this way.
In the first several years of the program, we had special guests at Bell, such as an Oprah impersonator (since Oprah helped inspire the idea) and by Catherine Ryan Hyde, author of the novel Pay It Forward. As the years have gone by, we’ve worked with our video team to document and share special stories each year. And Bell’s Pay It Forward program has also impacted our partnerships with Bell Champions – well-known people (such as North Dakota native Josh Duhamel and Minnesota native Matt Cullen) who share our passion for helping others, and even our corporate partnerships with entities like Minnesota United Football Club or the Phoenix Suns and Mercury, where we’ve incorporated paying it forward into events and engagements with them and their players. That “ripple of giving” just seems to expand outward, encouraging other individuals, businesses and organizations to pay it forward.
Q. Most corporate giving programs are centralized, but Bell puts $1,000 directly into the hands of every full-time employee to give where they see the most need. What's the philosophy behind that approach, and what have you learned from trusting employees to choose?
A. Michael Solberg, his dad (still Bell’s chairman) Richard and our other majority owners in the Solberg, Snortland and Fairfield families consistently say Pay It Forward is the achievement they are most proud of. It’s having the giving decisions made at the grassroots level – individually by our employees instead of at the committee or corporate level – that makes the program so unique … and so, so powerful.
Our team members are such careful stewards of this program. Every year, so many of them will wait for that need that touches their heart to give, or to pool their funds with others for even greater impact. I still get teary-eyed every time I see or hear the stories of those needs and how our team members have connected with people to help them when they need it most.
Q. Bell Bank is consistently one of Emerging Prairie's top partners when it comes to volunteers. What does Bell do internally to make showing up for the community such a natural part of being on the team?
A. Paying it forward by giving back to the community is one of our core values at Bell, and it shows in how we do show up for the community. Bell team members know their volunteer efforts are supported. Specifically, we give every team member 16 hours (2 full-time days) of paid volunteer time as one of the benefits of working at Bell. And our team members see and hear from owners, board members, executives and other leaders that volunteerism and support for the communities we serve are important. They hear it in our values and see it in action every day.
Q. So much can happen when people step up for their community. Are there particular volunteer moments or Pay It Forward stories from the Fargo-Moorhead area that have stuck with you and capture what this work is really about?
A. I’m always asked this, and my answer is always the same – go take a look at some of the Pay It Forward stories in our library (bell.bank/pay-it-forward) and choose your favorite, because I cannot choose just one favorite story … or even several! Every single one is so unique and amazing.
It’s also been a privilege to share the opportunity to pay it forward through larger community efforts. Our Bell team has joined with so many others from the community to support efforts like the Fargo Pack for Feed My Starving Children, and Kevin Bacon’s efforts to provide “kits” of essential items for those in need through his nonprofit, SixDegrees.org.
Q. Bell started in 1966 with a single location in a north Fargo shopping center and has grown alongside the FM region ever since. How do you see Bell's role in shaping the Fargo–Moorhead we know today?
A. It’s really fun to look back 60 years to such humble beginnings. Back then, a group of local businessmen and farmers, who were asked to invest in shares at $1,000 each, became the first stockholders and directors or State Bank of Fargo. In some ways, they had a rough start. They had to jump through some regulatory hoops to gain their state charter, and the teller windows weren’t installed in time for opening day – so the staff borrowed rabbit cages from a nearby five-and-dime and made a makeshift counter out of them! I love that story. I’m sure that team just kept smiling their way through opening day, took in their first dollar to be deposited, and got the “real” teller line going later that week. What is now Bell evolved from those entrepreneurial roots and positive, can-do attitudes.
Today, we’re one of the nation’s largest family- and employee-owned banks, with more than $15 billion in assets, an award-winning culture and workplace, and nearly 2,000 team members across the country who have helped make “paying it forward” almost a household phrase in our communities. In Fargo-Moorhead, where we opened our new Bell Tower headquarters in 2024, it’s easy to see how Bell has grown along with the community. Our banking and services have helped so many families and businesses plan for their future, and our multiple locations are across Fargo-Moorhead and beyond. As we celebrate 60 years of Bell, we want to thank so many customers and friends in the community for being a part of Bell’s ongoing story.
Q. Over the past decade, how have you seen the Fargo-Moorhead community evolve, and how has Bell's approach to community engagement evolved with it?
A. As the Fargo-Moorhead area has just continued to grow, we continue to invest as a company in our banks and teams. We opened our Bell Tower headquarters downtown, anchoring Main Avenue and Broadway, in 2024 – a clear illustration of our investment in Fargo and the future. We expect Bell Tower to remain headquarters to our family- and employee-owned company for generations to come.
Bell Tower has enhanced our involvement in growth and change downtown – which is of course also an area facing many challenges. We continue to look for ways to partner with other local and regional leaders to find solutions, whether that’s in affordable housing, job creation or other avenues we can explore together.
Q. Finally, what advice would you give to other organizations wanting to build a real culture of volunteering and community giving and what excites you most about the future of Fargo-Moorhead?
A. The first step is to simply articulate your core values, so your team members can remember and understand them. That puts everyone in the organization on the same page about living out your core values to create community. At Bell, our core values can be distilled to family atmosphere, unequaled personal service and paying it forward. Our team members can easily absorb those values and see them in action every day.
As leaders in your organization, you need to show you care, and that has to come from the top down. When you demonstrate you truly care for your teams, it creates an atmosphere where team members treat others like family. It’s not one big program or benefit that makes the difference – it’s the million little things you can do that show you care.
A culture of volunteering and giving also needs to be supported. At Bell, we support through paid volunteer time, as well as our Pay It Forward program, and our sponsorship and involvement in so many community and nonprofit events. It’s important for our teams to know that our success is due to people in the community. An “attitude of gratitude” instills an understanding of our responsibility to try to make this community even better.
There are so many amazingly talented people in this community, and so much energy – including through organizations like Emerging Prairie. That’s what’s exciting to me, and to our team at Bell … working together as part of something greater, and being part of that passion for growth and development.
At the center of it all is a simple idea. People matter.
As Fargo-Moorhead continues to grow, it will take that same spirit of generosity and partnership to keep building what's next. Bell Bank's work — through Pay It Forward, paid volunteer time, and 60 years of showing up for the community — is part of that ongoing story, helping shape a region where people and businesses continue to thrive together.
Bell Bank A family- and employee-owned bank headquartered in Fargo, celebrating 60 years of community banking and more than $32 million given through its Pay It Forward program.
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