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With all that’s been in the news recently, it might be easy to forget that there is nary a page in the annals of American history that wasn’t written, at least in part, because a bank made it possible. For more than 200 years, banks have provided the capital necessary for many of the United States’ most significant commercial and societal undertakings – and at a time when the financial services industry’s image needs to be more about the good that banks facilitate in the economy and communities across the nation, one bank is helping to tell those stories.

During the History Channel’s 12-hour miniseries “America: The Story of Us,” Bank of America is running 12 two-minute “mini-documentaries” touting its role in events as momentous as the construction of the Golden Gate Bridge and Erie Canal, the creation of a national currency, and the rebuilding of Chicago after the famous 1871 fire.

Bank of America has done well to identify a creative opportunity to define itself, once again, as a conduit to the American Dream. By telling the story of its past, the bank makes a strong statement about its future – one in which it clearly plans to continue erecting skyscrapers and suspension bridges and help every American secure the financing that puts, home ownership, college education , and a comfortable retirement (just to name three) within reach.

In so doing, the bank has hit on a worthy approach to the goal shared by all financial services providers in this post-recession era: to stop being the story and start shaping it.

Michael W. Robinson is a Senior Vice President and Chair of the Corporate Practice at Levick Strategic Communications, the world’s top crisis firm. He is also a contributing author to Bulletproof Blog™. Connect with Levick on Twitter: @Levick.