Mercantile Bank President Charles Monaghan would rather concentrate on keeping kids out of trouble during the summer months than sponsoring golf tournaments or attending fundraising dinners.
Randal Rucker describes Monaghan as “caring and relentless” – an unusual pairing of words – in his pursuit of social justice for Greater Boston residents, hundreds of whom Monaghan has helped over the years. Rucker is CEO of Family Service of Greater Boston, and a Mercantile Bank board member.
The bank’s charitable objectives focus on the basic needs of food and shelter in the communities it serves – Boston’s South End, Fenway and Brighton neighborhoods. Finding people who need help, Monaghan said, is – unfortunately – easy. Holiday season outreach to local churches in search of parishioners who need help produces far more names than the bank can accommodate.
Mercantile Bank, which is being acquired by Worcester-based Commerce Bank later this year, was profitable last year despite a down economy. Monaghan said the transaction will allow the combined bank to serve a wider range of Boston-area customers. Board member Harry Collings said he expects the merger will increase Mercantile’s ability to participate in pre-tax grantmaking, too.
Mercantile already gives a greater percentage of its net income to charitable causes than the nation’s largest banks. About nine years ago, Monaghan spearheaded the creation of Mercantile’s Social Responsibility Committee (SRC), chaired by Rucker and open to all employees.
The SRC’s missions are to identify areas of need where the bank can make meaningful impact on quality of life, well-being and economic development in a sustainable manner; and to oversee an appropriate allocation of resources consistent with safe banking practices to achieve the SRC’s goals. Rucker said the SRC represents a model for other banks to follow, and that it has “matured and grown” since its creation. The initiative has a high number of employee participants, resulting in relationships with non-profits that go beyond a grantor-grantee relationship and instead becomes a partnership, Rucker said.
With Collings’ help, Mercantile has sponsored Boston Mayor Thomas Menino’s summer jobs for youth program, which keeps kids busy during the idle summer months, leading to increased school attendance and a mitigation of behavioral problems.
When the bank renovated its Fenway branch recently, Monaghan employed a unique method to decorate its walls. He and his wife presented an Expressive Art concept to various nonprofits, which responded enthusiastically, and invited chosen clients to do the art. The bank purchased the paintings from the artists.
A pleasant upshot of the initiative – a bank customer expressed interest in having a painting reproduced. A Cambridge gallery assisted, and now half the proceeds from sales of the reproduction go to the homeless artist who created the original.
“We’re in business to try to make money for our shareholders, [but] we want personnel to be happy and movitated. It doesn’t always come to their paycheck. They need to be happy in their work environment,” Monaghan says. “The personal involvement means more than the dollars we spend.”
