Veteran’s Day in the United States was Sunday, Nov. 11. Mischler bills itself as the securities industry’s oldest and largest Service Disabled Veterans Business Enterprise. The firm’s founder and CEO, Walter Mischler, was disabled in the Vietnam War. Mischler is a West Point grad and the son of a career U.S. Army officer. He’s a patriot, in other words.
Founded in 1994, Mischler’s business is back-office financial services for private and public institutions. They end up being the junior underwriter in a number of bond issuances. Mischler is not a consumer financial services firm like, say, Fidelity or Charles Schwab.
I don’t know how big Mischler’s book of business is, or what its profits are likely to be for November. But in 2010, the company presented a $10,000 check to the Wounded Warriors Project, which was based on an unnamed portion of each trading commission going to the cause.
Mischler sorta wears its Americanism in its sleeve. In the about us section of the website, most of the pictures of the staff feature an American flag to the right of the subject. (For instance, Walter Mischler at the left) The picture’s composition will be familiar to anyone who ever served in the U.S. military. I’ve got a picture lying around my house somewhere from my basic training days that is basically the same except that I'm all decked out in green.
That said, Mischler’s sponsorship of WWP feels totally natural to me. What could make more sense than a disabled American vet who’s done OK for himself than to use his company to donate to a cause that helps other disabled veterans?
This is the way it’s supposed to work in America.
On Friday, we talked about the advantages of accessing employee in B2B cause marketing. But that’s not the only possible approach. Mischler’s portion of the month’s profits approach could easily be adopted by almost any B2B firm.
But if they were creative, a B2B firm could even take up Mischler’s 2010 approach whereby they donated a portion of each trade’s commission. For instance, the company that makes glass windshields for an automobile manufacturer could base their cause marketing donation on the number of units they either make or deliver in a certain time frame.
A distribution warehouse could base their donation on the number of units they clear in some period of time. You get the picture.
I’m glad to see this effort from Mischler and I hope it encourages other B2B firms to embrace cause marketing.
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