May 13, 2004 | Read Time: 2 minutes
Two groups have been formed to encourage socially responsible investing by endowment-holding nonprofit institutions.
Students and alumni from 27 colleges and universities — including Harvard University and the University of Virginia — founded the Responsible Endowment Coalition last month. Made up mostly of students at institutions with a total of more than $82-billion in assets, the coalition was formed as a clearinghouse for information on proxy voting by shareholders and socially responsible investing, said Mark Orlowski, the group’s co-founder.
“Shareholder advocacy is one of the best ways for students to become involved in helping align an institution’s endowment portfolio with the values of a campus,” Mr. Orlowski said. The coalition was partly formed in response to interest by students, alumni, and administrators in learning more about institutions’ investment practices, he added.
The group hopes to interest donors and foundations. More information on the Responsible Endowment Coalition can be found on its Web site, at http://www.sriendowment.org.
A separate group, the Jewish Shareholder Engagement Network, began operating in March under the auspices of the Shefa Fund, in Philadelphia, a charity that raises money from Jewish donors and organizations, then lends it to community-development banks in low-income areas.
The Jewish Shareholder Engagement Network is made up of groups with a total of $1.5-billion in assets and is supported largely by grants from the Nathan Cummings Foundation, in New York.
“Our goal is to encourage Jewish institutions to create proxy-voting guidelines and to use their proxies to vote in favor of socially responsible investments,” said Rabbi Mordechai E. Liebling, director of the Shefa Fund. In light of recent corporate scandals, the network also encourages proxy-voting members at institutions to vote on shareholder resolutions that concern how much executives are paid, as well as on social and environmental issues, including global warming, political participation, and HIV/AIDS.
For additional information, contact Rabbi Liebling at Mliebling@shefafund.org.
