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ACF Mission Based Investment: Making Our $ Count for Social Justice
The Atkinson Charitable Foundation (ACF) supports a range of projects and activities that further our mission to promote social and economic justice. But where do the financial resources to sponsor those projects come from? When the ACF supports grants to the Worker’s Action Centre of example, is it at the same time using its investments to reinforce corporate practices that align with the Centre’s objectives?
Such questions have led a few pioneering foundations, including the ACF, to adopt mission-based investment policies (MBI). This means that the ACF pursues its mission not only through its program work, but also through how it conducts its investment policies.
MBI offers a number of strategies to those who want to align their investments with their values. Mission-based investing can include positive, best-in-class action that directs investments to exemplary organizations and funds, or alternatively, it can engage in exclusionary screening. MBI can also include active proxy voting, and shareowner engagement, which is a strategy being actively pursued by the Foundation.
What does proxy voting and shareowner engagement mean? In our case, the ACF is currently engaging with companies in its portfolio whose core business appears to rely on contingent work or precarious employment. We want to reinforce with these companies the objectives of the ACF, and the kind of work that we want to continue supporting.
Contingent employment is a growing feature of Canada’s labour market. For example, it takes the form of retailers, hotels and other employers increasing their use of temporary or part-time workers not covered by benefits or statutory entitlements; property management, construction, and other companies contracting through intermediaries such as temp agencies and independent subcontractors, often blurring the legal relationships and responsibilities of the employer; and consumer retail supply chains that exploit agricultural, transportation and forestry workers.
SHARE (Shareholder Association for Research and Education) has been contracted by the Foundation to facilitate this engagement process. Engagement by active shareholders generally begins with research (including contact with other stakeholders in the company) and then correspondence and meetings with the company about the issue of concern. Depending on the response of the company, further activities might include one or more of the following: asking a question at a company’s annual meeting, a formal shareholder proposal, and facilitation of a multi-stakeholder discussion of the issues with social partners, investee companies and other institutional investors.
The bottom line matters. And our bottom line includes the pursuit of social justice. |
