Proxy Stewardship
Project to Address Pervasive Problems Surrounding Co-Mingled Accounts and Proxy
Voting
The Proxy Power
Program provides educational programming and coordination around
shareholder engagement as an essential mission related investment tool. The
program offers bi monthly webinars on shareholder engagement and organizes an
Annual Shareholders Townhall Meeting in conjunction with Confluence
Philanthropy’s Annual Practitioners’ Meeting. The Proxy Power Program also
provides opportunities for member exchange regarding shareholder campaigns, and
makes resources available on shareholder engagement. The Proxy
Stewardship Initiative is a special initiative of the Proxy Power Program.
Many philanthropic and educational endowments have increasingly become more
active stewards of their investment assets by thoughtfully voting their shares
by proxy on a wide range of matters brought before corporate annual meetings –
from corporate governance issues to social and environmental issues.
Unfortunately, Endowments regularly find themselves unable to express their
voice and votes as responsible shareowners because many institutions today do
not hold stock directly. Rather they are invested with fund managers who pool
their clients’ assets together in "commingled funds” and cast proxy votes
according to their own guidelines rather than in line with their clients’
concerns. Confluence Philanthropy's Proxy Stewardship Initiative
convenes representatives from leading philanthropic and educational endowments
to explore the social and institutional obstacles that endowments face when
they set out to practice conscientious proxy voting, and to identify what might
be done to address these challenges. |