Getting Started
My experience with family foundations suggests that a good place to begin with your individual and institutional clients is to have a discussion of the process and the issues as a way of developing proxy voting guidelines. The process itself is useful for getting clients to clarify issues of importance to them. And the guidelines will inform investment managers of your clients' concerns. The guidelines need not be lengthy.
There are a number of resources available to you and your clients to learn about the proxy voting, shareowner activity and the issues and the resolutions being filed.
The Interfaith Center for Corporate Responsibility (www.iccr.org/shareholder/trucost/index.php) provides a list of resolutions to be voted related to societal, environmental and governance issues that links to the text of the resolution.
As You Sow (www.asyousow.org/csr/understandingvote.shtml), along with the Sustainable Investments Institute (www.siinstitute.org), an independent, nonprofit proxy advisor working especially with higher educational institutions, and Proxy Impact (proxyimpact.yolasite.com), which offers a proxy voting service to foundations and mission-based investors, provides an introduction to proxy vote and shareowner voting and Proxy Preview 2011, a pamphlet that outlines the issues.
Moxy Vote (www.moxyvote.com) will vote proxies for 'good causes' the owner indicates.
ISS, a division of MSCI (www.issgovernance.com) and Glass Lewis (www.glasslewis.com) are among the large proxy advisory services.
In addition to writing and speaking, Stephen Viederman works with foundations and others in developing that part of investment policies that reflects their societal and environmental concerns for the future, both in terms of investment and shareowner activities. He welcomes comments at [email protected].