QuakerSpeak | Investing the Quaker Way @Quakerspeak | Uploaded September 2018 | Updated October 2024, 1 hour ago.
If Quakers believe in peace and justice, how does that affect the way we invest our money? We teamed up with Friends Fiduciary to explore the question.
Learn about how Friends Fiduciary witnesses to Quaker values on Wall Street https://fdsj.nl/friends-fiduciary
SUBSCRIBE for a new video every week! http://fdsj.nl/QS-Subscribe
WATCH all our videos: http://fdsj.nl/qs-all-videos
Filmed and edited by Jon Watts: jonwatts.com
Music from this episode: jonwattsmusic.com
___
Become a Friends Journal subscriber for only $28
http://fdsj.nl/FJ-Subscribe
Find out about Quakers in PA, DE, NJ and MD
http://fdsj.nl/pym
FCE: deepening intimacy, finding peace, building community. Curious? http://fdsj.nl/fce
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Transcript:
Christina Repoley: Quakers care about how our money is invested because we don’t see a distinction between our religious values and our social values and our economic values. We believe in equality and peace and nonviolence in every aspect of our lives, and so the way that our money is spent and invested has just as much of an impact in how our values are lived in the world as any other aspect of our day-to-day lives, or our social or political lives.
Investing the Quaker Way
Minerva Glidden: My name is Minerva Glidden, and I live in Orlando, Florida, and I’m a member of Orlando Monthly Meeting. We recently sold a piece of property that the meeting had owned, and we looked around for a place where to best use that money so that it would reflect our values and absolutely earn us some money. We discerned and really had to thresh it a little bit, but Friends Fiduciary was the best fit for us and our money.
Jeff Perkins: Friends Fiduciary is a Quaker nonprofit investment management organization that invests funds for other Quaker organizations in a manner that’s consistent with Quaker values and beliefs.
Screening Out, Screening In
Christina Repoley: Quaker Voluntary Service decided to invest our funds with Friends Fiduciary corporation, instead of any of the other options that were available to us, because we knew that Friends Fiduciary corporation has done the really hard back-end work of screening our investments.
Jeff Perkins: First we screen out those companies that produce goods or services that Friends simply cannot support, and that Friends do not want to profit from. Those are companies that produce weapons, weapons components, that produce alcohol, tobacco, firearms, and companies that run gambling operations and for-profit prisons.
We then positively screen in those companies in the remaining sectors, the financial services sectors—so the banks, etc.—that have the better ESG record, and ESG stands for environmental, social, and governance record.
Minerva Glidden: People will say when we started talking about money in this meeting, “We don’t want prisons and we don’t want fossil fuels and we don’t want whiskey, we don’t want drugs, we don’t want tobacco…” What we didn’t want. What we didn’t sit down and say is what we do want, and that’s what Friends Fiduciary brought to the table for us.
Shareholder Advocacy
Jeff Perkins: When you’re a shareholder in a company, you’re actually an owner in that company, and I believe and we believe at Friends Fiduciary that as owners, we have both rights and we have responsibilities.
Kate Monahan: We talk to companies about many different issues, from food waste to methane reduction, to how they’re doing their lending and financing with banks. When we engage with a company, we’re coming to them with a Quaker-values perspective and also a business case, because we really believe that Quaker values are good long-term business values.
More: https://fdsj.nl/investing
___
The views expressed in this video are of the speakers and do not necessarily reflect the views of Friends Journal or its collaborators.
If Quakers believe in peace and justice, how does that affect the way we invest our money? We teamed up with Friends Fiduciary to explore the question.
Learn about how Friends Fiduciary witnesses to Quaker values on Wall Street https://fdsj.nl/friends-fiduciary
SUBSCRIBE for a new video every week! http://fdsj.nl/QS-Subscribe
WATCH all our videos: http://fdsj.nl/qs-all-videos
Filmed and edited by Jon Watts: jonwatts.com
Music from this episode: jonwattsmusic.com
___
Become a Friends Journal subscriber for only $28
http://fdsj.nl/FJ-Subscribe
Find out about Quakers in PA, DE, NJ and MD
http://fdsj.nl/pym
FCE: deepening intimacy, finding peace, building community. Curious? http://fdsj.nl/fce
___
Transcript:
Christina Repoley: Quakers care about how our money is invested because we don’t see a distinction between our religious values and our social values and our economic values. We believe in equality and peace and nonviolence in every aspect of our lives, and so the way that our money is spent and invested has just as much of an impact in how our values are lived in the world as any other aspect of our day-to-day lives, or our social or political lives.
Investing the Quaker Way
Minerva Glidden: My name is Minerva Glidden, and I live in Orlando, Florida, and I’m a member of Orlando Monthly Meeting. We recently sold a piece of property that the meeting had owned, and we looked around for a place where to best use that money so that it would reflect our values and absolutely earn us some money. We discerned and really had to thresh it a little bit, but Friends Fiduciary was the best fit for us and our money.
Jeff Perkins: Friends Fiduciary is a Quaker nonprofit investment management organization that invests funds for other Quaker organizations in a manner that’s consistent with Quaker values and beliefs.
Screening Out, Screening In
Christina Repoley: Quaker Voluntary Service decided to invest our funds with Friends Fiduciary corporation, instead of any of the other options that were available to us, because we knew that Friends Fiduciary corporation has done the really hard back-end work of screening our investments.
Jeff Perkins: First we screen out those companies that produce goods or services that Friends simply cannot support, and that Friends do not want to profit from. Those are companies that produce weapons, weapons components, that produce alcohol, tobacco, firearms, and companies that run gambling operations and for-profit prisons.
We then positively screen in those companies in the remaining sectors, the financial services sectors—so the banks, etc.—that have the better ESG record, and ESG stands for environmental, social, and governance record.
Minerva Glidden: People will say when we started talking about money in this meeting, “We don’t want prisons and we don’t want fossil fuels and we don’t want whiskey, we don’t want drugs, we don’t want tobacco…” What we didn’t want. What we didn’t sit down and say is what we do want, and that’s what Friends Fiduciary brought to the table for us.
Shareholder Advocacy
Jeff Perkins: When you’re a shareholder in a company, you’re actually an owner in that company, and I believe and we believe at Friends Fiduciary that as owners, we have both rights and we have responsibilities.
Kate Monahan: We talk to companies about many different issues, from food waste to methane reduction, to how they’re doing their lending and financing with banks. When we engage with a company, we’re coming to them with a Quaker-values perspective and also a business case, because we really believe that Quaker values are good long-term business values.
More: https://fdsj.nl/investing
___
The views expressed in this video are of the speakers and do not necessarily reflect the views of Friends Journal or its collaborators.
