This faith and finance podcast is underwritten in part by Praxis Mutual Funds. They are a leading faith-based family of mutual funds helping people integrate their finances with their values since 1994. With Praxis, your investments can make a difference for you and the world around you. Learn more at Praxismutualfunds.com. Put on the whole armor of God that you may be able to stand against the schemes of the devil. Ephesians 6-11.
Hi, I'm Rob West. Do you sometimes feel you're spiritually at war with your own investments? How do you take on corporations that engage in ungodly policies and practices? Well, one way is through something called shareholder advocacy, and we'll talk with Chris Meyer about that today. Then it's on to your calls at 800-525-7000.
That's 800-525-7000. This is faith and finance, biblical wisdom for your financial decisions. Well, it's always interesting and informative to have Chris Meyer on the program. He's manager of stewardship, investing, advocacy, and research at Praxis Mutual Funds, an underwriter of this program. Chris, it's great to have you back with us. Thank you, Rob.
It's nice to be here. Chris, before we get into the specifics of shareholder advocacy, tell us what brought you to this field and the role faith played in the process. Sure. The beginning of my journey to shareholder advocacy probably began when I was a teenager. My faith background is Mennonite. And through my faith, I had developed a strong sense of purpose. And this purpose became a desire to seek shalom, which I define as harmonious relationships between God, humans and creation. And I really wanted to make a difference in the world to work towards shalom. As I grew up, I came to believe that the greatest power for good or for bad seemed to rest in the financial world. And I felt called to make an impact through business or investments, although I wasn't really sure which path I would take. I eventually learned about a career opportunity at Everance Financial, an agency partner of the Mennonite Church and the parent company of Praxis Mutual Funds. The role seemed to fit me well, and it was centered on making a difference through investments, specifically shareholder advocacy. And I found that practice quite intriguing. Plus, it was a faith based organization that I was already familiar with.
And I guess here I am more than 15 years later. Yeah, that's a helpful backdrop to our conversation today. All right, well, let's dive into shareholder advocacy.
Chris, what exactly is it and how do you all go about doing it there at Praxis? I'll start by mentioning that there are many ways to make an impact through one's investments. A lot of people start with screening or avoidance of certain industries or companies. And that's certainly one way to take a principled stand and say, you know, I don't want to profit from this business activity, which is antithetical to my values.
It's certainly a valid approach, and we do it at Praxis. It also has limited power to change things on the ground. There are additional ways that one can make an impact through their investments that go beyond screening. At Praxis, we use seven different impact strategies to make a difference. One of them is screening, but another is shareholder advocacy, which is different in that it harnesses the power of ownership to create change. Shareholder advocacy makes use of the rights and privileges of owning stock. It can take many forms, such as writing letters and filing shareholder proposals all the way up to dialogue with company management. And I'd say to us, shareholder advocacy isn't about chastising or embarrassing companies. As investors, we want the companies we're invested in to be profitable on behalf of our clients and shareholders.
We also believe that they can do better to help the world thrive. And I want to mention that we're not alone in this kind of work. Almost all the advocacy we do is in partnership with other investors, most of whom come from the faith community. I love to hear that you're working in partnership with others. And Chris, are you seeing that this shareholder advocacy is really making a difference in the policies and practices of companies you're engaging with?
Certainly. I've been doing this for more than 15 years, and over that time period, I've been a part of a lot of different successes. We are collaboratively able to move things forward at companies and really make a difference. So yes, I've been part of a number of different successes that I'm grateful for. That's exciting. Well, when we come back from this break, we'll continue to talk about shareholder advocacy. What does it look like to prepare for these engagements?
What do they look like and what changes actually taking place? We're talking today with Chris Meyer. He's manager of Stewardship, Investing, Advocacy and Research at Praxis Mutual Funds, an underwriter of this program. Much more to come just around the corner.
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And you can to create your free faith by account by going to faith by dot com and click sign up to begin receiving weekly wisdom in your inbox. I'm so thankful to have you with us today on faith and finance. We're talking today about faith based investing and specifically an aspect of it that is really powerful called shareholder advocacy. It's the opportunity you have as an owner of a stock or a particular company to engage with that company and let them know that, yes, you want them to be profitable, but you also care about their policies and their practices.
And you want them to help the world thrive, not get involved in lots of political activities that don't have anything to do with their primary business. Well, we're talking today about shareholder advocacy and the opportunity you have. My guest today is Chris Meyer. He's the manager of stewardship, investing, advocacy and research at Praxis Mutual Funds and underwriter of this program. And they're engaged in all kinds of shareholder advocacy. And Chris, before the break, you were saying that you work in partnership in your advocacy efforts with many other investors, especially the faith community. So would you talk a bit more about how you work with others and specifically what role does that play in the issues you pursue and even the success you're able to experience?
Yeah, great, great questions. And I'll start by saying that when the reason we work with others is because when we do so, we dramatically increase both the breadth and the depth of what we can accomplish. Companies are also more likely to take us seriously when we join together in coalition and kind of approach them collectively. We partner with many other faith based institutional investors primarily. They might be pension funds, endowments, church agencies, or they may otherwise manage money on behalf of church members.
And they represent many different denominations, and each of them have their own unique perspective and priorities. What we do is we collaborate with others where we have common ground and interest and capacity, so both interested in the same topics and have the ability to be able to do the work. For instance, at Praxis, we join with faith based investors to engage companies on human rights and child labor issues. Others might prioritize advocacy with, say, pharmaceutical companies on the affordability of critical medications. We don't work on that issue, but we do appreciate their effort. So some investors work on issues that we don't and vice versa, and we lead on some of the engagements we pursue, and we're active partners on others while others lead.
None of us can do everything, so issue and company prioritization are necessary. Yeah, that's really helpful, and it sounds like there's a lot of moving pieces here, so maybe take us behind the scenes for a moment. What kind of preparation goes into an engagement like you're describing?
Yeah, it's a lot of preparation. So once we go through prioritizing the issues we want to work on as an organization, as Praxis, and then we collectively do that with others, we have a good idea of the topics and the companies that we plan to engage. So we tend to form teams with our investor partners and determine our leadership structure, and we set goals for what we hope to accomplish. We organize in-person and virtual education and strategy sessions to familiarize ourselves with the relevant information and be able to speak intelligently and, I'd say, with purpose when we engage companies. We often will bring in outside expertise to help us learn more.
I'll give an example. So I'd mentioned that we work on human rights and child labor issues. Two companies that we engage are Target and Walmart, and it's not that Target and Walmart are bad. It's that they have a huge footprint in the retail sector, and they have supply chains that stretch around the world. They have significant impact both with what they do themselves and because their actions influence other retailers.
There's kind of a ripple effect, so it kind of makes sense to prioritize some of those companies. And what we seek with them are robust human rights policies that protect the most vulnerable people, which are then, we want to see, cascaded down throughout the company's supply chains and enforced. So prior to engaging them in dialogue, we're sure to examine their latest publications and reports, and we keep informed about the latest news and trends in the industry. We will also, for instance, hear from human rights experts and NGOs about forced and child labor situations throughout global supply chains. And all this preparation is necessary, I think, to gain an understanding of the issues and to be taken seriously by the company.
Wow, that's powerful. I mean, I can really see what you were talking about in the earlier segment around why you went into this work related to just the real power through the capital markets of change that can be affected in really dealing with these important issues of our time, like slave labor and so many other issues. Now, Chris, if company dialogues are central to real change, talk about what these engagements look like and what makes an effective conversation or dialogue with a company. Yeah, in my experience, getting to a point of meaningful dialogue with company management is kind of the pinnacle of shareholder advocacy, as in it's the best way to make an impact when you have that kind of meaningful dialogue. A new engagement with the company often begins with an investor letter outlining our concerns and requesting dialogue. And we might initially deal with investor relations and maybe their corporate counsel, but hopefully we end up communicating with the most important people to the issue at hand. So we try and meet with the decision makers who oversee our area of concern, and typically that's vice presidents at that level and some of their staff. And usually one way or another, we get to the dialogue stage. Conversations are typically in person or via video conference, and they usually last one or two hours. Occasionally they can be longer, and over time we look to establish strong, trusting relationships. Once companies understand that we have a vested interest in their future success and that we're also bringing forward relevant concerns that are pertinent to the company, the conversations can really reach a new level.
Yeah, that's helpful. So what is the end game, Chris? How do you know you've been successful in making meaningful change in support of kingdom values in these engagements?
Yeah, I think starting at the beginning, having a sense of goals and ways to measure success are key steps in the advocacy process, and it's important to envision what the end of a dialogue might look like. Corporate engagements can often last many years, but can lose their meaning if they become routine and static with no clear end. We don't want to be disregarded by the company as some kind of nuisance. In that case, they might stall without making any real changes.
Alternatively, sometimes this happens. If the company greatly values our insight and seeks many more conversations and increasing amounts of time, we can become their free consultants, which we also don't want to do. We're investors. So there is a few common scenarios for ending a dialogue at the worst, and a company won't meet with us or clearly dismisses us. In that case, it's not really worth pursuing dialogue and we might cease investment with the company.
In the best case scenario, all our goals are met or exceeded, and we kind of move to a more of just a monitoring process for a time just to make sure they're following through on their commitments. Well, Chris, that is incredible. I love the work that you're doing, and I'm delighted you got a chance to shed some light on it today. Thanks for stopping by. We appreciate it. Thanks a lot.
Thanks for having me on the show. That was Chris Meyer at Praxis Mutual Funds. You can learn more at praxismutualfunds.com. That's praxis, P-R-A-X-I-S, mutualfunds.com. Your calls are next, 800-525-7000. That's 800-525-7000. This is Faith in Finance.
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Let's begin today in Tennessee. Hi, Kathy. Thanks so much for calling. How can we help? Hello, and thank you so much for your program.
It has carried me for many, many years. And now that I'm in my senior years, I am having senior questions. Okay, I'm happy to help. Okay, I recently had an attorney look at estate planning, and of course we are very limited in what I would call an estate. The only money we really have is what is in our home. So I went to her to ask questions, and she recommended that I also look into a Medicaid program of some kind, and it's because, she said, with your limited income, you may need that in your latter years. But she also was telling me that it would be around $3,000, and I don't have $3,000 at this point.
I'm wondering if there's another way to go about looking into that without spending a whole lot of money. Yeah, so what was it she was going to do for $3,000? Well, she was going to do the Medicaid paperwork, and then she was going to do, I honestly can't remember, maybe it had to do with powers of attorney, and I really can't remember the third one. But there were three different items, and so coupled into, all put together, it would be, she even said $3,500 with those additional things.
Okay. Yeah, I might get a second opinion on that. I mean, at first I thought maybe she was talking about the Medicaid asset limit, so right now there are limits on how much you can have in terms of assets to qualify for Medicaid. But it sounds like what you're saying here is that the total cost of putting all these documents together was $3,500, and without her putting a trust in the mix, for those other documents, that seems a little high. I mean, I always hesitate to question fees just because I think professionals are very, they're worth paying for, and you want to have somebody who has skills and can make sure that you're not only putting the right documents in place, but also that they're in line with the laws of your state, and somebody who can ask you the right questions to make sure that all of your wishes are being taken care of.
And certainly you want to be able to pay somebody what they're worth for their time. At the same time, there are some kind of industry standards, and I would think you getting a will plus a durable power of attorney, maybe a healthcare surrogate and a living will, I wouldn't expect that to be up in the $33,000 plus range unless there was a trust involved. So what you may want to do, Kathy, is just get a second or third opinion.
If you don't have somebody else to check with, you could contact a certified Kingdom advisor in your area and ask for a referral to a Godly estate planning attorney who could just weigh in on the situation. You can tell them basically what you're looking for, and they could quote you a fee for that. Okay, thank you so much.
I appreciate the fact that I didn't have to have the answer of, oh, that's ridiculous. You need to go away and do something else. But I do trust this person, and I wanted to make sure I was in the right pathway. Yeah, and I think that's a big part of this. You want to make sure you have somebody you have a good rapport with and high trust.
And again, I wouldn't be the first to say that this is out of line. So what I would just say is whenever you're looking to have something done that involves fees like this one, it's never a bad idea to get a couple of offers or bids for somebody. But at the end of the day, you may find that this is perfectly customary and appropriate given what you're looking to have done.
So I would just probably get another opinion or two, and if they're somewhat in line with one another, then obviously if this person is somebody that you know and trust, I would probably lean in the direction of this individual that you've already spoken to. So I hope that helps you, Kathy. Thanks for your kind remarks about the program. I'm glad to hear you're getting your estate in order. And if we can help with anything else along the way, don't hesitate to reach out. May the Lord bless you. We'll be right back.
And then a second part of the question, do you have a website or anything that has books that helps kids with learning about finances? And I just wanted to thank you again in advance. Oh, that's very kind, Chris. Thank you for that.
When we're done here today on this question, you stay on the line. I'm going to ask Amy to get your information and we're going to send you a book called The ABCs of Managing Money God's Way from Howard Dayton. That'll be our gift to you. And beyond that, you know, really what you're describing is a trust. And essentially you would have to create a trust, which an estate planning attorney would do for you. You are the grantor.
You establish the trust. It's a revocable trust, so it can be changed at any time. And then you would name a trustee, which can be an individual or a corporate trustee. But typically it would be an individual, somebody who's trustworthy and attentive to details and that could be named as the person that handles the trust upon your death or incapacitation. And then whatever goes into the trust, you would fund the trust over time with either cash or other assets.
You could spell out in the trust documents how the money is to be distributed to the beneficiary, in this case would be the child. But you could place certain restrictions on that in that a certain percentage would happen at, you know, at X age and then Y age and then and so forth. And then all of that could be handled. You wouldn't be able to do that with just a typical account outside of a trust. That would give you the ability to allow the money to be dispersed over time. And it would name the individual who would have to make that happen. Is that what you're looking for?
Yes, I wrote down everything you said. Thank you so much. You're welcome.
So what I would do is contact an estate planning attorney in your area. If you don't know one, you could reach out to one of our certified kingdom advisors at faithfi.com. That's faithfi.com. Just click find a CCA. They could make a referral to you.
And and then I would go visit with that person, let them know what you're looking to do, and then they could set it up for you. Was there a second part to the question? No, but I just wanted to say thank you for helping us out here in this hard world. Well, you're so kind and I appreciate your generous heart and for your kind remarks today. Thanks for calling and we'll look forward to having you back sometime in the future. God bless you. Well, that does it for us today. I'm Rob West. Thanks to our amazing production team and to you for listening. I hope you'll join us again next time right here on Faith and Finance.
Whisper: medium.en / 2024-06-27 09:59:54 / 2024-06-27 10:08:57 / 9