Kate Monahan of Friends Fiduciary Corporation (FFC) in Philadelphia will speak on “Witnessing to Wall Street through Shareholder Advocacy” at the Newtown Quaker Meetinghouse, 219 Court Street, at 9:45 a.m. on Sunday, February 9, 2020. Following the presentation, there will be worship in the manner of Friends at 11:00 a.m. The public is welcome at all events.
Kate Monahan, Friends Fiduciary’s Shareholder Engagement Manager, will speak about their efforts to create a more just and sustainable economy through shareholder advocacy. She will talk about the “who, what and how” of FFC’s approach to investing consistent with Quaker values, including screening and actively witnessing to Wall Street.
Friends Fiduciary Corporation, founded by Philadelphia area Quakers in 1898, is a national leader in socially responsible investing and currently serves over 400 Quaker meetings, schools, retirement communities, trusts and endowments across the country and abroad with total assets in excess of $0.5 Billion.
FFC does not invest in companies 1) producing weapons, alcohol, tobacco, firearms, coal, 2) operating gambling casinos or lotteries, 3) involved in for-profit prisons, or 4) which have histories of poor environmental, social, and governance practices.
For those who wonder about the impact on performance of socially responsible investing, the FFC website reports the following outstanding results for the calendar year of 2019 of investments in its four funds: Quaker Index Fund, +32.49%; Quaker Growth and Income Fund, +22.64%; Quaker Green Fund (fossil fuel free), + 21.86%; and Short Term Investment Fund (fixed income), +3.9%.
For the companies in whom FFC does invest, Kate Monahan will discuss how FFC engages with those companies via dialogues and shareholder resolutions on issues like lobbying transparency, governance, drug pricing, and the climate crisis.
Kate joined FFC in 2016 and manages all aspects of the organization’s shareholder engagement activities. This includes direct dialogues with companies on environmental, social, and governance (ESG) topics, filing and building support for shareholder resolutions, and collaborating nationally with other faith-based and socially responsible investors, ESG advocates, NGO partners, policy experts, and investor networks.
Kate is a former Quaker Voluntary Service (QVS) Fellow whose work experience included Casa de los Amigos, a Quaker guesthouse and social justice organization in Mexico City, and the Mütter Museum, a medical history museum in Philadelphia. She is on New England Yearly Meeting’s Friends Camp Committee, a member of the Haverford College Corporation and has a BA in History and Spanish from Haverford College.