Nuns’ commitment to social investment takes on big tech

 

Claudia Cahalane

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A group of 80 nuns in Kansas has made headlines for their commitment to social investment and investment activism.

According to news group Associated Press (AP), the Benedictine sisters of Mount St. Scholastica, based near Kansas City have taken on Google, Target and Citigroup as investors in the companies.

‘The sisters have also asked Chevron to assess its human rights policies, and for Amazon to publish its lobbying expenditures. They urged Netflix to implement a more detailed code of ethics to ensure non-discrimination and diversity on its board,’ reports the non-profit news coop AP.

The nuns told Tiffany Stanley at AP that they invest their money in corporations that match their religious ideals, but keep a smaller amount in companies that don’t, so they can push those companies to change policies they view as harmful.

In the 1990s the nuns began to set aside money to care for elderly sisters. Their corporate responsibility program is run by Sister Barbara McCracken, 85.

‘We decided it was really important to do it in a responsible way,’ said Sister Rose Marie Stallbaumer, who was the community’s treasurer. ‘We wanted to be sure that we weren’t just collecting money to help ourselves at the detriment of others,’ she told Stanley.

The Benedictine Coalition works closely with the Interfaith Center for Corporate Responsibility, which acts as a clearinghouse for shareholder resolutions, coordinating with faith-based groups to leverage assets and file on social justice-oriented topics.

Over the years, the Benedictine sisters have seen support for some of their resolutions go from very low to a majority.

The Sisters recently gained notoriety for denouncing a graduation speech given by a Kansas City Chiefs’ American football star. He suggested women would be more interested in pursuing motherhood than pursuing careers.

Claudia Cahalane is the Investments Editor at Alliance Magazine


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