The target might be a company which manufactures automobile transmission fluid using whale oil as one of its components. The backer of the cause then purchases shares in this company. As a shareholder he gains certain rights relative to the company. Toward this end the would-be whale saver submits a proposal to the company's management that it use a substitute for whale oil in its transmission fluid. Even if the proposal is voted down, it gives the proponent a forum, attracts attention to his cause, and puts a certain amount of pressure on the management of the company.
Management is, of course, opposed to all such proxy proposals on principle.
If a shareholder made a suggestion which management liked, it would simply implement it, without consulting other share-holders. And if management could have its way, it would simply toss proposals it didn't like into the trash and forget about them. The conditions are rather restrictive, however, and management is able to persuade the SEC to permit it to ignore most shareholder proposals. Even the largest publicly owned corporations, with hundreds of thousands or millions of shareholders, generally have no more than two or three proposals included with the proxy material they send to their shareholders each year before the annual meeting. An exhaustive study of the history of shareholder activism, of the voluminous body of SEC regulations on shareholder rights, and of relevant court decisions already had been made by a committee of Alliance members.