It is an excellent way to put your savings to work and provide a hand up to those needing access to capital. Shareholder Activism provides a means for changing companies from the inside. Shareholder activists have a wide range of tools available to them, including dialogue with corporate management and sponsorship of shareholder resolutions. These methods achieved stunning results in the campaign to end apartheid in South Africa and are now being applied to a wide range of foreign and domestic concerns such as sweatshops and excessive executive pay. We advise people to consider the proportion of their assets invested in the global economy compared to their investment in personal and community assets.
Many people find that nearly all of their personal wealth is invested in the stock market.
If you find this situation disturbing, you may want to redistribute some of your money back into your own community and invest in your family's self-reliance. Before investing, take some time to decide on your own social, ethical and environmental priorities. You may want to start out slowly, focusing on one or two issues that you feel strongly about, or test the waters by converting a portion of your portfolio into values-inclusive investments. This process of integrating money and values can also be applied to much more than investing. Virtually all aspects of our financial lives, such as working, spending, and charitable giving, can benefit from an awareness of our core beliefs.