RACIAL EQUITY INVESTING: A CATHOLIC CALL TO ACTION

Original post published by CIIC

Over the past month, CIIC has been reflecting on the renewed sense of urgency and opportunity that we feel around racial justice in our work, our institutions, and our communities. Our team has had many complex and meaningful conversations about how we can utilize the principles of Catholic social and environmental justice teachings to challenge and lead our work in this space. We are on a personal and organizational journey of lifelong learning regarding how we can be advocates for equity, and as a network, we want to encourage that work by providing resources for action.

Many members of the CIIC community, as well as those in impact investment and Catholic communities more broadly, have been sharing resources, commitments and tools to advance racial equity. We have compiled these resources and offer them as a way to engage with racial justice through both an investor and Catholic lens. We hope this list may be helpful to you and your organization in discerning steps towards action. This list is not exhaustive; we invite readers to provide their suggestions as to other groups or resources they have found helpful.

Catholic Resources for Racial Justice Learning

• Ignatian Solidarity Network has a compilation of articles, prayers, books, events, videos, and other resources from a Catholic, Jesuit perspective on issues of racial justice.

• Georgetown University’s Initiative on Catholic Social Thoughts and Public Life recently hosted a video webinar called Racism in Our Streets and Structures: A Test of Faith, A Crisis for Our Nation. You can find the recorded webinar, along with other statements from the church, articles, videos and podcasts, on their website.

• Catholic Resources for Racial Justice 2020 was assembled by Michael Bayer, Director of Evangelization and Adult Formation at Saint Clement Parish in the Archdiocese of Chicago, with assistance from members of the parish staff and with a great deal of input from scholars, theologians, historians, and pastoral ministers around the United States. It is intended primarily for use by faith communities to draw upon the Church’s deposit of resources and teachings, to supplement the broader resource guides that have been produced as part of efforts to combat racism and dismantle white supremacy.

Resources for Racial Equity Investing

• A combination of curated, synthesized, and original content, Mission Investors Exchange’s Racial Equity & Impact Investing page is a library of resources intended to help investors at different stages of practice begin to explore the many ways they can grow and deepen their commitments to racial equity in their investing practices.

• Nia Impact Capital’s An Investors’ Guide to Investing for Racial Equity outlines eight examples of racial justice criteria and actions that investors should take.

• Boston Common Asset Management’s Racial Justice: What’s Investing got to do with it breaks down the four interconnected dimensions of racial justice investing.

• Cornerstone Capital Group’s Investing to Advance Racial Equity evaluates how investments can help break the cycle of racial and ethnic wealth inequality and increase access to resources needed to improve individual, community, and societal outcomes.

• For those interested in applying a racial equity framework to your selection of a financial advisor, Grid 202 Partners compiled a 10-question evaluation survey that aims to increase representation of racially diverse financial intermediaries and drive change at the institutional level.

• Zevin Asset Management compiled an Impact Brief called How can investors confront racial justice? This paper is a review of their continuing work to build an awareness of racial justice into investment  –  both as an analytical lens and an economic reality – to channel clients’ voices to help create positive change.

• This New York Times article How Investors Are Addressing Racial Injustice discusses how investors and advisers have applied the socially responsible lens to creating portfolios that consider racial inclusion and diversity.

• As a locally invested, collaborative partner in social justice and financial equity, Community Vision provides nonprofits, small businesses, and social enterprises with strategic investment and guidance, to deepen work, scale impact, and strengthen our communities. They recently hosted a webinar called The Dual Pandemics: COVID-19 & Racism, which highlighted the need to address the systemic issues that economically and socially oppress Black people and how they are shifting their work from a framework of charity to one that is rooted in justice.

Pledges, Member Networks & Calls to Action

• Racial Justice Investing (RJI) is a group of investors, asset owners, and business leaders who are taking action for racial justice within their own organizations, as well as in their engagements with portfolio companies. Members include CIIC pledge signatory Sisters of Mary Reparatrix, as well as CIIC partners like Seventh Generation Network and the Interfaith Center on Corporate Responsibility (ICCR).

• Confluence Members and partnering investor networks launched a pledge for racial equity called the 2020 Belonging Pledge. The pledge is a commitment to discuss racial equity at investment committee meetings and identify industry-wide barriers and the resources required to advance the practice of investing with a racial equity lens. Signatories include CIIC partner organizations like the Intentional Endowments Network (IEN) and Investor Advocates for Social Justice (IASJ), among others.

• The Transform Finance Investor Network is a community for asset owners and managers exploring how to align their capital in accordance with the transformative finance principles of deep community engagement, non-extractiveness, and fair allocation of risks and returns among stakeholders. They explore how investment decisions play a role in driving race-related outcomes and by informing, organizing, and empowering investors with concrete tools across asset classes.

• The G7 Development Finance Institutions (DFIs) proposed the 2X Challenge: Financing for Women and called for more investment in the world’s women. Many investors have used the evaluating criteria outlined in the 2X challenge and changed “female” to “BIPOC” to examine the racial diversity in their portfolios.

• Principles for Responsible Investment (PRI), the world’s leading proponent of responsible investment, urges investors to tackle inequality through embedding the UN Guiding Principles for Business and Human Rights into our investment process.

Example Funds + Foundations

• One women religious-led group that reflects a strong history of community development investing is the Religious Communities Impact Fund. By providing loans and equity investments to carefully screened organizations, the Fund benefits the economically poor, especially women and children. Last month we wrote about the Adrian Dominicans work with RCIF and Thunder Valley Community Development Corporation (TVCDC).

• Surdna Foundation’s Mapping the Journey to Impact Investing focuses on how they created values- and priorities-based impact investing themes around equitable economic development, just and sustainable communities, and the racial/ethnic and gender diversity of fund managers.

• Illumen Capital creates and applies bias-reducing interventions to help venture capital and private equity fund managers unlock latent financial return and impact.

• Impact America Fund makes early-stage investments in tech-driven businesses that create new frameworks of ownership and opportunity within marginalized communities.

• The Nathan Cummings Foundation supports strategies and programs of racial and economic justice that increase income, build wealth, disrupt mass incarceration and reduce debt for low-income people and people of color.