If you have a retirement account, pension, or even certain insurance policies, you have the power to influence corporate investment decisions. We can show you how.
Politically active citizens vote, organize, attend meetings, rallies, and protests, write letters, and make telephone calls to their elected representatives. These are our political rights as citizens. We exercise them to have a say over decisions that affect our lives.
We also have financial rights granted to us as participants in retirement and benefit plans, as customers of fund families, as shareholders, and even as policyholders of insurance companies. How many of us exercise these financial rights? Widening our focus to include our financial rights along with our political rights opens new pathways for creating change on issues we care about, like labor rights and climate protection.
- Shareholders create change by filing and voting on corporate resolutions
- Shareholders create change through Board of Director elections
- Customers and shareholders create change by influencing fund companies
- Investors create change through indirect pressure
“Fight Finance With Finance” is a Rights CoLab initiative to awaken the untapped energy of the “citizen shareholder.” By partnering with organizations with a broad popular base, we want to help more people understand and exercise their rights as investors and beneficiaries.
Navigating the financial system to create positive change isn’t always easy, but it is so powerful that it is always worthwhile to try.
To learn more about your power as a citizen shareholder, download this guide by Rights CoLab founder Paul Rissman, a human rights activist and former asset manager. Want to explore ways to collaborate on integrating citizen shareholders in your human rights advocacy? Reach out to us!
Photo by Claudio Schwarz on Unsplash
