This group focuses on supporting colleges and universities in utilizing their power as shareholders to engage portfolio companies across issues related to social justice and the climate crisis. There are several forms of shareholder engagement that endowments can pursue to address material investment risks, improve corporate sustainability performance and support policies that move us toward an equitable, low-carbon, and regenerative economy.

They include proxy voting, engaging in dialogue with mutual funds or companies held in the portfolio, filing or co-filing shareholder resolutions, and signing on to public investor letters or statements. We primarily support endowments in the following ways:

• Proxy Voting Education: Vote Your Proxies in Line With Your ESG Values
  
  
• Supporting Endowments With Direct Engagement: Supporting institutions in learning about, implementing individually, and collaborating across institutions to engage in dialogue, sign-on to investment statements, and file and co-file resolutions.

Get Involved

To join this Initiative contact Nicole Torrico, Managing Director at [email protected]

Organizational Partners

We partner with the following organizations to advance racial equity and a net zero economy through engagement.

• As You Sow
• Interfaith Center for Corporate Responsibility
• Majority Action
• Thirty Percent Coalition
• Ceres- and PRI-led Climate Action 100+
• The Shareholder Commons

Corporate Engagement Challenge

IEN's Student Corporate Engagement Challenge invites students to not only produce an investment recommendation in a publicly-traded company, but also to include in their recommendation a shareholder engagement strategy for improving the company’s business performance and impact on society. 

As a part of the Challenge, student teams are encouraged to provide a report, and ideally presented their investment recommendation and engagement strategy, to endowment stakeholders at their university.

One of the hoped outcomes of the Challenge is increased awareness of corporate engagement across the institution, including implementation of engagement strategies proposed by students.

Take Action

• 2023 Investor Sign-On Statements and Proxy Resolutions and Voting Guides
• Vote Your Proxies in Line With Your ESG Values

Join a Quarterly Call

See our calendar of upcoming events to register for our next quarterly Shareholder Engagement Initiative call!

Shareholder Engagement Resources 

• What is Shareholder Engagement? l Intentional Endowments Network
• Warren Wilson College: 2023 Shareholder Engagement Impact Report (2023)
• Briefing Paper: Warren Wilson College, Impacting How Companies Do Business  l Intentional Endowments Network (2022)
• Active Ownership in the Endowment: Warren Wilson College Case Study l Intentional Endowments Network (2020)
• Equity in the Boardroom: How Asset Manager Voting Shaped Corporate Action on Racial Justice in 2020 l Majority Action