Is Christ your financial advisor?
by Amy MacLachlan
As a by-product of corporate disasters such as Enron, consumers care more about where their money is going and what it is supporting – be it donations given to an emergency aid agency or extra income invested in mutual funds. In the church, where ethics take centre stage, wise stewardship of both individual and church-wide resources is a particularly hot issue. Concerns inside and outside the church about corporate performance have spawned the phenomenon of corporate social responsibility (CSR) and ethical or socially responsible investing (SRI) – issues that have their beginnings in the church and continue to grow…
Watching the directors
by Marianne Meed Ward
How do you topple a giant? As the biblical David discovered in the Valley of Elah, one little pebble can fell Goliath.
In the 21st Century, the giant is huge corporations like the once formidable Enron corporation. The Texas company employed 21,000 people and had $60 billion in assets before it went bankrupt in 2001 amid financial and accounting irregularities.
The pebble is a five-letter word: the board.
Corporations can be rewarded for their socially responsible work through PR News, an American publication serving the public relations and communications industry. Its Corporate Social Responsibility Awards recognizes goodwill and philanthropy in corporations, non-profits and NGOs throughout the world. Maintaining a positive reputation through highlighting socially responsible initiatives is becoming increasingly important, and the awards showcase organizations that have brought such efforts into the limelight.
Fiduciary vs. social responsibilities
The Presbyterian Church has two trust funds-the pension fund and the consolidated fund. (The Record is an investor in the consolidated fund). The pension fund – for all ministers and employees at church offices and others paid by the church and participating in the pension program – has $162 million in assets. The consolidated portfolio covers the rest of the church’s available funds, with a variable market value of about $72 million-approximately $20 million of which are investments by some local churches and church organizations – with an annual indicated cash value of $2.7 million, for a cash yield on the portfolio of 3.6 per cent…
The Taskforce on the Churches and Corporate Responsibility, along with equivalent bodies from the United States and United Kingdom, created a framework for analyzing how corporations perform on a variety of socially responsible factors…
