Doing good and doing well: Faith-based investing converts the skeptics
NEW YORK (RNS) Sister Patricia Daly is a Dominican nun who has been lobbying corporations to be socially responsible for so long that she has a rich trove of stories about battling recalcitrant execs and pushing faith-based resolutions at shareholder meetings.
But one of her favorites dates from just a few years ago when she was at a conference on human trafficking and an official from General Electric addressed the gathering.
“For many years if anyone from General Electric would see Sister Pat on the streets of New York they would cross the street to avoid her,” the GE executive recalled. “Today, I knew she was going to be here and I looked for her at breakfast.”
That story, said Daly – now emeritus director of the New Jersey-based Tri-State Coalition for Responsible Investment – is indicative of the sea change in relations between the corporate world and faith-based groups like hers that in the 1970s spearheaded the movement for socially responsible investing.
Sister Patricia Daly. Photo courtesy of Tri-State Coalition for Responsible Investment
“Today we have a really great working relationship, and I think we can say that about more companies than not,” Daly said. “We are trusted at the table.”
Critical to the success of the movement is the fact that corporations are not simply tolerating activists such as Daly.
