Faith and money

If New Covenant has the look and feel of a socially responsible investment fund, that's because of its roots: Fund manager Anita Clemons talked about how the Bishop of the Episcopal Church met with the board of General Motors in 1971 in an attempt to persuade them to discontinue investments in Apartheid South Africa.

The fund does not invest in companies in which sales of alcohol, gambling, weapons or tobacco account for 50% of total corporate revenue. That restricts about 100 companies. And like MMA, shareholders also lobby companies in which they invest for change.

"New Covenant's investors are very active shareholders," said Clemons. "They want companies to be better corporate citizens, to treat communities they are invested in properly and to be good to the environment."

Investors in the Presbyterian mutual fund vote for their own proxies to speak to the companies' boards and have lately produced some positive results. Among their successes, the proxies persuaded electric utility FirstEnergy to produce a report on their climate change efforts and also convinced Mattel to produce a product safety report.

Perhaps appropriately, the fund's largest holding is ExxonMobil. "Many people ask, `How can you be socially responsible if you invest in oil companies?'" said Clemons. "We want a seat at the table to be a change agent for those corporations."

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