Hi Risker,
I am speaking of all of them, and I suppose our mission also, although in
ways that are broadly interpreted.
For example, as an organization that values freedom and transparency, and
is for the purpose of public education for the benefit of all people, I
feel that we should avoid investing in organizations or governments that 1.
likely tolerate or profit from sweatshop labor, 2. contribute notably to
environmental hazards that may harm people, 3. contribute to the repression
freedom of expression, 4. conceal government-authorized unethical
activities from the public, 5. have significant or consistent problems with
corruption or fraud.
Examples:
1. Some clothing manufacturers
2. Many coal-fueled power plants
3. A number of governments, and the companies that knowingly or recklessly
enable or cooperate with the behavior of those governments by providing
supplies or services that aid those governments' political or ideological
repression of their residents
4. Governments that abusively use secret judicial or extrajudicial
proceedings, and the companies that knowingly or recklessly enable or
cooperate with that behavior
5. A number of large banks
Pine
On Oct 14, 2014 3:18 PM, "Risker" <risker.wp(a)gmail.com> wrote:
Which organizational values are you speaking about,
Pine? The identified
Wikimedia values[1] do not really speak to financial investment strategy.
Risker
[1]
https://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Values
On 14 October 2014 14:18, Pine W <wiki.pine(a)gmail.com> wrote:
Yes, thanks, those are relevant policies. It
appears that we don't have a
policy that aligns WMF's investment choices with organizational values.
For
short-term investments where the goals are
liquidity and preservation of
capital, I think that this alignment should be relatively easy to
achieve.
For longer term funds that have the goal of
accumulating returns,
aligning
organizational values with ROI may be a little
more challenging but
probably not impossible. Hopefully Garfield and/or Stu will comment on
the
possibility of creating a policy about aligning
investment choices with
organizational values. I think WMF's donors would appreciate having a
policy that they could look at, especially when considering a possible
WMF
endowment.
Pine
On Mon, Oct 13, 2014 at 3:23 PM, James Alexander <
jalexander(a)wikimedia.org
wrote:
> On Mon, Oct 13, 2014 at 12:14 PM, Pine W <wiki.pine(a)gmail.com> wrote:
> > Hi Garfield,
>
> > Thanks for the update.
>
> > Is there public
documentation somewhere about WMF investment policy?
Who
> > manages the investments, how was that firm or people chosen, and how
> often
> > is the performance and risk of the portfolio and the investment
manager
> > reviewed by the Board? I am
particularly interested in making sure
that
the
> investments chosen are in alignment with the values of the Foundation
and
> have suitable risk levels, and I hope that
the Board reviews these
issues
periodically.
Hey Pine, it looks like you may be looking for
https://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation_Investment_Policy
> and
https://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Investment_Guidance.
>
> I will say that as someone on the internal 401k committee ( employee
> retirement program) mission and values driven decisions are incredibly
> difficult to balance well with our legal fiduciary responsibility and
so
> always ended up having to be a secondary
(though not ignored) issue.
That
is,
however, a bit of a different case then the greater WMF investments
since our main job is to make sure good 'options' are available for the
staff to choose from rather then actually controlling their money.
James Alexander
Legal and Community Advocacy
Wikimedia Foundation
(415) 839-6885 x6716 @jamesofur
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