How to Invest like a Quaker

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1. The podcast highlights the tension of needing to fund positive things—like meeting houses and schools—using a stock market that is often tied to unethical practices. How do you personally balance the need to survive and thrive financially with the desire to live perfectly aligned with your ethics? 
2. Ethan Birchard argues that even if you aren’t managing millions of dollars, you have power as a customer through boycotts and as an everyday investor by simply asking your financial advisor questions. What is one small, practical step you could take this week to align your wallet with your values?
3. A major part of the inside strategy is translating “pure concerns that are values-based” into a language that boardrooms understand—focusing on bottom lines and risks. Does turning a moral issue into a business argument compromise the morality of the issue, or is it simply a necessary tool for change?

Zack Jackson
Hey friends, Zack here with a quick update before we start. Last week we kicked off the final stretch of Season 3, and shared our goal of bringing on 50 new supporters before the end of May. A huge thank you to the 6 of you who immediately stepped up! That brings us to 44 spots left to hit our milestone.

Being able to share these stories with you every week is a privilege, and it feels more important than ever. In a world that is increasingly loud, fast, and divided, we believe that these stories of spiritual courage act like an anchor for people seeking another way.

Right now, just two and a half percent of listeners support the show financially. To keep bringing these stories to you and to make Thee Quaker Podcast sustainable for the long term, we need your help getting to 50 new supporters by May 31st. If you’ve found a sense of connection or peace in these episodes and haven’t gotten around to chipping in yet, now is the time.

Just go to quakerpodcast.com and click ‘Support’ in the top right corner. Thank you so much for listening, and for your continued support. And now, here’s today’s episode.

Zack Jackson  

On September 27, 2010, 35 activists from Earth Quaker Action Team and their allies descended on the Flagship PNC Bank in Washington DC. They carried with them buckets full of Appalachian soil and a bold demand. PNC Bank was one of the largest funders of mountain top removal coal mining in the US, and these Quaker activists had made it their mission to demand that PNC change their policies to make it harder for companies to practice this devastating form of coal mining. 

The activists poured the buckets onto the pristine lobby floor, creating a mountain of Appalachia to rally around. They sat down while a gospel choir sang, and thus began a five year campaign to pressure PNC bank to put the environment over profits. 

These demonstrations received a lot of news coverage, but while Quaker activists were sitting on the floors of PNC banks across the country, another group of Quakers were sitting on a shareholder conference call, trying to show the bank a better way forward. 

Amy Carr  

There were Quaker groups, activist Quaker groups on the outside, you know, petitioning PNC to change this policy. We were part of an investor group on the inside as Quakers talking to PNC as well.

Zack Jackson  

That is Amy Carr. She is the Senior Shareholder Advocate at Friends Fiduciary. Since 1898, this organization has managed investments for Quaker groups across the country, but they don’t just buy stocks to make money for their investors. They buy a seat at the table to make a better world for us all.

Various Speakers

Thee Quaker Podcast. Story, spirit, sound.

Zack Jackson  

I’m Zack Jackson, and in this season of Thee Quaker Podcast, we’ve been telling stories of Quaker prophetic witness. Oftentimes, the most obvious stories of prophetic witness are the noisy and disruptive ones. But there is a quieter, equally subversive kind of change happening behind closed doors. It is the story we almost never tell.

So while the activists were out there disrupting business. Friends Fiduciary gathered a coalition of likeminded investors to push PNC to act from the inside.

Amy Carr

So we’re at the dialog table. They’re getting flack on the outside, and we’re also saying, you know, we might file a shareholder proposal on this if you’re not going to move, and that becomes public in the investor sphere as well. So even if people aren’t aware of this activist work going on the side, now there’s your other investors, whether they’re socially responsible or not, who are going to hear about this concern, and you’re going to have to address when they come to talk to you about it. 

Zack Jackson

Quakers realized a long time ago that you could effect the most change if rebels and advocates worked hand in hand towards the same ultimate goal.

Amy Carr

And those activist groups are so important for like making the case for reputational risk, showing community outrage, showing companies that this issue isn’t going to go away, and then we can go in there internally and say, “Hey, this is a problem. Let us help you figure out how you can address these concerns, so that your address you know, so that these groups are comfortable with how what you’re doing with your company.”

Zack Jackson

Ethan Birchard is the Executive Director at Friends Fiduciary. He knows exactly how to bridge that gap. He takes the moral outrage from the streets and translates it into a language the boardroom understands.

Ethan Birchard  

So Friends Fiduciary had conversations with PNC Bank and used our role as the investor advocates, to put a different kind of pressure on the company and really create a channel to communicate with management that activists may not have, but we can come and say, Hey, this isn’t going to go away. This is a real concern. It’s a concern for us about your business. It’s not just a concern for activists, not some kind of externality. You know, obviously the values concern is important to us, to activists, and should be to you, but it’s also a business concern. And so part of our role, part of what Friends Fiduciary did in this case, was to really help translate those pure values based concerns into a business case for the company, for PNC and what we do for many corporations. Why should you be worried about this? How is it also going to affect your business, and why is it bad business to do things that are destructive to people or the planet?

Zack Jackson  

And the strategy worked. It took five years, but they managed to convince PNC to effectively end its financing of mountaintop removal in Appalachia. 

There is incredible power in having a seat at the table, but how do you decide which companies to invest in if every dollar you put into the system helps it to keep doing what it’s doing? I assumed that a Quaker organization would not invest in companies that make weapons, since Quakers have been historically opposed to war, but modern corporations are complicated, and global supply chains get messy and confusing. Can a Quaker invest in a company that does a little harm in the world if it means they get a seat at the table? How do you discern how much is too much? 

I’m not an expert in this, so I drove down to Friends Fiduciary HQ in Philadelphia to ask the experts.

Aangoo Tucho  

My name is Aangoo Tucho. I am the Senior Investment Analyst here at Friends Fiduciary,

Richard Kent  

and I’m Richard Kent, Chief Investment Officer.

Zack Jackson  

Together, they sift through the global market. They’re looking for companies that align with Quaker values. And some choices are easy.

Richard Kent  

We exclude alcohol, tobacco, weapons, weapons components for profit, prisons. We went fossil fuel free in 2020 so it’s pretty clear. Those are what we call our negative screens, and we won’t hold companies involved in those areas.

Zack Jackson  

That first round of screening is easy, but the modern economy is complex. It’s deeply entangled.

Aangoo Tucho  

We also don’t invest in mutual funds or ETFs, because you can’t screen what goes into a mutual fund or an ETF so if you were to buy a passive index, and you might look into it, and then you see the defense contractors. You see the alcohol, the alcohol, tobacco, gaming companies,

Richard Kent  

yeah, many of these ESG funds use revenue hurdles, like, if it’s less than 5% of company revenues will accept it into the portfolio. But we have really a zero tolerance for many of these areas, which does set us apart and makes us I think one of the more rigorous screeners out there.

Zack Jackson  

A lot of investing today is algorithmic. Computers trade stocks in milliseconds. They don’t pause to consider human rights. They don’t convene a committee. Friends Fiduciary is different. They are profoundly human.

Richard Kent  

When one of our managers puts a name forward that they would like to purchase in the portfolio, we have a subset of a larger committee that takes a deeper look at that, and it that we call that our discernment process on there, because there are gray areas.

Zack Jackson  

New companies go through a rigorous human centered process. The team looks at the data. They read the Human Rights Reports, they discern together the ethical, financial, and spiritual implications of being joined together with this company.

Aangoo Tucho  

So for example, say a company is brought to our desk. At that point, we have to have a screening subcommittee in which we reach out to all of our data providers. We have ISS. We have Bloomberg data. We have data providers like the World Benchmark Alliance. We have a data provider that has the history of their regulatory litigation behavior, because we don’t want companies who are habitually in the headlines for controversies surrounding how they treat their workforce or their impacts on local communities. We’ll have to take a closer dive into that as well. We have access to all that expansive data, but then we also have the capacity to digest it and make a decision off of it. And I know our constituents, they’re really moved by the way that we screen and they really align with the way that we look at these different companies to be put in their portfolio, because our constituents would have a heart. They’re already busy enough as it is.

Zack Jackson  

But sometimes the data is not clear. Sometimes a company has a mixed report, that’s when the discernment really begins.

Aangoo Tucho  

And then from there, it really is that Quaker discernment, where you’re talking about, well, what about if they did this? Or, you know, you could see it that way, or you could see it this way. So it can get into the weeds a little bit. But the overall aim is straightforward for every company that we that we look at, and that is this appropriate, according to Quaker guidelines.

Zack Jackson  

Take a standard piece of equipment, an innocent off the shelf product. Richard and Aangoo once spent time investigating Caterpillar. They make those huge yellow earth moving machines. You’ve seen Caterpillar equipment every time you’ve driven past highway construction, but those machines are not always just moving earth…

Richard Kent  

and it became apparent to us that there were Caterpillars Tractors being used in the West Bank to tear down settlements to be rebuilt by the Israelis. And here’s an here’s a product of earth moving piece of machinery being used in a nefarious way. And we found that it became more and more apparent that they were modifying their equipment for use as like fortifying the equipment.

Aangoo Tucho  

Ruggedizing.

Richard Kent  

Ruggedizing is a word Aangoo likes to use, and so that was modifying it for these purposes, and that became uncomfortable to us.

Zack Jackson  

They asked Caterpillar for answers. They wanted to know if they were intentionally modifying their machines to help Israelis destroy Palestinian villages. At first, Caterpillar was responsive, but after a while, the company just stopped talking to them. So Friends Fiduciary pulled their money and they walked away. But physical machines are one thing the technology sector makes this line even blurrier.

Aangoo Tucho  

So Motorola, you know them for you know the flip phone, the razor flip phone. So telecommunications equipment is not a negative screen. They would. They are in the investment universe, okay, so they make it to discernment level, but they are a major supplier, I think the sole supplier, last I checked of the IDF cellular network and specialized smart mode devices. Now, okay, that’s one instance you can make cell phones and you can have communications equipment, but on top of that, they’re flagged by the human human rights office for settlement operations, for involvement in settlement operations. So they’re taking it one step further and using it for surveillance purposes in certain settlement zones. And that’s where it really starts to get flagged in our eyes, saying, okay, is this company is actively seeking out these kind of contracts and these lines of businesses?

Zack Jackson  

It is exhausting work. Tracing the supply chains. Reading the human rights reports. And when you find a company doing something unethical, the easiest thing to do is walk away. You wash your hands of the whole mess and you take your money somewhere else.

But as we learned with PNC Bank, walking away also removes your ability to affect change from the inside. So what happens when you decide to stay invested in an imperfect company? After the break, we’re going to the front lines of the war in Ukraine, to a cooperation that found itself profiting off the chaos, and a small group of investors who couldn’t stay quiet. Stay tuned. 

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Zack Jackson  

This episode is sponsored by Friends Fiduciary. 

I need to be honest with you. I’m not a numbers a guy, and financial conversations usually make my stomach hurt, so I was a little nervous going into these interviews,

But sitting in their office, I realized something: we share the same heart. We just use different tools to build a better world.

These are people who are truly bringing their souls to their work. And while we spent this episode talking about their corporate advocacy, they do so much more that we just didn’t have time to cover. They do the heavy lifting for organizations by offering their own rigorously screened, values-aligned investment funds. They manage complex planned giving—like Charitable Gift Annuities and Donor Advised Funds—so you can be hands-on with the causes you care about while they handle the financial administration that makes it possible.

So, if you are looking for a way that your local meeting or organization can connect its financial resources with its core mission, or if you are an individual wanting to align your own legacy with your deepest values—they are your people.

Discover the Quaker difference and explore everything they offer at friendsfiduciary.org.

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Zack Jackson  

Welcome back. Before the break, we talked about walking away. Sometimes a company crosses a line, so you pull your money out. But divestment is a last resort. Walking away costs you your voice. You leave an empty seat at the table.

We heard from Amy Carr earlier in the episode. She is the Senior Shareholder Advocate at Friends Fiduciary. She spends her days sitting in that seat. She talks directly to corporate executives. She tries to steer massive companies toward a better path. Amy views her role as an early warning system.

Amy Carr  

The work that we do a lot is, we call it being the canary in a coal mine. And I think people want you to prove that you know this engagement work in and getting companies to be better actors. They want the financial numbers. And sometimes it’s more well, you could have been sued about this, and now you’re not going to get sued. You know, sometimes it’s about risk mitigation. So like a canary in a coal mine. We’re pointing this out now so that you can be proactive rather than reactive about it.

Zack Jackson 
Let’s look at a real-world example. In 2022, Russia invaded Ukraine. Millions of vulnerable people fled their homes, and human traffickers exploited the chaos by using dating apps to target refugees. Many tech companies immediately pulled their services out of Russia. But Match Group did not. They own apps like Tinder and Hinge. Amy and her team stepped in.

Amy Carr  

We began engaging them. Following the Russian invasion of Ukraine, there was a huge displacement of women and children and vulnerable Ukrainians at that time, and there was reporting coming out of your poll about essentially bad actors using dating service apps to human traffic vulnerable groups.

Zack Jackson  

Match Group ignored them at first. So Friends Fiduciary used their leverage. They filed a shareholder resolution. This is one of the most powerful tools an investor has. If you own enough shares, you can force a formal vote on a specific issue. It brings the problem straight to the board of directors. If the company still refuses to talk, the proposal goes public. Every single investor sees it. Every investor has to vote on it. It creates a massive public headache for the brand.

Amy Carr  

Again, we went back and forth with them a bit, and we were ultimately towards the end, when our proposal was about to be public, they called me directly and said, If we pull out of Russia, will you withdraw your proposal? Which was interesting, because, in a way, the issue with Russia was absolutely of concern to us, but we also wanted to ensure that they had a policy and practice in place that if you know, they find that their services are in a conflict affected area, again, they have a process to determine whether they should continue those services or whether they should not. 

And so, you know, I said, Let me out. Thank you so much. I’ll take this back internally, and we’ll get back to you. But ultimately, did withdraw the proposal, but following continued dialogs with them, we got them to create a global human rights policy, and we were talking to them about how like conflict affected areas, I think they’re at like, the highest they’ve been since World War Two. Like, this is an issue that’s going to continue to be a problem for you. So we want to ensure that this is not just about Russia invading Ukraine. It’s also about all these other conflict affected areas that you may be operating in and aren’t aware of the human rights impacts that you’re having.

Zack Jackson  

They managed to convince a multinational corporation to walk away from a profitable market. They did this by making a moral argument, but they also made a business argument by warning the company about lawsuits and public backlash. Jesus commanded His followers to be innocent as doves and wise as serpents. This delicate dance is exactly what that looks like.

Amy Carr  

Companies are made up of people, and you know, you can hear an individual on the call say, I care deeply about this issue, but we can’t do anything about it, you know. So it’s sometimes their hands are tied as well. They need to make the case internally about why they should change this policy, why they should, you know, do this thing that we’re asking them to do. So it’s frustrating sometimes, because I want the moral case to be enough. I think the moral case should be enough, but you need to make that business case. You need to be pragmatic and, you know, make talk about the bottom line. Nine, especially if you want other investor support on the issue that you’re asking for that maybe aren’t faith based or socially responsible investors.

Zack Jackson  

This brings up difficult tension. Pushing companies to be better is only half the job. The other half is actually making money for investors. Ethan Birchard and Friends Fiduciary recently gathered Quakers from across the country to discuss this. They focused especially on massive tech companies. They called it a peace testimony convening.

Ethan Birchard

And we gathered Quakers around the country who were very generous with their time and volunteering to be part of several sessions of really, threshing and discernment around what do you do when we were focused especially on tech companies? You know, some of these biggest companies in the world are mostly tech companies, and their technology is not, you know, they’re, they’re not running businesses to make military or weapons technology, but their technologies have such broad application that, and, you know, many, many companies have military end customers, not just tech com, you know, companies that make uniforms or shoes or flashlights. 

I mean, the list is very long of companies that work with militaries, and we don’t screen just because a company has a military contract, but for tech companies that are making really sophisticated technology, you know, artificial intelligence technology, drones, all kinds of things that are now very rapidly being being used in in conflict. That’s concerning to us, and that’s something we’ve been concerned about for years now. So we again, we convened Quakers in this peace testimony, convening different branches of Quakerism, different levels of expertise, different backgrounds, and did threshing and discernment.

Zack Jackson  

They debated the ethics of holding on to these shares, and they also debated the moral cost of walking away.

Ethan Birchard

Someone who shared, she was really struggling with her family members and friends not voting in a big national election, and shared about that and shared this idea, not voting has impact, right? Just because you’re not voting doesn’t mean you’re not having an effect. Walking away has an impact too. All of our choices have an impact. And so that was a point of view that was really helpful, as we thought about, well, what is it? What does it mean to divest first, even at times when it feels hard to make progress, or when it feels like things are getting worse, not better? And there was a lot of support for being in dialog. You know, as long as we have any chance at at making change or making progress, at pushing back on some of the trends that that feel really heavy right now, that feel counter to Quaker values, there was a lot of support for being engaged with companies, for for doing that part of our work and not not simply saying, Okay, well, we have to divest. You know, we’re complicit, and so we have to divest and walk away, but really, really doing the hard part of giving up that chance to have even a small impact that we’re not going to have if we screen something out. 

I want to be in that room. To the extent we can, even if it’s only a little bit and say we’re not okay with this. And Friends Fiduciary is not equipped to go to the streets. You know, we can do this individually, but as an organization, this is where we have an impact. And so once we screen out a company, our chance to really impact their practices as an organization goes away.

Zack Jackson

But there’s a very practical reason to hold on to these investments, and it’s not just about having leverage in a corporate boardroom. It’s also about making money to support Quaker communities. 

Ethan Birchard

A core part of our mission for since 1898 has been, has been that sustaining that like material, financial sustaining of Quaker groups and organizations and so for our constituents out there, you know, to hopefully most, have a meetinghouse that’s in good repair, You know, and that is that that has a future as long as they’re as long as there’s a community to be part of it, or to have a friend school, you know that that is educating students according to Quaker values, to have a retirement community that uses Quaker values and ministering to to people who are growing older and want to live in community, those things rely on they rely on money, and they rely many, not most of them, rely on returns. Rely on being able to use money to earn money to go towards paying costs and and so for all the focus we have on the vision of a sustainable economy, we have to hold that right next to sustainable Quaker organizations.

Zack Jackson  

This is the dual mandate they’re trying to hold on to. You cannot separate the moral value from the material necessity. You have to heal the world, but you also have to keep the lights on.

Ethan Birchard

So we are, you know, we are very performance focused in terms strictly financial terms, and we’re performance focused in values terms, right? We want our investments to perform well financially, to support Quakers and Quakerism, and we want them to perform well in environmental and social terms also.

Zack Jackson  

Most of us don’t sit on corporate boards. We don’t manage massive endowments, but we’re also not powerless. Many of us have retirement accounts or 401k’s.

Ethan Birchard

One thing everyone can always do, everyone can ask questions, right? If your money’s in a, 401k, a, 403b, or IRA or retirement account, which people who don’t have any other kind of investments, often, your money is invested. If you have a retirement plan of some kind, you have an investment advisor of some kind who’s managing that money, and you’re relying on their help in some form, and you’re a consumer, and if you feel like they’re not being attentive to the risk of being able to align with environmental sustainability or social responsibility, Quaker values, you know, integrity, peace, sustainability, stewardship. Then you can call them up and you can say you don’t like it, and you may feel like you get the run around, but you can call them up again, and you can, you know, you can take their time to share your concerns with them. And if enough people do that, everyone who wished their retirement savings better reflected their values made enough of this kind of noise, we’re customers. We can really have an impact.

Zack Jackson  

We also have power at the cash register.

Ethan Birchard

Another way to think about having an impact with companies or in the corporate world, is as a customer, you can really get a company’s attention through a successful boycott, or even, you know, even the the threat of a successful boycott, if it gets in the media and and becomes adopted or supported by a lot of people. And we’ve seen that, you know, even just in the past year, year and a half, of companies, where you can companies have made decisions that they’ve walked back pretty quickly when they feel like their customers are not happy with those decisions.

Zack Jackson  

Soon there will be even more ways to get involved. Friends Fiduciary is working to open their doors to individual investors as well. They want everyday people to have direct access to ethical investing. They are hoping to launch their first ETF in the next year. That stands for Exchange Traded Fund. You will not need a massive endowment to participate.

Ethan Birchard

I think the the exciting one and the one that really kind of democratizes Quaker values investing for individuals to start, and we would plan to launch more down the road, but would be an equity a stock fund that we launch as an ETF, an exchange traded fund, which means that anyone with a brokerage account could buy shares of the fund. And that’s been really important to me as we think about, how can we open our doors wider, to do it in a way that makes it really available to anyone and is not, is not gated. A lot of kinds of different kinds of investments are gated. You know, not necessarily even because you want to gate them, but because of regulation, this would be available really again, to anyone with a brokerage account who wanted to buy one or many shares,

Zack Jackson  

They’re hoping to make this available in the next year or so, and when they do, you will be able to buy shares right from your phone. You can align your personal savings with your deepest values. But the team is also looking beyond the stock market. They are rolling out impact investment as well. 

Ethan Birchard

We’re looking at how we can make investments available to our Quaker constituents that would allow them to support alternative like local, community based solutions, whether those are startup companies or other kinds of organizations or initiatives to provide financial support in the form of, you know, whether that’s equity or whether that is loans to organizations that are trying to make change. You know, could be local renewable energy projects. Could be affordable housing. Could be trying to help minority owned businesses, trying to help people who are returning from prison all, you know, all kinds of possibilities and and so we are looking at, can we create a vehicle for for Quaker meetings and others to invest in those kind of things in a way that there’s a massive amount of work in those kind of investments, because they are not regulated In the same way as public stocks and bonds, and so can we be an intermediary that lets people invest in those things, as well as in the, you know, the stocks and bonds that that we’ve done for a long time and that we’re known for? So I think that’s a really exciting frontier for us, of, you know, a really exciting opportunity to again, push this work further. 

Zack Jackson  

These new initiatives are coming soon, and everyone I talked to was really excited about the ways that Friends Fiduciary is making a positive change in the world of business and finance. At the end of my conversation with Ethan, I asked him if he thinks their mission has evolved over the past century. 

Ethan Birchard

And I think so for me, Friends Fiduciary has always been about, you know, going back 128 years, the idea has been to invest in businesses that serve a beneficial purpose to society. And so we’ve always been about a positive vision, right? About a positive vision of what can happen with our money, and that holds true today, and I so I’m really focused on the positive vision of an economy that is sustainable, that works for everyone, and I would not argue that that’s right around the corner. You know, we have a lot of work to do, but the way we’re doing the work is by where, where we are owners of companies, by pushing for change as advocates, you know, as as insiders with a connection, so that we can work in concert with activists and others who want to see change, and we can be A connection and a voice to corporations themselves about what we want to see them do differently.

Zack Jackson 

Friends, it is so easy to look at the massive, entangled systems of our global economy and feel entirely powerless to make a difference and complicit in what distresses us. But I hope today’s conversation reminded you that you are not necessarily either. Whether your witness looks like sitting on the marble floor of a bank lobby, taking a seat at the boardroom table, or just doing the best you can in the aisles of your local grocery store—your choices have an impact. And you can choose to use your money to make a difference for the better.

Zack Jackson 

Thank you for listening, and a special thank you to our guests today: Amy Carr, Richard Kent, Aango Tucho, and Ethan Birchard.

If you’d like to reflect deeper on today’s topics, you’ll find discussion questions and a full transcript over at Quakerpodcast.com. While you’re there, be sure to subscribe so you never miss a story.

This episode was hosted, produced, and edited by me, Zack Jackson. Jon Watts wrote and produced the music.

Thee Quaker Podcast is a part of Thee Quaker Project, a nonprofit Quaker media organization dedicated to giving Quakerism a voice and a platform for the 21st Century. If you believe in the work we’re doing and want to help us share more stories of prophetic witness, please consider becoming a monthly supporter. Just go to Quakerpodcast.com and click “Support” in the top right corner. It takes less than five minutes, and it truly sustains this community.

And now, for your daily Quaker message, as read by Kent Laturno

Kent Laturno  

William Penn, 1693, a good end cannot sanctify evil means, nor must we ever do evil that good may come of it. It is as great presumption to send our passions upon God’s errands as it is to palliate them with God’s name, let us then try what love will do. For if men did once see we love them, we should soon find they would not harm us. Force may subdue, but love gains, and he that forgives first wins the Laurel

Zack Jackson  

to get Quaker wisdom in your inbox Every day, go to dailyquaker.com that’s dailyquaker.com

Hosted, produced, and edited by Zack Jackson.

Original music and sound design by Jon Watts (Listen to more of Jon’s music here.)

This season’s cover art is by Todd Drake

Supported by listeners like you (thank you!!)