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The CEO of the Catholic investment firm Innovest is urging religious organizations and conservative nonprofits to take a more active role in how their investment shares are voted, warning that too many are unknowingly supporting agendas that conflict with their values.
In a recent op-ed published by The Daily Signal, Richard Todd, CEO of Innovest — a Denver-based, Catholic investment firm — stressed that proxy voting, the process by which shareholders vote on important company matters (often through someone else casting the vote on their behalf), is a key responsibility for religious institutions.
While many Catholic organizations apply moral filters to their investment portfolios by screening out companies involved in abortion, pornography, or other serious ethical violations, Todd warned that those values often disappear when proxy voting is delegated without oversight.
When institutions delegate voting authority to asset managers or proxy advisers without scrutiny, their investments can be used to support causes that run directly counter to Catholic teaching, according to Todd.
Todd wrote that while it’s common for institutions to outsource proxy voting, “blind trust should not be part of this delegation.” Organizations must ensure that the way their shares are voted aligns with the same Catholic principles that guide their investment screens and broader mission.
A 2023 third-party study by Bowyer Research underscored the problem, according to Todd. The analysis reviewed proxy voting records of several Christian and Catholic mutual fund families, comparing their votes to a values-based Christian baseline.
The findings were sobering: many funds repeatedly voted in favor of resolutions that supported DEI mandates, concealed abortion-related data, restricted political speech, or even punished states with pro-life laws.
Some Christian funds, when shown their misaligned records, responded by updating their guidelines or switching proxy advisers. Others took back control of the voting process. Still, some claimed that their voting behavior already reflected their values, despite clear divergence from moral teaching.
“What is a Christian organization, or a conservative nonprofit — strapped for in-house financial expertise, lacking bandwidth, but holding valuable assets that are annually confronted by a spate of shareholder resolutions and other actions that force voting — to do?” Todd said.
The solution, Todd advised, is simple but critical: review how votes are being cast and work with managers who can implement proxy voting strategies that uphold the faith.
