What is the UUCEF, and why do I care?

The UUCEF is the Unitarian Universalist Common Endowment Fund. Our congregation invests about half of our current, long-term investments in the UUCEF.

The UUCEF invests about $265 million in mostly Socially Responsible Investments (SRI.) This money includes the endowment fund of the UUA as well as investment money from many of its member congregations, including Rockford’s. The purpose of endowment funds is to preserve the principal, which has been donated by UU’s, while earning money to keep up with ongoing inflation and fund the goals of our denomination.

But one important additional purpose is to do good with the money we invest. In his 2018 book, Decolonizing Wealth: Indigenous Wisdom to Heal Divides and Restore Balance, by Edgar Villanueva, his message is “money as medicine.” He observes that, of foundation money designated to donate for good work, 5% is donated and 95% is invested to make the biggest return on the investment. It doesn’t matter if those investments build oil rigs in the Gulf of Mexico or tear down low-rent apartments to make room for gentrified neighborhoods, as long as they make a high percentage of profit.

In 1967 the General Assembly of the UUA passed a resolution that requested the UUA Board of Trustees “exercise the power represented by the Association’s ownership of common stock as an effective instrument for promoting social justice.” The GA Resolution also required the “affirmative use of funds” through intentional investment in companies evidencing ethical policy and practice. Since this beginning, our General Assembly has passed many more resolutions targeting our investments as a tool of social justice.

The Investment Committee begun in 1968 has evolved to the UU Common Endowment Fund with two committees, the Investment Committee and the Social Responsibility Committee who work together to both maximize income and do good work with our joint moneys.

Today, these committees, whose members are mostly volunteers, pursue social justice through several means:

Screening:

Negative screening weeds out investments that do harm, for example, by harming the environment or use racist or sexist policies

Positive screening searches out companies that, for instance, improve society or improve the environment.

Shareholder Activism: Working alone or with other associations, the UUCEF proposes resolutions at companies’ annual meetings that encourage business to adopt policies that reflect our UU values. Since 2009, the UUA has filed 55 resolutions at annual meetings of companies whose stock it owns to change their institutional behavior.

Proxy Voting: Casting votes at annual meetings which enforce our values.

Community Investing: Setting aside about 5% of the total investment to invest in Community Development Financial Institutions (CDFI’s) that invest money for low interest in lower income communities to encourage economic justice.

The purpose of these investments is long-term growth. Therefore, periods of decreasing value of both the bond and the stock market, such as we have now, are merely blips to be experienced and waited out. If anything, this is an opportunity to buy at low prices.

I encourage you to read the article in the Fall/Winter issue of UU World entitled, “Greening our Money,” about the UUCEF.

https://www.uuworld.org/articles/greening-our-money

Submitted by Teresa Wilmot