Environmental, Social & Governance Briefs

The 2019 proxy season can be summed up as such: environmental and social shareholder proposals have performed quite well… again.

Can nonprofits' high-profile board members be a liability? Many nonprofits are increasingly reliant on the treasures of wealthy individuals and their foundations to support basic services, programs and overhead. But board members and major donors should be acting in ways that are consistent with the nonprofit's culture and values, and potential issues should be exposed and explored in a thoughtful and transparent manner.

We analyzed the text of public disclosure documents from cannabis companies in Canada and uncovered a number of surprising results.

Is your company threatened by population-based activities and negative public perception? Social risks are responsible for the removal of more CEOs in the past three years than in the past 30 years combined. Companies must realize and address their social risk exposure.

How far will the SEC go in addressing the influence of proxy advisors now that it has issued interpretative guidance?

Are women better philanthropists than men? new report from the Women’s Philanthropy Institute (WPI) finds that women’s foundations and funds donors—the vast majority of whom are women—are doing more with less, getting more impact with their philanthropy, and are less likely to be doing it for religious or tax shelter reasons.

Is organized philanthropy really in a position to influence democracy, or does it need to get its own house in order first? A new book by Grantmakers for Effective Organizations (GEO) posits that for foundations to make lasting progress towards the goals they share with their nonprofit partners and communities, they need to be learning all the time, discovering what is happening in their communities and how change is affecting the ability of nonprofits to do their work and reach their own goals.

Are millennials misunderstood? Over a decade of research from the Case Foundation has found that the characteristics with which millennials were previously branded—a quiet, inactive, insular group that did not engage with social causes and were often considered self-centered, lazy, and too concerned with their devices to think about anyone else—are false. Instead, millennials are thinking, acting, and living their lives like no other generation before them.