Corporate Engagement: How GuideStone Strives to Influence Corporate Behavior

At GuideStone^®, we believe biblical stewardship includes making the Christian voice heard in the financial marketplace. Through a proactive approach of corporate engagement, GuideStone Funds^® encourages companies to adopt more Christ-honoring business practices that can benefit their employees, consumers and the communities in which they operate.

Our Strategy

The GuideStone Funds corporate engagement strategy consists of two key components: shareholder advocacy and proxy voting.

Through our shareholder advocacy efforts, we join with other values-driven groups to dialogue with corporate leadership via letter-writing campaigns, shareholder resolutions and other methods to urge them to make positive changes in their products, services, standards and practices.

Shareholders have the right to be decision-makers in matters of corporate policy. Corporations typically conduct shareholder meetings once a year. These meetings usually involve voting on issues related to the company’s operations, governance and strategic decisions.

Proxy voting enables shareholders to express their opinions and vote when they cannot attend corporate meetings in person. We collaborated with a leading proxy advisory firm to develop comprehensive proprietary voting guidelines that reflect our desire to see a world transformed by Christian investing.

Engagement in Action

Below are some corporate engagement activities we’ve undertaken to advocate for Christian values.

• We joined investor efforts to have Facebook^® implement solutions to report and remove the presence of child exploitation and human trafficking content on its platform. Facebook has now included an in-app platform reporting tool for questionable content. It has also established a policy to shut down and remove content and users and report items to appropriate law enforcement.
• We engaged with other investors to speak out against several major pharmaceutical companies' anticompetitive patent and pricing policies. These policies hindered innovation and affordable access to necessary medicines and inflated generic drug prices.
• We also worked alongside religious investors and the Alliance Defending Freedom to protect Christian organizations from debanking (restricting access to services due to perceived risk to the bank) by J.P. Morgan^®, Truist^®, Charles Schwab^® and M&T Bank^®. These efforts involved letter writing and supporting proxy ballot initiatives to deliver transparency and risk reporting around debanking criteria.

These are just some of the actions we’ve taken on behalf of our investors to make the Christian voice heard in the financial marketplace.

Through faith-based investing in GuideStone Funds, our members trust us to deliver financial returns while honoring the Lord. At the same time, our focused corporate engagement strategy strengthens our ability to deliver on that dual mandate and is vital to our faith-based investing strategies.

From employer-sponsored retirement plans to investment accounts or IRAs, we have many investment options to help you connect and align your faith with your finances.

For more information, contact us at Info@GuideStone.org or 1-888-98-GUIDE (1-888-984-8433), Monday through Friday, from 7 a.m. to 6 p.m. CT.