An Investment Program Consistent with Our Values

Lisa M. Laird, CFA, is an institutional investor and Seva board member. Previously, Lisa was the Chief Investment Officer of Providence St. Joseph Health and a Towers Watson consultant.

Seva’s board had long aspired to reflect the values of the organization in its investment portfolio through social screening, not holding the stock of companies deemed objectionable (e.g., fossil fuel, tobacco, etc.). Unfortunately, given our size, a cost-effective socially screened option was not available, and the board decided to invest Seva’s assets in a low-cost passively managed target-risk fund. The purely passive implementation kept costs low but meant that Seva could not eliminate certain objectionable securities from its portfolio holdings.

Continue reading