Racial Justice Resources


In 2020, US SIF launched a member Racial Justice Task Force after the murders of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor and Ahmaud Arbery prompted renewed attention to the disproportionate violence police inflict against Black Americans and the impacts of COVID-19 were revealed to be particularly devastating to communities of color.

The Task Force was created to help advance action by impact investors to counter injustice and make lasting change.
 
US SIF is a signatory of the Investor Statement of Solidarity to Address Systemic Racism and Call to Action along with more than 120 other investors and organizations. The Statement of Solidarity calls for accountability and action from the investment community to dismantle systemic racism and promote racial equity and justice. US SIF contributed to the drafting of the statement, which was organized by the Racial Justice Investing (RJI) Coalition. See the statement here.
 
This resource page, compiled with input from US SIF’s Racial Justice Task Force, provides information on investing to advance racial justice, organizations working on racial justice and resources on embedding racial equity in the workplace.
 
Sections/Quick Links:

         Investing Resources
         Organizations Working Toward Racial Justice
         Workplace Racial Equity Resources

 
(Suggest a resource here.)

Investing Resources 

Adasina Social Capital | Racial Justice Impact Data Set Adasina Social Capital, a Black-owned asset management firm, publishes a comprehensive list of publicly traded companies that fail their Racial Justice Investment Criteria.

As You Sow | Racial Justice S&P 500 Scorecard

As You Sow provides an analysis of S&P 500 constituent companies’ commitment statements in the wake of the killing of George Floyd and continued racial injustice.

As You Sow | Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) Scorecard

This scorecard reviews the S&P 500 constituent companies to identify which companies are currently releasing standardized, comparable and meaningful workplace equity data. The intention of this initiative is to provide a public resource showing the current level of DEI disclosure from companies.

Cambridge Associates | Racial Equity Investing: The Time Is Now

In this paper, Cambridge Associates discusses the renewed sense of urgency around racial equity investing and recommends three actions investors can take to address the inequities in our society.

Candide Group | The Financial Activist Playbook for Supporting Black Lives

Where you bank, how you spend and what you invest in has an impact on Black lives; this resource demystifies the role of money in racial (in)justice.

Community Capital Management | Connecting the Dots: The Intersection of Economic Equality, Racial Justice, and Sustainable Investing

Community Capital Management urges investors to address racial and economic inequality by building resilient solutions for low and moderate-income people facing climate change disasters, investing in affordable and sustainable housing and raising corporate awareness of the importance of transparency and accountability.

Cornerstone Capital Group | Investing to Advance Racial Equity: Second Edition

Cornerstone looks at how investors attempt to alter the economic paradigm through their investing practices, including by responding to the #MeToo and Black Lives Matter movements in their shareholder engagement initiatives and by appointing diverse asset managers.

Croatan Institute | Capital at a Crossroads: Racial Equity Investment Across Asset Classes This paper offers a synopsis of the evolution from community development and ESG investing to the emergence of investing explicitly with a racial equity lens, proposes a definition for racial equity investing, and presents emerging opportunities across asset classes for investors. 
 
DiverseIQ | DEI Dashboards DiversIQ workforce and leadership diversity data illuminates the demographic disparities within S&P 500 companies. Their EEO-1 Tracker identifies US companies that have publicly disclosed their EEO-1 report since 2014. The Board of Directors Diversity Dashboard presents up-to-date disclosures among the S&P 500.

Domini Impact Investments | Racial Justice Action Plan

In this framework, Domini Impact Investment shares their plan of action, goals, standards, and tools for eliminating racial injustice as investors and as a business.

FIELD at the Aspen Institute in OFN | Why CDFIs must play a key role in bridging the racial wealth gap through business ownership
 

FIELD at the Aspen Institute discusses the barriers constraining Latinx and Black Americans and the role of the CDFI lenders and venture captial funds in helping entrepreneurs of color grow to close the wealth gap. 

Glenmede | Racial Equity Investing

Glenmede provides a primer to investing to advance racial equity in the United States by closing disparities in wealth and opening access to opportunities and resources while generating financial returns.

ImpactAlpha | Looking ahead: Centering Blackness in the US economic recovery and reconstruction in 2021

This resource discusses the opportunity to root out racism in finance and the economy and suggests change is possible by capitalizing on systemic risk, redistributing power and expanding the “financial capillaries” that community development financial institutions and minority-owned depository institutions represent.

Intentional Endowments Network | Investing in Racial Equity: A Primer for College and University Endowments

This resource delves into the unique racial equity investing opportunities, tools, products and partners available to college and university endowments and suggests best practices.

Philanthropy Northwest & The Giving Practice | Diversity, Equity and Inclusion in Foundation Investing Activities: Leaders of eight foundations share their progress

This paper highlights the early thinking and emerging practices at eight foundations that are actively implementing diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives across their operations.

Nia Impact Capital | An Investors'​ Guide to Investing for Racial Equity

Nia Impact Capital lists eight ways investors can incorporate a racial justice lens into their practices and how to formalize these approaches in their Investment Policy Statements.

Transform Finance | Addressing Capital's Effect on Racial Justice

This report looks at how capital allocation decisions, whether by municipal governments, private equity firms or publicly traded companies, affect racial justice outcomes.

Trillium Asset Management | The Fight for Racial Equity

In this whitepaper, Trillium Asset Management delves into their multifaceted approach to confront racial injustice as an investment firm, an employer, and an advocate for change. 

Sustainalytics | Race, Ethnicity and Public Equity: A Global Snapshot

This paper analyses racial and ethnic issues linked to listed companies’ operations, supply chains and the societal impacts of their business activities.

US SIF Foundation | Community Investing resources

The US SIF Foundation provides an overview of community investing and its role in providing services to and fostering economic development in low-wealth and underserved communities.
 

Workforce Disclosure Initiative | Investor Guidance: Diversity & Inclusion

This briefing provides greater context to the Workforce Disclosure Initiative (WDI) data on D&I and helps investors when evaluating corporate D&I initiatives, policies and practices. Examples of disclosure best practices are included.

Organizations Working Toward Racial Justice

 

Action Center on Race and the Economy

The Action Center on Race & the Economy, a hub for organizations working on racial justice and Wall Street accountability, says it “provides research and communications infrastructure and strategic support for organizations working on campaigns to win structural change by directly taking on the financial elite responsible for pillaging communities of color, devastating working-class communities, and harming our environment.”

Activest Fiscal Justice

Activest works for fiscal justice, which it defines as “fiscal justice as the equity of municipal budgets.”

American Friends Service Committee

The American Friends Service Committee is a Quaker organization that provides among its programs “tools to help people and institutions make socially responsible investments, including divesting from mass incarceration, mass surveillance, military occupations, and border militarization.”

Black Lives Matter Black Lives Matter is an organization founded in 2013 in response to the acquittal of Trayvon Martin’s murderer and works to “eradicate white supremacy and build local power to intervene in violence inflicted on Black communities by the state and vigilantes. By combating and countering acts of violence, creating space for Black imagination and innovation, and centering Black joy, we are winning immediate improvements in our lives.”
 

Color of Change

Color of Change, a national online organization driven by seven million members, works to “move decision-makers in corporations and government to create a more human and less hostile world for Black people and all people.”

Data 4 Black Lives

Data for Black Lives is a movement of activists, organizers, and mathematicians committed to using data science to empower and prevent harm to Black people; it is concerned that “data is too often wielded as an instrument of oppression, reinforcing inequality and perpetuating injustice.”

Equal Justice Initiative

The Equal Justice Initiative is committed to “ending mass incarceration and excessive punishment in the United States, challenging racial and economic injustice, and protecting fundamental human rights for the most vulnerable people in American society.”

Freedom to Thrive

Freedom to Thrive “works to build a world where safety means investment in people and seeks to end the punishment-based criminal and immigration systems.”

NAACP

The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, founded in 1909, describes itself as “the oldest and boldest civil rights organization in the nation.”

Racial Justice Investing (RJI)

Racial Justice Investing is “a group of investors, asset owners and business leaders who are taking action for racial justice within the organizations and through engagements with portfolio companies.”

The Social Justice Investor

The founders of The Social Justice Investor, an online platform of resources for people interested in applying a social justice lens to their investment portfolios, says their goal is to be “transparent, non-conflicted and accessible.”


Workplace Racial Equity Resources
 

AISP | A Toolkit for Centering Racial Equity Throughout Data Integration

AISP has worked with data stakeholders to identify best practices to center racial equity in data integration; its toolkit identifies these practices—as well as pitfalls to avoid—across the six stages of the data life cycle.

Equity at Work | DIA: Building Equitable and Inclusive Organizations

Equity at Work provides a curriculum and consulting to organizations and businesses to “develop specific ways to champion diversity, racial equity and inclusion” within their workplaces and operations.

Knight Foundation | A Study of Ownership Diversity and Performance in the Asset Management Industry

This report describes the state of diversity in the US asset management industry and shows that the performance of diverse-owned asset management firms is comparable with their non-diverse owned counterparts.

Mission Investors Exchange | Diversity in Asset Management: Research and Practice

This site provides a summary and takeaways from Diversifying Investments, a report that examined four segments of the asset management industry and found that women- and minority-owned firms made up 3-9 percent of the industry and controlled 1- 5 percent of the assets under management.

NAACP | Fair Chance Hiring Fact Sheet

This fact sheet contains information on the intersection of race, the criminal justice system and employment. The NAACP encourages employers not to ask about arrest history, remove the question about criminal history from the initial job application forms, and ask the question about criminal history only in instances where it relates to the job in question.

PolicyLink | CEO Blueprint for Racial Justice tool

This article presents an invitation and roadmap to help companies understand and address the consequences of all their products, policies, and practices on people of color in three key domains: 1) inside the company, 2) within the communities where the companies are headquartered and conduct business, and 3) at the broader societal level.

US House of Representatives | Diversity and Inclusion: Holding America’s Large Banks Accountable

Because of the lack of bank diversity data, House Financial Services Committee Chairwoman Maxine Waters and Diversity and Inclusion Subcommittee Chair Joyce Beatty asked America’s 44 largest bank holding companies and savings and loan holding companies—those with $50 billion in assets or greater—to share their diversity data directly with the Committee. This report contains their findings and analysis.