Chairman
Terry@StakeHoldersCapital.com, (888) 785-4537 x.5
Chairman Terry Mollner is a founder of the Calvert Social Investment Funds – the first family of socially responsible mutual funds. He and Robert Swann were the founders of the Institute for Community Economics in the early 1970s. Under Terry’s leadership, twenty pioneers from around the country met monthly for over a year to write the first comprehensive set of screens for socially responsible investing. Today, as the largest family of ethical funds, Calvert holds over $5 billion under management. Terry continues to sit on its Board of directors. He also sits on the board of Ben & Jerry’s, a company he tried to buy in 2000 to sustain it as a socially responsible company. When this proved untenable, he was one of the main architects of a contract with Unilever, the ultimate buyer, to have the extant Board continue to have primary responsibility for the social mission and brand integrity. Ben & Jerry’s now models how to remain a socially responsible company while inside a multinational.
The Calvert Social Investment Foundation (CSIFdn) also traces its roots to Terry’s leadership. Whereas the CSIFs established a new investment territory in the professional investment community, called “socially responsible investing,” CSIFdn created a new investment territory called “community investing.” Today, to “end poverty through investment,” the CSIFdn raises low-interest capital through the sale of community investment notes. CSIFdn has over $550 million invested around the world in micro-loan funds, low-income housing funds, social enterprises, etc. An early chair, Terry continues to sit on its Board and its Executive and Investment Committees.
To create a home for his many projects, in 1973 Terry founded the Trusteeship Institute, Inc., of which he remains the president. With the Aspen Institute, it organized a conference in May 2008 entitled “Selling Without Selling Out: Lessons From the Founders of Socially Responsible Businesses Bought by Multinationals.” Dr. Mollner interviewed a number of founders (Stonyfield Farms, Ben & Jerry’s, Dagoba Chocolate, Odwalla, Honest Tea, etc.) on what they learned and wished they had thought of before they sold. The videos can be viewed on the Trusteeship Institute’s website (trusteeship.org).
Dr. Mollner is writing a book for the general reader, in which he links personal with corporate maturation. The first half shows the reader how to “elder” himself or herself to greater maturity. The second describes what Terry thinks will be the next stage of maturity for groups, including the corporation (i.e., the common good corporation). He simply can’t stop nudging us toward more enjoyable lives together.
Terry holds the FINRA Series 65 Investment Advisor registration.
