Putting our money where our mouth is

If you’ve ever worked on a Low Income Housing Tax Credit project with us, you know how much paperwork this program requires. We spend thousands of dollars a year shipping forms and documents to our tribal clients and state agencies across the country.

We recently joined the Indigenous People’s Working Group (IPWG), part of the US SIF, a membership association for professionals, firms, institutions and organizations engaged in socially responsible and sustainable investing, and decided to join the boycott of FedEx. We will use other private shipping companies and the U.S. Postal Service rather than continue to use FedEx.

For those of you who may not be familiar with the protest, in 1999 FedEx bought the naming rights to the Washington Redskins home field. American Indian intertribal and professional organizations have publicly denounced the team’s use of the Redskins name for more than 38 years. In 2009, a member of the IPWG, Boston Common Asset Management, sent a letter to FedEx management questioning their sponsorship and urging them to use their leverage to change the team’s name. Unfortunately, not much progress has been made, and the IPWG is continuing their advocacy on this topic.

If you’d like to learn more about this and other related topics, visit the IPWG website.