Personal Divestment… And You

You want your investments in line with your values. You’ve got some stocks, some mutual funds, some bonds. You bought them, inherited them, married them; your boss buys them for you. You’ve been saving for retirement, plan to retire or are retired.*

You know you should be divested from fossil fuels. You know the fossil fuel divestment movement is the fasting growing divestment movement ever. You know it shames and reduces the political power of the fossil fuel companies.

You feel overwhelmed when you think about actually figuring out how to divest. You’ve heard there could be tax consequences so you’re scared to try.

You couldn’t make it to our personal divestment program in October but now you want to watch the video.    

You did the work (and it was easier than you thought!). You went on our personal divestment webpage and found the resources you needed.

You want to share your divestment story to encourage others to join you in divesting. You’re pleased you don’t have to sign your name unless you want to.

You know if you add your bit to what others have divested it will be an impressive number. You know it will only take a minute to tell us how much you divested and that you can do it anonymously. You’re excited to see the counter grow!

You still have questions even though you read our web page and came to the program or watched the video. You’ll send us those questions and get an answer personally or on our website.

By Sandy Polishuk with Taryn Oakley and Linda Craig

* We know it’s not really the case that all of you have investments or a retirement fund you can divest and we hope you don’t take offense at our attempt to make this post more fun to read. But we also want you to know that you’ll be hearing more about the ‘move your money’ campaign directed at those who have accounts at banks that are funding the fossil fuel industry, e.g. pipelines. The list includes US Bank, Bank of America, Wells Fargo and others. Maybe you can participate in that!