GBOPHB Board Member Receives Investment Industry Award

For Immediate Release
April 9, 2010

Contact: M. Colette Nies, Managing Director—Communications
(847) 866-4296 or cnies@gbophb.org

Evanston, IL—Timothy Smith, a member of the General Board of Pension and Health Benefits’ (GBOPHB) board of directors and UMC Principles Committee, received the Shared Interest “Building Partnerships for South Africa’s Equitable Development Award” during their 16th Anniversary Awards dinner held in New York City, March 22, 2010.

Smith, who currently serves as senior vice president of the Environment, Social and Governance Group of Walden Asset Management in Boston, MA, received the Shared Interest award for his ongoing efforts to change the focus in South Africa from disinvestment to reinvestment and his continuing work toward South Africa’s transformation.

The award was presented to Smith by Vidette Bullock Mixon, the GBOPHB’s director of Corporate Relations, who detailed Smith’s 24-year service as head of the Interfaith Center on Corporate Responsibility and his work on projects challenging apartheid, employment discrimination, climate change and executive compensation, and promoting low-income housing development.

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About Shared Interest

Shared Interest mobilizes resources for South Africa’s economically disenfranchised communities to sustain themselves and build an equitable nation. Since 1994, they have worked with U.S. investors to support microlending, agricultural cooperatives and low-income housing throughout South Africa. Their $12.6 million guarantee fund has leveraged credit of more than $100 million to struggling South African communities. In 2009, they celebrated benefiting 1.8 million South Africans, who would have otherwise been considered “unbankable.”

About GBOPHB

The General Board of Pension and Health Benefits is a not-for-profit administrative agency of The United Methodist Church, responsible for the general supervision and administration of the retirement, health and welfare benefit plans, programs and funds for more than 74,000 clergy and lay employees of the Church. The GBOPHB is the largest faith-based pension fund in the United States and ranks among the top 100 pension funds in the country. As a socially responsible investor, the GBOPHB is actively involved in shareholder advocacy, proxy voting, portfolio screening and community investing.