“We see a lot of churches moving their money.”
—Julia Frisbie, Executive Director of the
Faith Foundation Northwest
The February Café featuring Fossil Free UMC and speaking to the question of divestment was a big success. In the run-up to General Conference, thousands of United Methodists and supporters around the world, individually or as part of United Methodist churches, groups, and agencies signed a petition asking The United Methodist Church to divest from fossil fuels. Progress continues!
Some key bullet points for quick answers are up front. Read down the page for more info.
Who can Divest?
Anyone with investments connected with The United Methodist Church can divest. Wespath is the financial agency of The United Methodist church. In 2016, Wespath created funds designed to be free of fossil-fuels for United Methodists. Wespath made improvements to these funds and investments in 2024, with more improvements slated for 2025.
- Anyone with a pension at Wespath can divest, this is primarily clergy and United Methodist staff and employees.
- Any United Methodist church can divest their foundation money, savings, or investments.
- Any United Methodist conference can divest their conference-held funds.
- Any United Methodist agency can divest their agency-held funds.
Key first steps get started:
- Divesting your pension: If you have a pension at Wespath, contact Wespath and ask about transferring your pension funds to fossil-free Social Values investments. To help you understand what this might look like, this video shows how three United Methodists moved their funds: Divest your funds at Wespath, how to get started.
- Divesting local church funds: Learn more by contacting the UMC foundation [directory PDF] that serves your annual conference and ask if they carry Wespath’s fossil free investments. If they don’t, ask them to do so. These are already available. Get inspired by this short video featuring Rev. Jim Antal, and this article, UMC Foundation Northwest Divests.
- Divesting annual conference funds: start with a call to your treasurer to find out if your conference has already divested. If not, this 5 Reasons for Annual Conferences article will help you begin the conversation. Read more about your options for annual conference divestment below in this article.
Divesting the UMC agencies: Twelve United Methodist Agencies have made a commitment to reduce emissions and achieve net zero. The United Women in Faith have voiced their support for divestment. If you are a United Methodist, contact one or more of these agencies. Tell them thank you for your faithful commitments! Ask them to divest. Check out this article, Next Steps for UMC Agencies.
Divestment and your annual conference
To begin, find out who the treasurer of your annual conference is.
- Ask them if the annual conference has divested its funds. You just want to know yes or no at this point as you gather information. If the answer is yes, thank them! If the answer is no, keep reading.
Next step, contact the executive director of the UMC foundation that serves your annual conference (2022 Directory).
- Ask them, “Do you offer the fossil free social values funds available through Wespath to your customers, including local churches and the conference?” If the answer is yes, great! Thank them!
- And ask for more information, including how the annual conferences and local churches can invest in those funds. If the answer is, no, that’s okay! Tell them that you would really like them to carry these fossil-free funds.
Then, take some next steps, keep reading!
Getting your annual conference on board with divestment
Your next steps are to contact the executive director of your conference UMC foundation (2022 directory). Ask to attend the next meeting of the board of directors, and ask that you be added to the agenda to discuss a request that the foundation carry Wespath’s fossil free investment funds. On the day of the meeting, you may want a few team members with you for support and encouragement, as well as to help to answer any questions the board may have.
If your UMC foundation agrees to carry those fossil free funds, hurrah! Ask for a timeline for when those funds will be in place, and ask for how they will promote the addition of these funds to local churches and the conference.
If the foundation board says no to carrying fossil-free funds, even though these funds are available and performing well at Wespath, then your next step is to go to your annual conference. While the UMC foundation board role is managing investments, it is supposed to do what the customer wants. You are a customer. You are asking that they make a fossil free fund that already exists through Wespath available to their customers. This is not a hardship for them, your UMC foundation is professional and expert at this. Thank them.
Taking divestment to the annual conference body
If your requests for divestment—with an appropriate timeline—are rejected by your UMC foundation and/or annual conference, it is time to get the body of the annual conference involved. The people of your annual conference are the ultimate deciders and can vote together to request that the UMC foundation carry Wespath’s fossil free investments and the annual conference divests its funds.
This is what we did in the Pacific Northwest Conference.
In 2016, the Pacific Northwest, as with other conferences, voted to divest. This kicked off the creation of the first investments at Wespath intended to be fossil free! Next, the Pacific Northwest Conference transferred its funds into those investments.
In 2023 and 2024, members of the Pacific Northwest Annual Conference brought further resolutions to the floor of the annual conference, including legislation requesting that their UMC foundation, Faith Foundation Northwest, also divest its funds. (See ideas for resolutions from the UMCJM.)
In conversations around divestment and creation care, a frustration for many has been a lack of action by conference cabinets and UMC foundations. Partly, there may be the assumption that “people do not care about this.” Also, there is a key question about how fossil free investments might perform, along with questions of fiduciary responsibility. By bringing legislation to the floor of the annual conference, there was an opportunity to address all of these concerns.
Here’s what happened in the Pacific Northwest Conference when the resolution came to the floor for a vote. First, the members of the annual conference voted overwhelmingly to divest. This vote answered the question about whether or not people cared, they clearly did. Second, the conversation allowed the officers at Faith Foundation Northwest to show that Wespath’s fossil fuel funds perform very well compared to other Wespath funds.
In answer to questions about fund performance and customer interest, Julia Frisbie, Executive Director of the Faith Foundation Northwest, shares this information:
“We’ve been using Wespath’s fossil free funds since 2017, and we’ve been really pleased with their performance. In fact, our Fossil Free Moderate portfolio has earned an average of 7.5% per year over the past five years—that’s 1.5% more per year than its non-fossil-free counterpart! So right now we see a lot of churches moving their money into fossil free options not only for environmental reasons, but for performance reasons. It’s our fastest-growing asset class.”
“For church leaders who are interested in divestment, I would always recommend starting the conversation with your regional UMC foundation [archived here]. Wespath’s fossil free options are already accessible to them, so they’re going to have an easier time providing what you need than most other asset managers. Some of them already have fossil free options, and if yours doesn’t yet, it might just be because nobody’s asked! This has driven a lot of growth for us, and we wouldn’t have done it unless our customers had asked. So the conversation doesn’t have to be adversarial; I think it can be a real win-win.”
Finally, you can bring up the related question about fiduciary responsibility. The United Methodist Church and Wespath, as well as UMC faith foundation managers, take this responsibility seriously. It is their job to manage UMC funds according to the directives of The United Methodist Church and its entities. If your conference votes to divest, that is a directive to Wespath and your UMC foundation that means it is their fiduciary duty, then, to follow that directive and build the soundest fossil free funds they can.
When the Pacific Northwest Conference voted in 2023 and 2024 to build on the 2016 resolutions and continue the work of divestment, the conference leadership and the Faith Foundation worked to see that happen. They deserve kudos! A gospel Shout Out! This was a shared effort! Imagine the good that comes from investing in good things that support God’s green earth and God’s people, rather than investing in that which destroys it.
Imagine also renewed interest in local churches as they shift to fossil free funds at Wespath, keeping their money “in the family.” Reinvestment of local churches would be a great outcome as church leaders see good things come from investing their funds in UMC fossil-free investments for the good of this world—and doing all the good we can.
Rev. Richenda Fairhurst is an ordained elder in the Pacific Northwest Conference, a member of the Communications Working Group of the United Methodist Creation Justice Movement, and host of the Movement Café.