Stephen Viederman

Stephen Viederman is a former President of the Jessie Smith Noyes Foundation, "a middle size philanthropic foundation that supports organizing and advocacy at the intersections of the environment, reproductive rights, community and social justice. At the Foundation he lead efforts,to harmonize asset management and grantmaking. Noyes was in 1993 the first foundation to file a shareowner resolution in support of a grantee, the Southwest Organizing Project in New Mexico, resulting in Intel agreeing to share information on key issues such as water usage and toxic emissions with the communities in which they had facilities.

"Prior to coming to the Foundation, Mr. Viederman was involved in various aspects of international population assistance at the United Nations Fund for Population Activities, and before that at the Population Council. He had special interests in the integration of population factors and development planning. In 1974 he organized the Population Tribune, the meeting of nongovernmental organizations that paralleled the United Nations World Population Conference held in Bucharest.

"An historian by training, Mr. Viederman was from 1967 through 1969 the Director of a National Academy of Sciences/Social Science Research Council study of the social and behavioral sciences in the United States. Between 1965 and 1967 he ran the international program of the Carnegie Corporation of New York. From 1959 through 1965 he was responsible for the multiuniversity faculty and graduate exchange program with the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe, housed first at Columbia University and then at Indiana University. Prior to that he was director of Foreign Student Admissions at Columbia University.

Since "retiring" Mr. Viederman's vocation continues to be Grandparenting. In addition to loving and caring for his own grandchildren--Will, Hannah, Romy and Charlie-- Grandparenting involves his active commitment to insure that they, and all children, have options to live a full and satisfying life in an equitable, just, peaceful and environmentally sound world.

Mr. Viederman's writing, speaking and advocacy cover a wide range of issues that include: redefining the fiduciary duty of foundations and other institutional investors, recognizing the obligations and rights of being a shareowner in today’s world; economic and environmental justice including community-driven community development; the limits of corporate responsibility; the role of philanthropy in democracy; science, higher education and public policy; and issues surrounding the conceptualization and practice of “sustainability.”

Mr. Viederman's commitment involves him (2008) in a number of activities and organizations including: the Advisory Committees of Innovest Strategic Value Advisors and the Dow Jones Sustainability Indexes; the finance committees of the Christopher Reynolds Foundation and the Needmor Fund; the Investor Network on Climate Change; being the lead filer of a shareowner resolution with ExxonMobil on renewable energy policy (2007 and 2008, to be continued); co-founding the Foundation Partnership on Corporate Responsibility; participation on the faculty of SustainAbility (UK); the board of the Center for Labor and Community Research; and work with communities of color in the Southwest and the Pueblos of New Mexico on community led alternatives to the classic models of community development.

"Mr. Viederman previously served on the Advisory Committees of Seventh Generation Products for a Healthy Environment, Redefining Progress, and the Sundance Journal. He was a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and of the President's Council of the Institute for Alternative Agriculture. He also wrote a column for Earth Times."

Mr. Viederman has lectured in Australia and New Zealand: China, India and Thailand; Kenya, Tanzania and Nigeria; England, Rumania and France; Brazil, Colombia, Mexico and Chile; and throughout the US and Canada.

Mr. Viederman's articles have also been published widely. The latest, "Fiduciary Duty", is published in Sustainable Investing edited by Cary Krosinsky and Nick Robins (Earthscan, 2008).

A native New Yorker,Mr. Viederman received his BA and MA in history from Columbia University in the mid-fifties. He lives in New York with his wife of 51 years, a social worker. His grandchildren live in Amherst, Massachusetts and London, England.He is a photographer and serious cook, a beginning student of Australian Aboriginal Art and history.He is still trying to figure out what retirement means, which is just fine.

"My commitment also involves me in a number of activities and organizations including: the Advisory Committees of Innovest Strategic Value Advisors, and the Dow Jones Sustainability Indexes; the finance committees of the Christopher Reynolds Foundation and the Needmor Fund; the Investor Network on Climate Risk; lead filer of a shareowner resolution with ExxonMobil on renewable energy policy; co-founder of the Foundation Partnership on Corporate Responsibility; the faculty of SustainAbility (UK); the Board of the Center for Labor and Community Research (Chicago); and work with communities of color in the Southwest and the Pueblos of New Mexico on community led alternatives to the classic models of community development."

• Faculty Member, SustainAbility
• Director, Network for Sustainable Financial Markets

Contact

135 East 83rd Street, 15A New York, New York 10028 212 639 9497 (office) s.viederman@mac.com