Honors & Awards

Schwab Institutional Honors Joan Bavaria

Joan Bavaria honored with Charles R. Schwab IMPACT Award® for her vision and leadership in the investment advisory business
On September 25, 2008  Schwab Institutional® announced that Trillium Asset Management Corporation (“Trillium”) founding president and CEO Joan Bavaria was recognized with the 3rd annual Charles R. Schwab IMPACT Award – an award honoring Joan as an individual trailblazer whose sustained vision, outstanding leadership, client commitment and community engagement clearly demonstrate the value of independent investment advice. The IMPACT Awards® are an industry-wide awards program to honor advisors and firms that have advanced the industry through their visionary leadership, operational excellence, technology innovation, and impressive growth.
Joan Bavaria, widely recognized as one of the early pioneers in socially responsible investing, is a true visionary in the investment advisory field.  She founded Trillium in 1982 with a focus on serving clients with a concern for the social and environmental impacts of their investments. Today, Trillium is the largest independent investment management firm in the U.S. dedicated solely to socially responsible investing, with 40 employees and more than $1 billion in client assets.
For nearly 40 years, Joan’s vision has been to use the capital markets as mechanisms for social change.  An early innovator in the concept of community investing and microfinance, she helped bring the community loan fund idea to Wall Street.  At Trillium Joan has created a workplace that is a sustainable model for long-term employee ownership: the firm is majority employee- and woman-owned and donates five percent of pre-tax profits to charitable causes.  Trillium offers a progressive set of employee benefits and maintains a strong, diverse board of directors.
In 1981, Joan co-founded the Social Investment Forum, the national organization that serves as the primary association for practicing social investment professionals. She is the founding chair of Ceres, a national network of investors, environmental organizations and other public interest groups working with corporations to address sustainability challenges such as global climate change.
“It is an honor to win this award,” said Joan. “I proudly accept it while also acknowledging the many wonderful collaborators who inspired me and shared my belief that investors could balance their social values and financial objectives.”
Schwab Institutional presented Trillium Executive Vice President Cheryl Smith with an IMPACT Awards trophy at a ceremony during IMPACT® 2008, one of the country’s largest annual gatherings of independent investment advisors.  Joan was granted a donation from Schwab Institutional to her charity of choice, the Opportunity Finance Network’s CARS™ program. The CARS™ program is a comprehensive third-party analysis and rating system of community development financial institutions which aids investors in their underwriting process.
Profiles and videos on the IMPACT Awards winners are available online at impactawards.schwab.com.
View the Joan Bavaria video here.