We don’t invest in Treasuries: As you can see on the previous page, a significant portion of the Fund’s benchmark is allocated to U.S. Treasury obligations. Our standards include a long-standing policy to exclude securities issued by the U.S. Department of the Treasury, primarily due to concerns about financing our nation’s nuclear weapons arsenal. Instead of investing in these general government obligations, the Fund invests in bonds issued by U.S. government agencies that serve purposes aligned with our goals and have similar risk/return characteristics to U.S. Treasuries.

We maintain a significant overweight to agencies and mortgages to support affordable housing: The Domini Impact Bond Fund seeks to improve access to housing through investments that fund agencies and programs supporting access to affordable mortgage credit and rental properties. In keeping with our commitment to increasing access to capital for those historically underserved, the Fund has, since its inception, maintained a substantial, long-term commitment to affordable housing. We view our investments in housing as a form of reallocation of capital away from U.S. Treasuries.
We evaluate corporate bonds on a case-by-case basis: Like the benchmark, the Domini Impact Bond Fund also allocates a portion of its portfolio to corporate credit, the majority of which is issued for general corporate purposes. However, we evaluate corporate issuers on a case-by-case basis, using the same social and environmental standards we use to evaluate companies for our equity funds. Corporate issuers are evaluated on their business model and stakeholder relations using our proprietary framework and industry-specific key performance indicators.

We maintain a significant overweight to municipal bonds: In addition to corporate credit, the Domini Impact Bond Fund maintains significant exposure to credit issued by state and local municipalities. We believe these investments offer unique opportunities to help fund purposes essential to meeting the basic needs of communities, such as health care, education, and infrastructure. In particular, we seek investments that help increase access to capital for those historically underserved by the mainstream financial community, create public goods for those most in need, and fill capital gaps left by current financial practice.

You can read more about how the Domini Impact Bond Fund supports communities, starting on page 43.

I know that this is something missing from CODEPINK’s search engine for discovering if a mutual fund holds military-type investments. I searched the mutual fund VFTAX in their search engine (https://weaponfreefunds.org/fund/vanguard-ftse-social-index-fund/VFTAX/weapon-investments/FSUSA003PD/F000011IZ5?screen=all). Their results stated that this mutual fund only has one weapons-related stock: DXC Technology. What the search engine failed to reveal was that the mutual fund also has almost $3 million in short-term treasury bonds called “U.S. Cash Management Bills” (https://investor.vanguard.com/mutual-funds/profile/portfolio/VFTAX/portfolio-holdings). So I guess that is something to be aware of when using the CODEPINK / As You Sow divest tool. (This fund actually has over twice as much invested in treasury bonds than in DXC.)