Items Tagged With Michelle Haimoff

A product of the civil rights movement and the Vietnam War, Amy Domini grew up with the flower-child ethos of goodwill. Personal ethics were important to her as a stockbroker, prompting her to write "Ethical Investing" in 1984, where she questioned why people would invest in corporations that undermined their individual goals. She soon began to see her investment style as part of a larger movement and herself as a leader within that movement, providing the disjointed socially responsible investing community with a sense of structure and solidarity. Together with her partners Peter Kinder and Steve Lydenberg , she formed the Domini 400 Social Index , comprised of 400 U.S. corporations selected for a range of social and environmental criteria, and the Domini Social Equity Fund , which tracks this index.

"When I started Domini Social Investments, I had no idea of how difficult it would be to operate in the mutual fund industry," Domini says, "This industry is highly regulated and our shareholders deserve nothing less than excellent service." The industry was also largely untapped and the future of socially responsible investing met with skepticism. "I am largely glad that I did not know then what I know now since I might have been afraid to try, and that would have been a terrible mistake."

Not yet a book, not quite a website, it is difficult to pin down the Artist as Citizen project into any particular media. It is equally difficult to pin down its creator, Richard Reiss. Off the bat, he asks me not to make this review about him. He also refuses to state his opinion. About anything. “Us having opinions isn’t interesting, it’s exploring people’s opinions and beliefs in a way that will give you a fresh take on the issue that’s interesting."

But let’s backup.

The Artist as Citizen project is a collaboration of a guest editor, a donor and an art student with the end goal of creating something that makes people think. The students are generally design-minded undergrads, interested in fields that relate to popular commercial media. When they graduate, they will become the image-makers of the world, likely doing gigs as fashion photographers, graphic designers and ad agency creatives. The guest editors are prominent members of the art community who want to see a concept executed from its inception, and the donors are the kind of art collectors that are as interested in the process as the finished product.