• Participant Communications
• Recording Available: General Conference Legislation Q&A Webinar
• Wespath expanding offering of funds with heightened environmental, social criteria
• Q1 Key Takeaways Blog and Markets at a Glance Video

Participant Communications

We continue to publicize our April 10 event "Live from Wespath" through an email campaign to our UMC community. Please feel free to share our event information with your conference membership.

We are sending a postcard early next week to approximately 620 clergy who intend to retire this year. The postcard highlights our LifeStage Retirement Income program as a solution for setting up their retirement distributions from their defined contribution accounts.

April 4-5 we are sending an email to clergy highlighting information about the proposed Compass Retirement Plan up for approval at General Conference this year.

Recording Available: General Conference Legislation Q&A Webinar

Thank you to all who attended Wespath's General Conference webinar. For those who may have missed the webinar or wish to revisit the discussions, we are pleased to provide access to a recording of the full program. Feel free to share this recording with your delegate colleagues and others who may find the insights valuable.

Wespath expanding offering of funds with heightened environmental, social criteria

Wespath is pleased to announce it will be expanding the availability of its Social Values Choice (SVC) suite of funds. The SVC funds provide investment options that adhere to heightened environmental and social investment criteria. For instance, the SVC funds do not invest in companies that derive a significant amount of revenue from involvement in the fossil fuels industry. Here's a quick overview of the expansion:

Participants

• Wespath will enable participants to invest in the SVC funds through LifeStage Investment Management.
• Currently, LifeStage participants are not able to invest in the SVC funds. Only participants who choose to self-manage their Wespath investments can currently select these funds.
• Wespath is committed to adding the SVC funds as an option in LifeStage by early 2026.

Institutional Investors

• The Social Values Choice Bond Fund and the Social Values Choice Equity Fund will be available by the end of 2024 to institutional investors, such as United Methodist foundations, senior living communities and higher education institutions. The SVC bond and equity funds are currently only offered to retirement-plan participants and plan sponsors.

There is more information about these enhancements in the announcement released earlier this week.

Q1 Key Takeaways Blog and Markets at a Glance Video

Our Q1 Markets at a Glance video is now available! Frank Holsteen discusses the top stories from this quarter including the performance of U.S. and international stocks, an update on the "Magnificent 7," and what investors might expect to see as the Federal Reserve nears the end of its rate-hiking cycle. For even more news from Q1 check out Joe Halwax's latest key takeaways blog.

We encourage you to share and reuse this blog with your stakeholders! If you have any questions about repurposing this content, please reach out to Wespath's investment communications team (Ryan McQueeney, rmcqueeney@wespath.org).

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