Announcing the Center for Active Stewardship’s Proxy Voting Database

The first public database of proxy votes cast by U.S. asset managers

Press Release

Today, the Center for Active Stewardship (CAS), an affiliate project of the Jain Family Institute, launched the public beta of its Proxy Voting Database: the first free tool to offer downloadable records of all votes cast by U.S. exchange-traded and mutual funds.

CAS focuses on institutional proxy voting because it is a powerful lever for environmental and social change. Each year, shareholders—including financial institutions—vote at the shareholder meetings of publicly traded companies such as Amazon and Nike. These votes influence a wide range of decisions at each company, from director elections to greenhouse gas emissions, factory farming, artificial intelligence applications, and child labor in supply chains—among many others.

Asset managers vote on behalf of their clients (less than half of whom are aware of this practice) and therefore wield enormous influence: the “Big Three” asset managers alone cast roughly 25% of shareholder votes at S&P 500 companies’ meetings, and this could reach 40% by 2040. Despite this outsized influence, the CAS Proxy Voting Database is the first resource that allows the public to easily explore and download asset managers’ voting decisions at scale. By freely releasing this to the public, CAS aims to make it easier for asset owners to choose asset managers who align with their interests and values, and for activists, researchers, and others to analyze and scrutinize asset managers.

CAS has developed this database, along with other publicly accessible tools, to catalyze accountability and change within the financial sector. Previous projects include CAS’s annually released environmental proxy voting impact scores—which assess institutions’ support for or opposition to environmental proposals—and Splice, an interactive tool for examining greenhouse gas emissions from each company. Moving forward, CAS will use this database to produce visualization tools, customizable impact scores, and critical research on retirement plans and other key financial levers for change.

Database details:

• The database comprises data from public SEC filings.
• The database includes all votes cast in the 2024 “proxy season” by U.S. asset managers (roughly, July 1, 2023—June 30, 2024).
• The database will be updated in September 2025 to include proxy votes from the 2025 season, and will ultimately expand to include historical voting records from prior years.
• Example uses of the database include:
  • Comparing how all managers voted at a single annual meeting or on a specific proposal
  • Viewing all votes from Vanguard mutual funds and ETFs (link)
  • Examining votes on all proposals containing the phrase “emissions” (link)

Explore the Proxy Voting Database here.

Press contact: [email protected].

View this press release as a PDF.