It's Not Always a Fight: Our Meeting with Tractor Supply
Sometimes we get to say “thank you” and “we have your back” to the companies we engage with.
We’ve written previously about the very fruitful engagement with Tractor Supply. The company’s home office had gotten enmeshed in some political pandering and highly divisive cultural signaling that was shockingly at variance with the company’s employees and customers. We and others in our coalition have been trying to talk to the company for a couple of years and were not really getting much of anywhere, but then some whistleblowers in the company started sending examples of extreme politicking to investigative journalist Robby Starbuck. Starbuck had gone viral, thanks partly to being forwarded by Elon Musk at X, and Tractor Supply started trending and not in a good way. New reports kept coming in from new whistleblowers and the whole thing kept expanding on social media and finally Tractor Supply came to its senses and made a full reversal on a large number of issues.
My article in WORLD last month has the details.
All of this gave new impetus to our dialogues with the company management and we had a meeting with the company very recently. The meeting was off-the-record, so I assured the participants from Tractor Supply that they would not be named nor quoted. But that doesn’t mean I can’t talk a little about our side of the meeting. First of all, we were joined by Michael Ross of Alliance Defending Freedom. ADF is a major coalition leader in trying to influence these companies back to political neutrality and our impact would be a fraction of what it has been without them.
We thanked the company for listening to customers and shareholders and moving away from counterproductive cultural and political themes. We told them we would continue to defend the company against detractors. But we also brought three “asks,” which challenged the company to make sure that it really had moved to neutral in every area.
We asked the company to use ADF’s Viewpoint Diversity Survey as a diagnostic tool to make sure it was not discriminating in any way based on religious or political viewpoint.
We asked the company to explore allowing Christians to form their own employee resource group. The company has the usual array of race, age, gender and sexual orientation employee groups, but nothing for people of faith. Many large companies have faith-based employee groups and Tractor Supply is likely to have quite a few Christians.
We asked the company to look into discrimination against churches and other religious organizations in its employee giving program.
Again, we promised that we would not publicly quote them without permission. That issue came up because they knew that in addition to being a corporate proxy consultant, I am also a financial journalist. The ability to switch to our writer hats when we don’t get answers as advocates for shareholders is something that has been a force multiplier for our efforts. Companies are a little frightened about us going public, as well they should be if they are misbehaving. So, at least for now, we can only report what we said, not what they said. But we’ll be sure to share what we can when we can.
None of this would be possible without you. We also had a recent meeting with a group of financial advisors. Many of you are their clients. These advisors have helped connect your desire to align your voting and engagement with your worldview and convictions. At one point, they asked me, “How are you able to get these companies to talk to you?” “You,” I said. “You have brought your clients to us, and their shares have given us a voice in corporate boardrooms.” So, this week, I thank not only you investors for letting us speak for you, but also the financial advisors who brought us together.
