Investor Choice
Vanguard Investor Choice: Empowering more index fund investors
March 03, 2025
As the 2025 proxy voting season begins in the U.S., a growing portion of Vanguard investors can make their voices heard. Vanguard Investor Choice is now available to nearly 4 million investors, their advisors, and retirement plan sponsors who hold one or more of the eight funds included in the pilot, representing nearly $250 billion in assets under management.1
Reimagining proxy voting to give investors a voice
Beginning March 3, 2025, nearly 4 million investors across eight Vanguard equity index funds can now opt into the Vanguard Investor Choice pilot program and make their voices heard on important shareholder matters at the companies held in their participating funds.
Vanguard Investor Choice enables investors across a growing collection of equity index funds to select from a range of voting policies to determine how their proportionate share of the fund is voted at shareholder meetings. Through a simple, one-time election, participating investors can choose a voting policy aligned with their preferences. Vanguard Investor Choice extends our mission—to take a stand for investors, to treat them fairly, and to give them the best chance for investment success—by empowering investors with a more direct voice in the proxy voting process.
What's new
Three new Vanguard equity index funds—Vanguard High Dividend Yield Index Fund, Vanguard Tax-Managed Capital Appreciation Fund, and Vanguard Tax-Managed Small-Cap Fund—have been added to this latest expansion of Vanguard Investor Choice, bringing the total participating funds to eight and nearly doubling eligible assets in Investor Choice:
- Vanguard S&P 500 Growth Index Fund
- Vanguard Russell 1000 Index Fund
- Vanguard ESG U.S. Stock ETF
- Vanguard Mega Cap Index Fund
- Vanguard Dividend Appreciation Index Fund
- Vanguard High Dividend Yield Index Fund
- Vanguard Tax-Managed Capital Appreciation Fund
- Vanguard Tax-Managed Small-Cap Fund
The newly eligible equity index funds enhance our offerings to Vanguard record-kept retirement plan sponsors, enabling those that offer eligible funds in their plans to consider participating. This will inform our ongoing work to determine how to provide plan sponsors with a seamless experience as we bring Investor Choice to scale across more funds. The expansion also reflects favorable client reception and feedback received during the first years of our Investor Choice offer. We continue to work to bring this capability to more investors and eligible funds and ETFs.
Vanguard Investor Choice also includes two new voting policy options that reflect ongoing investor feedback and our commitment to providing a focused range of differentiated voting policy options:
- The Mirror Voting Policy votes the proportionate shares of a participating investor in proportion to the decisions made by other shareholders.
- The Third-Party Wealth-Focused Policy votes a participating investor’s proportionate shares according to the recommendations from Egan-Jones, a third-party proxy advisor, that focuses on maximizing shareholder value without being influenced by political or social agendas.
Our menu of clear and distinct voting policies now includes two different third-party policies by different proxy advisors.
Why choice matters
Vanguard Investor Choice reinforces our passive, investor-owned approach that supports millions of investors.2 Investor Choice provides a way for investors in participating funds to have greater control of how their equity index funds vote on important proxy ballot items at the companies held in the funds. Eligible investors own the decision of selecting a voting policy that aligns with their preferences to direct how their proportionate fund ownership is voted. The feedback gathered from those engaging in Investor Choice helps us as we continue to define this future state of proxy voting.
For information about Vanguard Investor Choice, please click here.
1 The assets under management figure is as of January 31, 2025.
2 Vanguard is owned by its funds, which are owned by Vanguard’s fund shareholder clients.
Notes:
For more information about Vanguard funds and Vanguard ETFs, visit vanguard.com to obtain a prospectus or, if available, a summary prospectus. Investment objectives, risks, charges, expenses, and other important information about a fund are contained in the prospectus; read and consider it carefully before investing.
Vanguard ETF Shares are not redeemable with the issuing Fund other than in very large aggregations worth millions of dollars. Instead, investors must buy and sell Vanguard ETF Shares in the secondary market and hold those shares in a brokerage account. In doing so, the investor may incur brokerage commissions and may pay more than net asset value when buying and receive less than net asset value when selling.
All investing is subject to risk, including the possible loss of the money you invest.
ESG funds are subject to ESG investment risk, which is the chance that the stocks or bonds screened by the index provider or advisor, as applicable, for ESG criteria generally will underperform the market as a whole or, in the aggregate, will trail returns of other funds screened for ESG criteria. The index provider or advisor's assessment of a company, based on the company's level of involvement in a particular industry or their own ESG criteria, may differ from that of other funds or an investor's assessment of such company. As a result, the companies deemed eligible by the index provider or advisor may not reflect the beliefs and values of any particular investor and may not exhibit positive or favorable ESG characteristics. The evaluation of companies for ESG screening or integration is dependent on the timely and accurate reporting of ESG data by the companies. Successful application of the screens will depend on the index provider or advisor's proper identification and analysis of ESG data. The advisor may not be successful in assessing and identifying companies that have or will have a positive impact or support a given position. In some circumstances, companies could ultimately have a negative or no impact or support of a given position.
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The S&P 500 Growth Index is a product of S&P Dow Jones Indices LLC, a division of S&P Global, or its affiliates ("SPDJI"), and has been licensed for use by Vanguard. Standard & Poor's® and S&P® are registered trademarks of Standard & Poor's Financial Services LLC, a division of S&P Global ("S&P"); Dow Jones® is a registered trademark of Dow Jones Trademark Holdings LLC ("Dow Jones"); and these trademarks have been licensed for use by SPDJI and sublicensed for certain purposes by Vanguard. Vanguard S&P 500 Growth Index Fund is not sponsored, endorsed, sold or promoted by SPDJI, Dow Jones, S&P, their respective affiliates, and none of such parties make any representation regarding the advisability of investing in such product(s) nor do they have any liability for any errors, omissions, or interruptions of the S&P 500 Growth Index.
