As a summary: Women represent half of all investors in the US and their economic clout continues to rise, but they’ve been slow to use tools available to them to voice their concern about the issue of board composition, according to a new survey by ION, the InterOrganization Network. ION is a consortium of women’s business organizations working to increase the representation of women in corporate leadership.

In Georgia, of the 87 women who responded to the survey 82 percent are private investors in publicly traded companies and 82 percent invest through mutual funds. Fifty-seven percent say they always read or sometimes read the proxy statements or shareholder resolutions they receive. Eighty-seven percent say they look or sometimes look at board composition before deciding whether and how to vote.

Nationally, close to 1,000 women completed the survey. Eighty-five percent of respondents say they invest privately and 84 percent invest through mutual funds. Half of the respondents (54 percent) always or sometimes read the proxy statements or shareholder resolutions they receive, and 85 percent say they always or sometimes look at the board composition before deciding whether and how to vote.

A majority of the women investors both regionally and nationally say they vote on shareholder resolutions (70 percent locally and 70 percent nationally.) But, when it comes to actually using proxy statements to demonstrate concern over the lack of diversity on a company’s board, only 23 percent of the local respondents said they vote for the slate that’s presented by the company. Nationally, 55 percent do. In Georgia just 14 percent refuse to vote for the slate if there are no or too few women directors, compared with 9 percent nationally. Most of the respondents, both locally and nationally acknowledge that they do not comment.

What more detail on the survey results? Click here for graphs of the data both nationally and for Georgia. View some of the comments from women who took the survey across the US.

What can you do about it? It is clear from this survey that women investors are savvy about responding to shareholder resolutions, but they may not take the extra time to comment on board composition. We hope the survey is a wake-up call to women to contact companies where they invest if there are no or few women in leadership roles. Even something as simple as writing the words “Where are the Women” on a proxy statement will be noticed if enough investors, women and men, take the time to do it. In response to the survey results ION has developed “Where are the Women?” a shareholders guide that instructs investors on how to vote a proxy and comment on the under-representation of women on boards. The organization is working to advance the idea of shareholder activism among the 6,000 members of its member organizations and among other investors who understand the link between good governance and board diversity.

See www.IonWomen.org for the proxy voting guide.