The Trusteeship Institute, Inc. (TI) was founded in 1973 by Terry Mollner for the purpose of furthering economic development based on Mohandas Gandhi's theory of "trusteeship." From the beginning the mission of TI has been to further this worldview both with innovative projects of its own and by participating in and supporting the projects of others. Terry, as a result, is one of the founders of the Calvert Social Investment Funds (one of the pioneers of socially responsible investing with over $6 billion under mangement), the Calvert Foundation (one of the pioneers in "community investing" which is investing to end poverty with over $350 million under management around the world), and one of the architects of the contract between Unilever and Ben & Jerry's that sustained the board with him on it with the responsibility to continue the social mission approach of Ben & Jerry's.

Gandhi believed that the universe is one indivisible whole. He also recognized that we are each alive for only a short period of time. Therefore, he concluded that we are each the "trustees" of our wealth and talents not the "owners" of them. As trustees we would naturally mature to where we would give highest priority to the good of us all, the one indivisible universe.

He didn't speak to it in terms of "layers of maturity," but this is what Terry Mollner believed was implicit in his view of human development. Gandhi also believed that individual freedom must be honored: it was only through the exercise of individual freedom that one would discover the layers of maturity that result in the greater joy of being a trustee rather than being an owner.

TI's latest project is supporting the creation of Stakeholders Capital, Inc. (SC), a wealth asset management firm in Amherst, that promotes what Terry and his partners in SC believe is the next stage in socially responsible investing: common good investing. This is investing where the financial return can be greater then the averages as a result of companies giving highest priority to the common good in all they do. Terry has also just completed a book on his vision of how we can all embrace the higher layers of human maturation in all we do entitled The Love Skill: Welcome to the Relationship Age!

Click here to see a video of Terry's Opening and Closing Remarks at a conference created by TI where the founders of socially responsible businesses that were bought by multinationals explain on video, also available at this site, what they did to sustain their social operations once bought and what they now wish they had done. Watch Judy Wicks (White Dog Cafe), Gary Hirshberg (Stonyfield), Seth Goldman (Honest Tea), Greg Steltenphol (Odwalla), the board of Ben & Jerry's, and others give their answers to this question: trusteeship.org.