The Institutional Limited Partners Association is giving its employees Election Day off and encouraging others in the private equity ecosystem to do the same through the use of #electiondayoff on social media.
"ILPA is not politically affiliated and this effort is not to encourage support for any party or platform," said Kari Grant, Washington-based director of strategic communications. "We believe this is the right thing to do to support the LP community and our employees in exercising the privilege of voting."
ILPA is spreading the word to signal to private equity limited partners, general partners and other firms that participation in the electoral process is important to the organization. On Sept. 1, ILPA executives issued a call to action with posts on Twitter and LinkedIn and shared the information with members and friends of ILPA, she said.
Unlike other initiatives, ILPA isn't asking members and others to sign a pledge and so hasn't had a lot of feedback, just anecdotal support, she said. And as of Sept. 11, it's also gotten 23 likes on LinkedIn.
Some in the private equity industry already give their employees time off to vote. KKR & Co. Inc. has always given employees time off to vote, said spokeswoman Kristie Huller in an email. California law, which also covers employees of the state's pension plans including the $417.3 billion California Public Employees' Retirement System, Sacramento, allows workers to take up to two hours off work with pay to vote if they are unable to vote during non-work hours.