The group calls itself the Main Street Investors Coalition.

It is a Washington organization that purports to represent the little guy — the retail investor that it says has no voice in corporate America. The group has been not-so-quietly circulating a white paper and various studies in hopes of influencing an examination by the Securities and Exchange Commission of regulations that affect investors. The group has been quoted in the news media and had op-eds published in The Hill, The Washington Examiner and elsewhere.

And yet the Main Street Investors Coalition has nothing to do with mom-and-pop investors.

The group is actually funded by big business interests that want to diminish the ability of pension funds and large 401(k) plans — where most little guys keep their money — to influence certain corporate governance issues.

The coalition popped up in the past two months and is positioning itself against firms like BlackRock and Vanguard, which manage trillions of dollars of Americans’ retirement savings and have been using the shareholder votes that come with those investments to take activist positions against corporate boards. The group is incensed that such firms are increasingly promoting environmental, social and governance causes on issues like climate change, gun control and employee diversity. Investors such as BlackRock contend that corporations need to consider such issues for the long-term health of the businesses.

“As the size and influence of these massive institutional holders has grown, so, too, has their power, influence and share of voice — drowning out the voices and interests of Main Street investors who, despite controlling the single largest pool of equity capital in the world, have almost no ability today to influence the decisions these funds make on their behalf, with their money,” the Main Street Investors Coalition says on its website.