Socially Responsible Pension Fund Options?

ericbop — Wed, 09 Apr 2008 13:29:02 -0800

My union offers its members a pension plan that allows its participants to allocate their investments in several types of funds (large cap, small cap, money market, etc). How can I convince my association's pension plan fund manager that they can offer a socially responsible fund as an additional option without violating their fiduciary responsibility?

Beginning investor, seeking basic opinions and links for more research & self-teaching!

Anonymous — Fri, 27 Oct 2006 10:20:06 -0800

Total beginner to investing and finance, researching how to start investing maybe $2K each year, mostly in socially responsible mutual funds -- and how a young, healthy person should balance retirement investment with other kinds of investments. (I'm coming from a low-income background, so I haven't watched people invest or had people talk to me about it -- I'm very open to criticism if you see me missing important points.)

Quick background: U.S. citizen, female, almost 30, no medical issues at all (yet) and hoping to live 50+ more years. No existing investments now, and hopefully never a 401K (editorial/creative freelancer and totally in love with my work -- so I'm saving for "old age / medical care" rather than "sudden end of salary"). I have a simple standard of living (for an American) and want to live simply my whole life. I don't want kids. I have an emergency-fund in an account that earns close to 5% interest but is totally liquid. Other than that I have no savings or assets to speak of, but I'm debt-free. I'm hoping to spare maybe 2K/year, from now on, to invest.

So far, my research suggests I should have a Roth IRA. I want most of my Roth contributions to go in a socially responsible mutual fund (let's accept for this thread that I've done enough research to decide that "responsible" is more important to me than "highest interest regardless of sources"... if you're interested in debates on responsible investing, see here and here; chart of responsible funds and their relative performance here). So I'll need an account in a brokerage where I can do everything by myself online (possibly Scottrade or Ameritrade -- opinions?).

Once I have this account, can I also just buy individual stocks from any companies I like? Will it be clear in my account how to designate each new contribution as either part of my Roth IRA or part of a shorter-term investment? And actually, is it important to balance my Roth contributions with other shorter-term investments, or should all my $$ go into my Roth (since I could withdraw my original contributions from it in an emergency)? For stocks, are there databases where you can search stocks by, say, a combo such as industry type + price for one share + different performance indexes? Maybe even with flags (either self-applied or third-party) for "green"/"responsible"/etc.?

Thanks for any and all answers and/or suggestions re. where I should go to teach myself more!

What's a Liberal Capitalist to do?

Fenriss — Fri, 24 Mar 2006 10:28:14 -0800

I need to open an IRA, and probably another mutual fund account (or other investment) for shorter term savings, but I don't want to give money to evil corporations. At least, I want to try to avoid the worst offenders on workers rights or environmental violations. I've been considering checking into the Calvert Group, since they do "socially responsible" investing, but I'm not completely sold on them. Are there other options? Are there financial advisers that specialize in helping progressive-minded people use the capitalist system for good instead of evil? Any resources you can recommend? Many thanks!

Ask MetaFilter questions tagged with sociallyresponsible

Socially Responsible Pension Fund Options?

Beginning investor, seeking basic opinions and links for more research & self-teaching!

What's a Liberal Capitalist to do?