Would you buy a Sierra Club-sponsored mutual fund?

[Kolesar]

The club began actively-managed mutual funds that will invest responsibly. The management fees stand out to me at 1.69%, but I recall that that is about the mean for actively-managed mutual funds. (For the last five years, I have only been buying into S&P 500-based index funds.)

To their credit, the fund has outperformed the S&P 500 for the last five years according to the chart. Their guideline is to invest 80% of their assets in equities at any one time, which sounds like a lot of liquidity and a very conservative position.

Has anybody had an experience with these products? Here is a link to the stock fund

http://www.sierraclubfunds.com/our_funds_sc_stock_fund.htm

[Viking12]

1. Yes!

I already invest another so-called Social Equity Fund. It has performed comparibly with my traditonal Index fund investments. The one limitation I've noticed is that the portfolio management is based on avoidance, or negative, screening. Stocks can be included in the fund if the companies don't do certain bad things. I'd like to see a more proactive approach to the portfolio management to encourage upstarts and companies that actively pursue environemntal and social agendas as a core principle.

Browsing over the Sierra Club's information, I couldn't gather whether they manage via "negative screening" or through "positive outlook". Now that I'm aware of it, I'll give it some more attention.

[Kolesar]

2. It does look like "avoidance" screening

From the Environmental Guidelines/Overview tab:

"We look at each company’s overall business. We carefully evaluate which aspects of their business are damaging to the environment. If more than a small percentage of the company’s operations produce a negative impact, we will not consider that company for investment."

All of the environmental guidelines tabs are good reading.
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I started seriously considering the club's funds when I learned that Fidelity Investments has donated ~$400,000 to the Bush campaign. Bye bye!