TO BERATE MANAGEMENT, CLICK HERE: NEW WEBSITE KEEPS SHAREHOLDER ACTIVISTS ACTIVE

A veteran of socially aware mutual fund investing has designed a website to help shareholder activists craft nasty letters to corporate executives as well as obtain a variety of other information.

The site, which went up on the Internet in January, is the project and business of Vermont resident Jay Falk, a veteran of the socially aware investment movement. He was a marketer with money manager Prentiss Smith & Co. of Brattleboro, Vt., for nearly 11 years.

In contrast with the websites of other like-minded groups, including those of the Social Investment Forum and Co-op America, www.socialfunds.com is primarily a working financial site, with full copies of resolutions already filed by others, their status, and directions on how to contact the companies and how to vote one’s conscience.

On the investment side, the highly interactive site boasts a running ticker of do-good mutual funds, performance reports, quotes and contacts for brokers, investment advisers and other financial-services providers who cater to the socially conscious.

In the current jargon of the World Wide Web, SocialFunds.com is in part designed to be a way for socially conscious investors to get in on the action by accessing a portal site.

“The portal concept makes a lot more sense here than it does for mutual funds generally,” says Peter D. Kinder, president of Kinder Lydenberg Domini & Co. Inc., adviser to the Boston-based Domini funds. “Social investors have such loyalty, they tend not to invest outside the range of social mutual funds. This lets them look at the whole range of social funds, to compare them and get a good handle on them.”

Mr. Falk turned to the Internet, because even though there were a lot of financial sites on the web, none were directed to his investing preferences.

“This industry is on the verge of really making some headway,” he says.

He cites estimates that about a quarter of the U.S. adult population express an interest in promoting human rights, the environment and related causes. “And the Internet is a great medium for delivering financial services and information.”

The site holds more than 1,000 pages so far, and Mr. Falk has plans to expand, including a new section to be aimed at institutional investors. At the moment, the site’s tools are mostly designed for individuals.

The Shareholder Activism Center, a recent addition, is co-sponsored by the Interfaith Center on Corporate Responsibility, which directs socially aware investments for 275 Protestant, Catholic and Jewish institutional investors, controlling $80 billion.