Fact Sheet #7:  Why choose a member of the SIO as your advisor?

For individuals who are interested in social investment, finding an investment advisor sympathetic to their needs can be a challenge.  You are looking for professional competence - someone with the requisite knowledge of financial planning who will also empathize with your values, goals and objectives for your investments.

Every financial advisor member of the SIO is a practicing professional financial planner who can assist you with your investment decisions.  SIO advisors are also advocates of socially responsible investment (SRI) and share the conviction that social investment provides investors with prudent social and environmental analysis as well as serving as a powerful tool for social change. Social investment can demonstrate that financial performance and social responsibility are not mutually exclusive. 

SIO member advisors are:

• Familiar with the concept of SRI and sympathetic to your desire to have the companies you own shares in (stocks or indirectly through a mutual fund) or lend money to (bonds) reflect your personal values

• Familiar with the range of socially screened investment products currently available (stocks, bonds, mutual  funds, and labour-sponsored investment funds)

• Familiar with sources of financial and social research available to socially aware investors

• More likely to focus efforts and resources on issues of interest to social investors

• Supportive of the SIO’s principles and standards for professional members which includes availing themselves of opportunities for continuing education in the field of SRI whenever possible

Establishing a portfolio of investments with social and environmental considerations is possible when you work together with your financial advisor to identify the issues of most concern to you and your family.