Setting Good Screens

Let’s say one of your clients is a tie-dyed, tree-hugging Planned Parenthood volunteer; the second is a pro-life, Baptist hunting enthusiast; and the third is just paranoid about avoiding the next Enron. Since January of this year, a Portland, Maine-based company called IdealsWork Financial has offered a Web-based application to help you build a customized portfolio for the first two clients. By August 1, the application, called IWF Advisor, will also be able to aid you in tailoring a portfolio for the third.

The software’s new corporate governance data comes courtesy of a partnership with The Corporate Library, an independent firm also based in Portland that specializes in corporate governance and risk assessment research. IdealsWork added the new feature in response to increased investor interest in corporate malfeasance, says Sam Pierce, president and CEO of IdealsWork Financial. “Corporate practices are what you might call non-traditional risk factors, but they have been shown to have long-term shareholder impact,” he says.