The idea of socially screened funds is not new. The Pioneer Group, eventually a group of 24 funds, used a "sin" screen (no tobacco, alcohol, or gambling connections) for many decades, because the founder was a very religious man when he started the fund in 1928. In the 1980s, Pioneer added a South Africa screen. The Pax World Fund was started by Quakers and Methodists in the 1970s to avoid investments in defense contractors in protest over the Vietnam War. In 1972, the Dreyfus Corporation became the first traditional money-management house to add a socially screened fund, the Dreyfus Third Century Fund. This fund avoided investments in companies doing business in South Africa and sought out companies with good records for equal opportunity, safety, health and environmental care.

In 1982, the idea of socially screened funds received a real boost when the Calvert Group offered both a mutual and a money market fund with extensive social screens. Calvert's Money Market Portfolio was the first money market fund to have a social screen. By 1997, Calvert was offering a family of 9 socially screened funds (12 by end of the year 2000). Next to appear were the New Alternatives Fund, an energy fund, and Working Assets Money Fund (later merged into Citizens Index Portfolio). The Amana Mutual Funds Trust offered funds with a Muslim screen. The Ariel Growth Fund was designed by an African-American financial firm.

However, until the mid-1980s there were almost literally only a handfull of social funds. The next big spurt took place as environmental investing became a hot issue on Wall Street, and there was a literal explosion of environmental funds. The really rapid growth in the number of funds having some type of social and/or environmental screening took place in the 1990s. And, the pace did not appear to be slowing. In early 1997, there were reports of at least a half dozen new social funds on the way, some to be offered by large, traditional money-management houses.

At the present time, major analytical services, such as Lipper and business publications such as Fortune and Business Week, continually carry reports on the performance and development of socially screened funds.