8 Virtuous Investment Options

Hidden deep inside the layered mystery of how markets work and the marketplace allocates resources, capitalism innovates to generate jobs making faster computers and deadly cigarettes. Innovation brings us the electric car and bigger bombs. It brings us progress and it brings us poverty.

"We are on the verge of a global [social] capital convergence, a coming together of parts into what promises to be a new, more powerful Whole," prophesies Jed Emerson, a leading scholar, thinker and social impact cheerleader. "[Let's not miss] the opportunity to catapult our work from the level of our individual collective to that of a new, shared capital commons."

"Our philosophy is that to solve the world's toughest problems we need exponentially more resources than can be provided through just traditional philanthropy," says Ron D. Cordes in a Forbes.com interview this week. "Impact investing offers an opportunity to tap a giant new capital source to create sustainable, scalable solutions..." Cordes is the founder of Impact Assets, president of the Cordes Foundation and co-chairman of Genworth Financial Wealth Management.

A less contemporary bit of social impact investing wisdom comes from the ancient Greeks: "First secure an independent income, then practice virtue." If you are halfway there and ready now to practice a bit of virtue, 2011 Opportunity Collaboration Delegates working to "solve poverty" and create virtue with your capital are:

• Calvert Foundation: an industry-leading nonprofit investing in a diversified mix of domestic and international organizations, including affordable housing, microfinance, small business development, charter schools, daycare centers and rehabilitation clinics.