Deal to Spread ‘Socially Conscious’ Investing; Incapital Brokerages Will Offer Calvert Foundation Notes to Finance NonProfits

A Bethesda-based foundation that promotes what it calls socially
conscious investments said yesterday that a global investment banking
firm would begin marketing its investment notes, making them widely
available around the country through hundreds of brokerages.

The Calvert Foundation’s deal with Chicago-based Incapital LLC turns
what has been a mostly niche investment option into an easy alternative
that individual investors can include in their portfolios when looking
for social returns as well as financial.

This type of investing, called community investing, topped $14 billion
in 2003, according to the Social Investment Forum, which tracks and
promotes such investments.

Most of the money is lent to nonprofit groups through community
development banks and credit unions, which sell certificates of deposit
and money market accounts.

The Calvert Foundation, a nonprofit organization started by the founders
of the Calvert Group mutual fund company, has a different strategy.
Since 1995, Calvert has sold what it calls Community Investment Notes,
which resemble bonds, through a few brokers. Investors put up money in
$1,000 increments, choose a term length of one to 10 years and an
interest rate of 0 to 3 percent.

"The people who buy these notes know the cold, hard fact that on a rate
of return basis, they could make more money in another investment," said
Thomas S. Ricketts, chief executive of Incapital. "But there’s lots of
other people who get back more knowing that they put their money into
something beneficial and that they are helping to promote great causes."

By Michael S. Rosenwald, Washington Post Staff Writer

Full Story: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/11/30/AR2005113002041.html

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Many thanks to John Masterson for passing this along. Russ