A couple weeks ago, I tweeted this:

If greed got us in, maybe generosity will get us out.

As I did, I was watching the Dow melt away nearly 800 points in a single day. For a minute, I must admit, I was a little panic-stricken. After all, after a year of working for free, my savings have nearly evaporated and I could really use what’s left to cover the tiny $600/month apartment I now split with a friend and buy kibble for Millie. When I get stressed, I eat, so I’ll need a little cash for some Chunky Monkey too if the situation spirals (get it? chunky monkey, a pun, in honor of my chubbiness and surname and a delicious flavor of Ben & Jerry’s – clever, eh?) .

As I thought more about what I’d written, I realized I might just be onto something – and I’ve been pitching the idea ever since. You can’t imagine how many folks have asked me about the perils of fundraising and nonprofit work during an economic downturn. Here’s my theory, though: Epic Change might be in the best possible business right now. In a market where consumers are jaded, in which they fear and mistrust Wall Street and consumer confidence is abysmal, perhaps aligning your business with good is the only strategy that really makes sense. In an economy that’s dominated by fear, hope seems to me quite likely to sell.

As I attended the first day of SoCap08 today, both the keynote speaker, Kevin Jones of Good Capital, and Karyn Barsa of Investors Circle separately mentioned a theory along these same lines, essentially saying that given that our economy is currently in collapse, perhaps the next logical step is to rebuild it with a focus on creating sustainable, socially responsible businesses. Aside from obvious social benefits of such an approach, the economic benefits may well be significant too. I met some very successful business leaders today (like Jeff Mendelsohn of NewLeaf Paper, Xavier Helgeson of Better World Books and Jim Fruchterman of Benetech) whose missions are socially conscious, and have recently read research like this from Harvard that suggests that consumers, when offered a choice, prefer dogooder goods even, remarkably, when they’re priced substantially higher than competitors without a cause.

Over 600 people, including several investors and venture capitalists, turned out for SoCap08 today – a conference that originally planned to max out at 250. I don’t think this is coincidence. I think it’s evidence of the direction the market is headed…away from greed and toward good. It’s about time.

What do you think?