The awards were given to the "most influential and effective social entrepreneurs who are solving the world’s problems" and the organizations they have helped to create. The winners, Fast Company writes, "use the tools of business to solve the world’s most pressing problems" and "demonstrate a consistent and unusually large impact on society."

In giving the award to Civic Ventures for the second year in a row, the magazine cites both Experience Corps, a national service program placing older tutors and mentors in urban public schools, and the Purpose Prize, which provides five $100,000 awards for social innovators over 60. Civic Ventures’ goals, Fast Company states, are "to expand opportunities for a generation and to alter the national discussion on aging."

"We’re working to redefine the second half of adult life as a time for encore careers that provide income, meaning, and the chance to do work that means something beyond oneself," explains Marc Freedman, founder and CEO of Civic Ventures and author of Encore: Finding Work that Matters in the Second Half of Life.

For five years, Fast Company has partnered with global consulting firm Monitor Group to identify, evaluate, and celebrate top-performing nonprofit organizations. The Awards assess social entrepreneurial organizations of different sizes and ages across social sectors as an explicit effort to further performance measurement and accountability in the social sector in a highly rigorous, data driven, comparative approach.

Organizations given Fast Company’s Social Capitalist Award are rated on five critical components: social impact, entrepreneurship, innovation, aspiration and growth, and sustainability, based on an application that included two years of operating and audited financial data, a statement of mission and objectives, and answers to a survey to assess strategy and activities. Winners are selected by an independent advisory board of sector experts.

The winners are featured in Fast Company’s December/January 2008 issue (on newsstands Dec. 4 - Jan. 22, 2008) and will be recognized at a ceremony at the Westin Washington D.C. City Center on Jan. 8, 2008.

Complete information on this year's Social Capitalist Award winners, including expanded profiles and links for donations, can be found online at www.fastcompany.com.