Many Catholic sisters and nuns live quiet lives of prayer. But some are wielding influence on Wall Street.

Pat Daly is part of a group of Dominican Catholic sisters who set out to make sure their congregation’s investment funds reflect their Catholic values. They wanted to find a fund that supports climate-friendly projects that also help vulnerable communities.

“We wanted to make sure that we weren’t just investing, let’s say, in a Tesla bond, but that the investments were really focused on getting green energy into villages and areas on the planet that didn’t even have energy,” Daly says.

But the sisters could not find an investment fund that took this kind of holistic approach. So, they teamed up with Morgan Stanley to create two new funds – one public and one private – that invest in solutions such as clean energy for sub-Saharan Africa and small businesses in India.

Sixteen congregations seeded the funds with more than $46 million, which then attracted tens of millions more from other groups.

Daly says the public fund has shown strong returns, outperforming the market.

So the investments are doing well, while also doing good.

Reporting credit: Sarah Kennedy/ChavoBart Digital Media and Diana Madson