This article was originally published here.
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— by Patrick Briaud

For years, philanthropy and investing have been treated as separate disciplines—one championing social change, the other financial gain. The idea that the two approaches could be integrated in the same deals once struck most philanthropists and investors as far-fetched. Not anymore.

Impact investing, which seeks to generate social and/or environmental benefits while delivering a financial return, is expanding as a promising tool for both investors and philanthropists. From the US SIF Foundation’s 2016 Report, assets under management that incorporate ESG (environmental, social and governance) considerations totaled $8.72 trillion – which represents a 33 percent increase over 2014.

If your clients haven’t yet asked how to better align their values with their portfolio, they soon will. No longer an either/or question, impact investing and philanthropy can be complementary in a socially committed investor’s portfolio.

Five ways impact investing and philanthropy can complement each other

1. Impact investing makes more money available to drive social change. Investment capital vastly outweighs government spending and philanthropic funds. In the United States, 2017 philanthropy was approximately $390 billion, government spending was $3.9 trillion, and capital markets (all debt and equity investments) encompassed $65 trillion – an order of magnitude difference between each. Though philanthropic dollars are more flexible towards impact, investment dollars allocated with a thoughtful impact lens have the potential to make enormous impact due to the scale of available capital.

Even those who already have a private foundation can make use of investments to drive more impact. In addition to the 5 percent required annual minimum payout, they can leverage the other 95 percent – the endowment—to help drive the change they are seeking. These investment returns can be reused over and over again to compound the impact.

When applied intentionally to specific social causes, impact investing has the potential to bring more capital and fresh approaches to targeted issue areas. For example, efforts are growing to coordinate impact investing with the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), the global goals established in 2016. The 2018 GIIN Annual Impact Investor Survey found that 76 percent of investors reported are actively (or soon will be) tracking the financial performance of their investments with respect to the SDGs.

2. Considering philanthropic goals when deploying capital can reduce misaligned outcomes. When the two traditional mindsets of investing and giving are not aligned, investment holdings have the potential to work in opposition to impact goals. For example, a family may pursue high investment returns through significant oil and gas exposure while directing its charitable giving toward combatting global warming. Taking a holistic approach can change this potential disharmony.

Though this may sound complicated, there are some relatively easy ways to move these investment dollars towards impact. For example, an investor can easily move cash from a traditional bank to a community bank, which in turn can provide loan capital to under-resourced communities.

Read the full story at Financial Advisor.

This article was originally published at The Wall Street Journal.

The Faith Driven Investing community often faces the dilemma of discerning the different choices between investments and donations. Do we prioritize financial returns or social impact? Or is there a way to get both?

Neither of these questions provide obvious answers, and this recent article from The Wall Street Journal highlighted the fact that the faith community is not alone in this predicament. Read how Calpers—The California Public Employee’s Retirement System—is handling their approach to social activism and hear other financial leaders respond to their divestment strategy.

— by Heather Gillers

The California Public Employees’ Retirement System was one of the first public-pension systems to tie its investments to social activism. Now it is having second thoughts.

In the last two years, its directors have opposed proposals to sell stocks in private prisons, gun retailers and companies tied to Turkey because of the potential for lost revenue and skepticism about whether divestment forces social change. One of these directors is now urging the system, also known as Calpers, to end its ban on stocks tied to tobacco, a policy in place since 2000.

“I do see a change,” said that director, California police sergeant Jason Perez, in an interview. “I think our default is to not divest.”

Calpers isn’t the only system wrestling with these new doubts. Rising funding deficits are prompting public officials and unions across the U.S. to reconsider the financial implications of investment decisions that reflect certain social concerns. The total shortfall for public-pension funds across the U.S. is $4.2 trillion, according to the Federal Reserve.

New York state’s Democratic comptroller and unions representing civil service workers oppose a bill in the Legislature to ban fossil fuel investments by the state pension fund. In New Jersey, Gov. Phil Murphy, a Democrat, vetoed legislation last year that would have forced divestment of state pension dollars from companies that avoid cleaning up Superfund sites by declaring bankruptcy…

Read the full story at The Wall Street Journal.

This article was originally published here.
Check out Bill High’s Website for other quality content!

— by Bill High

You never know who you’ll end up sitting next to when you fly. But whether you think about it or not, your neighbor on the plane has a story—a lifetime of stories that has just intersected with your own.

Even though I was one of the first to board, I sighed as I caught sight of my seat—a middle one between two very large men.

I scrunched as best as I could and even as the plane accelerated to the first announcement the man on my right sunk into a deep sleep—upright at least. But the man to my left sat upright and made my plight easier.

His gaze out the window was consistent, even unfriendly. His weather-stained face and fully thinned gray hair suggested someone with lots of hours in the sun. He crossed his arms, and one trembled steadily. Parkinson’s, I guessed. I leaned towards him and asked simply, “Where are you heading?”

“Home,” he said.

“Where’s home?” And soon, while not a rolling, easy conversation, the story slowly came out. He and his wife spent the winter in McAllen, Texas. They’d been going there for years to get out of the cold Iowa winters. He let it slip that this was likely their last winter in McAllen.

They’d farmed for all his adult life. He and his wife had been married 67 years. They’d wed when he’d just turned 20, and she was 22. Together, they had three kids, and those kids had managed four of their own. One son had stayed to farm. The other two had left to make their life in cities of their own choosing.

A grandson had taken up the farming bug too. He’d gotten hold of his first quarter section. He was the likely succession plan for the family farm. He told me in no uncertain terms, “It was a tough way to make a living.”

I asked him about his best days as a farmer, and he told me of an impromptu trip. He’d bought a new 1967 Ford pick-up truck with a camper for $2700 (not $27,000—he laughed about that), and they’d taken the kids out of school. They drove to Florida and did the Disney World thing. They camped out and did the whole trip for $500. He chuckled as he said, “It’d be hard to do that today.”

But the good days seemed to be in the rearview mirror. They’d put the mobile home in McAllen up for sale, and they were going home to Iowa “to die.” He was too old and unsteady to drive a tractor, and his wife had just had surgery on an ankle.

THE WEALTH OF A LIFETIME OF STORIES

I realized there was a lifetime of stories sitting to my left, and I’d only heard an hour’s worth on a plane ride. I hoped he’d tell his kids and grandkids his stories, especially the one about Disney World and the $2700 Ford pick-up. Those were good days, and they were part of his story.

What are the stories you want the next generations to know?

Share the fun stories along with the lessons learned and mistakes made. Tell about your triumphs and struggles, and of the experiences that shaped your values.

Your stories are treasure to pass on to the next generations.

This article was originally published here.
Check out Ronald Blue Trust for other quality content!

— by Ronald Blue Trust

Every organization has a What, a How, and a Why. Our What is wealth management and trust services. Our How is through experienced financial advisors building relationships and applying tools such as proprietary financial planning software, investment vehicles, and estate planning strategies. But it’s our Why that sets us apart from other wealth management and trust companies. Why is what motivates us to get out of bed in the morning – it’s our reason, cause, and purpose for what we do.

Ronald Blue Trust is not simply a financial planning, investment management, trust services, or estate planning company. We believe we do all of those things with excellence, but essentially seek to help our clients gain clarity and confidence around their finances. And we firmly believe that when our clients live with clarity and confidence about money – without conflict, anxiety, or fear – their lives are richer and more fulfilling. They can envision and act on their Why.

The vision of helping people seek and live their Why was one of the cornerstones on which Ron Blue established Ronald Blue & Co. in 1979. Ron felt challenged and called to help people become better stewards of their wealth and have a better relationship with money by using not just technical expertise, but biblical principles as well. Ronald Blue Trust clients have come to us, and stay with us, because they are attracted to our uncommon approach to wealth management. Read more about how we integrate biblical principles into financial planning and watch our video story by clicking the image below.

Our friend Jerry Bowyer recently interviewed Ron Blue and Karen Guess to discuss the relationship between greed and material wealth. While Western culture tends to view materialism as something that only wealthy people experience, Ron Blue’s trip to Africa pointed to the fact that it is more of a human problem than a social one. See what else they had to say in the full interview below.

read original article at Forbes

Ron Blue and the late Larry Burkett double-handedly created the faith and finance movement among evangelicals in the 1970s. This was a time of rapid acceleration in the number of people (including Jimmy Carter) who publicly declared themselves to be ‘born again’. Chuck Colson wrote a book with that title. The social movement grew rapidly and institutions developed to serve it. Ron and Larry became that movement’s financial counselors.  Without them, there is no Dave Ramsey.

I interviewed Ron recently and he told me that the major turning point in his understanding about faith and finance came when he was visiting a friend in Africa. His friend lived in a mud hut perched atop a small patch of dirt. Pastor Daniel was, by American standards, quite poor materially. Ron asked him what the most important spiritual challenge which his African Christian parishioners faced. When the pastor answered, “Materialism”, Ron was shocked. Ron had somehow imbibed the notion that materialism was a malady of the wealthy Northwest quadrant of humanity, not the poor Southeast. It’s then that he realized that greed was a universal human problem. It afflicts both rich and poor and there is no income level so high that greed cannot sour it with discontent. Any economic class can feel financial fear. Any economic class can feel satisfied. Any class can be generous. Any class can be needy. Any class can worship money imbuing it with attributes that move it from useful tool to pitiless master.

In my experience people tend to think of people who work in finance as particularly susceptible to the vice called greed. Pastors and professors can rail against Wall Street, but are the preaching classes more generous than the financial classes? Do faculty show more generosity in foregoing pay increases in order to lessen the burden on their ‘customers’ than money managers? Ron tells the story of a CPA who had 85 pastors for whom he prepared tax returns and not one of them were tithers. I’ve seen rich people stab one another in the back for monetary advantage, but I also had a homeless friend whom I saw withhold funds that he owed to another man (a homeless vet suffering from PTSD) so he could buy tobacco. Pastor Tim Keller once said that in all his years of serving congregations no one had ever confessed to being guilty of the sin of greed—which is probably an indicator that maybe we all are.

I sat down across a Skype line with Ron and Karen recently and you can listen to the audio of that interview here and read a partial transcript below. Both are edited for clarity.

Note: While I do not have direct business dealings with Ron, I have spoken at events held by institutions with which he has been associated, such as Ronald Blue & Co. (which he founded but is no longer associated with), as well as Kingdom Advisors, and the Ronald Blue Institute at Indiana Wesleyan University. I have not received speaker’s fees from these events, though I did accept travel and lodging reimbursements.

Jerry Bowyer: There are stories of very poor people in “Never Enough?”. And there are stories of very rich people in “Never Enough?”.  And that tells me that these principles apply to the very rich and the very poor and everyone in between; is that right?

Karen Guess: Yes, it is. And I think that was what was partly exciting about writing it; they’re real stories, but getting to kind of express the principles in various ways through people that we knew.

And my second story that I was going to tell you was my favorite, because my dad picked mine, was Pam’s story, because Pam is somebody I know personally.  Hers is in the last chapter.  And I admire her from the bottom of my toes in terms of her professionalism ‑‑ she is just a woman of great class in her industry.

And her story is one of being humble through a season of being a single parent and choosing, even though she was a financial professional who knew all the stuff, she heard a sermon one Sunday at church just about the very basic principles of ordering your priorities and went home and had a conversation with her little girls — they were school-aged at the time – and said girls, this is what we’re going to do, let’s talk about how owe spend our money and they reoriented the way they spent.  And they had monthly meetings going forward.  And so I just appreciated the humility that she had to accept the fact that the principles are true no matter what your life experience is, and she just took a step back in her own life when it was time and reapplied them.

Bowyer: I think my favorite story in the book is a story that I’ve heard you tell before, Ron, which is when you were visiting Pastor Daniel in Kenya. And he’s living there with his wife and several children, and they’re in the mud hut on the edge of the village.  Chickens are pecking around and doing all the stuff that chickens do there in the front yard that isn’t really a yard.  And kids are playing with batteries in the dirt.  And you ask him, what’s the biggest challenge in the African church, and he answers, materialism.  How did that answer shift your view of the world?

Ron Blue: That had dramatic and ‑‑ that happened in 1980 or ’81, so almost forty years ago. But what it revealed in an instant that money was always related to the heart and that the true spiritual challenge was never money issues; it was always heart issues.  So it changed the way I thought about money, and it changed the way that I’ve counseled over the years.  And a line that I used all the time and a belief that I have, is that money issues are always symptomatic of what’s going on spiritually; even if you’re a non-Christian, there still are values and priorities and goals that you have, and you reflect them through your checkbook.  And I think the most objective measurement of spirituality is how you spend your money.  You reveal it through your checkbook and through your credit card statements, and tax returns, and so forth.  A very objective look at our finances, or at our spirituality through our checkbook.

And that instance with that pastor really got me started down that track.  And it also made me realize that the amount of money was not the issue.  I thought — before he said that — that materialism and consumerism was only an American problem.  But when that happened, I said oh, my goodness; it’s universal and it’s a disease of the heart.

So it changed the way I gave advice, it changed the way I wrote, the way I thought.  It really set me on a course.  And I look at it and say God was so involved in that that ‑‑ it was his doing to make sure that I had the right attitude about money.

Bowyer: I think the naïve discussion about money and the heart and greed is that greed is a rich-person problem.

Blue: Yep.

Bowyer: But it’s a person problem.

Blue: Yep.

Bowyer: Rich can be greedy or generous, middle class can be greedy or generous, poor people can be greedy or generous.

Guess: Yeah.

Blue: Yeah.