Episode 189 - Stewards Not Spectators: A Conversation with Suzanne Daniel and Dana Wichterman
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What happens when we overcome initial reluctance to enter the world of impact investing? In this enlightening episode of Faith Driven Investor, Suzanne Daniel of the Pilgrim Foundation and Dana Wichterman of Impact Foundation share their journey from traditional philanthropy to impact investing, revealing how they're helping create sustainable solutions for vulnerable communities worldwide. Their candid discussion explores the challenges of learning investment jargon, the importance of community in the faith-driven investment movement, and their vision for making impact investing accessible to all believers.
Please note that the views expressed by the hosts and guests are their own and do not necessarily represent the opinions of Faith Driven Investor.
All opinions expressed on this podcast, including the team and guests, are solely their opinions. Host and guests may maintain positions in the companies and securities discussed. This podcast is for informational purposes only and should not be relied upon as specific investment advice for any individual or organization.
Episode Transcript
Transcription is done by an AI software. While technology is an incredible tool to automate this process, there will be misspellings and typos that might accompany it. Please keep that in mind as you work through it.
Richard Cunningham You're listening to Faith Driven Investor, a podcast that highlights voices from a growing movement of Christ, following investors who believe that God owns it all and cares deeply about the heart posture behind our stewardship. Thanks for listening.
Narrator Hey everyone. All opinions expressed on this podcast, including the team and guests, are solely their opinions. Hosted guests may maintain positions in the companies of securities discussed in this podcast is for informational purposes only and should not be relied upon as specific investment advice for any individual or organization. Thanks for listening.
Richard Cunningham Welcome back, everyone, to another episode of the Faith Driven Investor podcast. A joy to have you with us for what is our second FDI pod of 2025. We kicked it off just a couple of weeks ago with the marks on the markets with David Bahnsen and John Coleman would highly encourage you to check that out as we kind of recapped 2024 in the markets and looked ahead to 2025.
Joined today by one of our co-hosts who's with us frequently, Luke Roush out of Nashville, Tennessee. Luke, not only are you co-host in today's FDI podcast, but here in a couple of weeks on February 7th, you'll be co-hosting the annual Global Faith Driven Investor Conference, which is kind of a seminal and key event for the broader FDI ecosystem and movement and something we're going to spend kind of the bulk of our show on today. But before we go that direction, introduce our special guests. Man, how are you? How is Christmas? Even though it feels like an eternity away and kicking off the new year for Team Roush.
Luke Roush Doing great first couple of weeks in January. Always a little bit of slog getting back into it, but we are fully into 2025, very, very excited. About February 7th. We've got two phenomenal guests on who everyone will hear more from at the conference, but are really excited for today's conversation.
Richard Cunningham Yes, sir. Yes. So today is kind of a special behind the scenes peek with You've got three conference speakers here, obviously, Luke, you hosting, Suzanne Daniel, who I am to introduce here in a moment, and Dana Wichterman, chairman as well. We'll kind of share some brief bios. You're going to see all three of these names.
In particular, you'll see a special feature on Suzanne and her story. But Dana Wichterman will be featured on the conference as well. They're too humble to take these titles, but Luke and I would absolutely consider them heroes of the FDI movement. And so allow me to quickly kind of introduce who they are and then we'll welcome Suzanne and Dana on this show. But starting with Suzanne Daniel graduated from the University of Delaware with a degree in animal science and a master's degree in physiology at the Ohio State. So she is relishing in her national championship. She co-founded the Pilgrim Foundation in 1988 with 1998 excuse with her father. The Pilgrim Foundation has partnered with over 50 nonprofit organizations spanning Africa, Haiti, China and the U.S. Foundation grants focused on supporting Christian nonprofits that serve the most vulnerable. Most recently, the Pilgrim Foundation has put a more prominent focus on social impact investing. We get into a lot of that today and aligning their portfolios with the values of her Christian faith. She serves on the board of the Gathering Impact Foundation, organizations that are near and dear to many in the space. And she and her husband, Mark, have four kids, two grandchildren, lots of pets. Suzanne. We need to hear about that. And then currently reside in West Chester, Pennsylvania. Suzanne, so welcome to the show. Great to have you. Will say hey to Dana here in just a moment, but how are you doing?
Suzanne Daniel Great to be here. Thanks for having me. Doing great. Really relishing some Ohio State victories as well as the Philadelphia Eagles. So, yeah, feeling very blessed right now.
Richard Cunningham Well, football lovers, Luke and I myself both probably envy that statement a little bit to have both teams clipping and doing well currently. That's awesome. But hey, going over to Dana Wichterman, who you also see on the video conference on the seven. Dana spent her career as an international economic development professional at the U.S. Agency for International Development. She currently works at Impact Foundation, helping Christians deploy their charitable capital for impact investing. She serves on the boards of several for profit and nonprofits, including our very own faith driven movements. She's the founder of Faith Driven Entrepreneur, an investor network in DC. She holds an Emmy in International Affairs from Columbia University, and she coauthored recently with her husband, Bill, a forthcoming book called Stewards Not Owners The Joy of Aligning Your Money With Your Faith. Excited to get into that because that's a pretty big deal that you and Bill put that book out there. I know a lot of folks have been looking forward to hearing your insights and the wisdom you guys have to offer. But Dana, welcome to the show.
Dana Wichterman Thank you so much, Luke and Richard, for having us.
Richard Cunningham Well, friends, today is going to be a lot of fun. And we're talking February 7th, the big FDA conference. Listen to some of the themes that you're going to hear as we kind of go in through the conference. It all kind of falls under this banner of the idea of courageous capital. So you're going to hear from Eagle Ventures, a story about a fund that's investing in for profit companies to end human trafficking. Suzanne Daniel's story is going to be featured. And so we're going to get a little bit of behind the scenes time with her today.
You can hear stories on investors making an impact in the movie industry, multifamily housing industry, combating the loneliness epidemic through innovative means like an organization such as apartment life. Jeremy Lin Linsanity is going to be featured on the conference, so a number of fun, just kind of threads and narratives are pulling on. I was talking to the folks on the FDA staff the other day who are responsible for putting together watch parties.
I think the number is up to 122 Global Watch party. So the way you can join is go onto the Faith Driven Investor website, click on to the conference tab. It'll take you to the area where you can register. For a watch party Would love to have you there. A global movement. But the conference takes place in local expressions, and so that's enough for me. We want to hear from you, Suzanne and Dana. And so maybe what we didn't hear in the bio a little bit is kind of that inflection point for each of you. Suzanne, we'll start with you on when God kind of opened your eyes up to this FDI space and kind of open your eyes to, hey, I want to get in the game with not only my nonprofit capital or my philanthropic capital, but also my for profit investing capital. And so let's kind of get some of that story from each of you. And Suzanne, go ahead.
Suzanne Daniel Sure. It's funny that you say like get in the game. I didn't know there was a game. So I had been a grant maker at the Pilgrim Foundation for about 20 years and really just focused on making grants to solve problems and meet the needs of the vulnerable. But on one trip to Haiti, I realized that there was a nonprofit that was doing great work, that was spinning off a for profit company. And I went to their opening of the factory. I've told this story many times, but I realized at the end of all of this that this was a sustainable source of income for the people of Haiti versus grants. So I chased down the owner and we sat across the coffee table and I said, How can I help you? Because I had capital and she had a need for investment. And we both had no idea how to move forward. So that was really that's the clearest inflection point for me where I realized that there was a problem that I didn't know how to solve, but I had what she needed. I just didn't know how to get it across the bridge.
So that's what drove me to find this game that you speak of that existed that I didn't know was happening. So I sought out experts and I finally realized that there was sort of a loose conglomeration of people that were leading a movement. That was exactly what I needed to do. But I was very surprised that it was in its early stages. I thought I was the one that was missing it. So we can talk more about that. But I think that's the inflection point that you are referring to.
Luke Roush Well, Suzanne, you're in a unique spot. You know, we talk a lot about within Faith Driven Investor and this construct of trying to solve the world's great problems. There are really three ways to do it. You can build as an entrepreneur or you can invest as an investor or you can give as a philanthropist. And you're in the unique spot of addressing at least two, if not three of those. Really? All three. Because you built Pilgrim alongside your dad. What have you learned just in terms of where you apply which to build, invest, give many insights maybe from that first experience, just using that as an illustrative example around which tool comes out of the toolbox because you've got them all in there.
Suzanne Daniel That's a great question and we're going to speak more about this, I think. But I will always have a section of the toolbox that is early stage startup will probably not be profitable, but I'm trying to get it off the ground enterprise so that it could be investable later. I feel like that's a very clear calling for me. So that would be build, I would think, helping entrepreneurs build before many people would think there was any logic to that. So I really feel called to that. And then there's invest would be the entirety of the portfolio that we want to be sustainable. We want it to grow at a market rate so that we can keep making grants. We don't have a plan to sunset at this point. So I would say invest is for profit. The third piece give would be the continuation of our philanthropic grants, just traditional grants that we make every year. And we do long term, unrestricted grant making. So that really is a continuous source of income for nonprofits.
Luke Roush That's great. Thank you.
Richard Cunningham Yeah, I like what you said about the catalytic side. You know, I just came from a Praxis workshop not too long ago where they unpack that redemptive frame that I know many know. But kind of ultimately the way of Jesus being that the redemptive means and practice of business, which is, Hey, I sacrifice, so we win. And Suzanne, I can hear that kind of in your tone, in the way you're approaching the hey, these early stage startups are it's gritty and we don't necessarily know what it's going to look like, but there's a willingness and a catalytic nature to say someone's got to be on the ground floor willing to kind of take that I sacrifice. So this idea of this kind of kingdom principle can win. And so decide to tug on that thread later. All right, Dana, what's the inflection point for you? You and Bill, maybe just you individually, whatever it might be, when God kind of woke you up to this idea of faith driven investing and getting you in the game.
Dana Wichterman Sure. So I'll address a bit what Suzanne said, that we were in the impact world. We always had a sense that we were to be about God's kingdom work, but Bill and I were drawn mostly into the government work, so that was where we thought we could see some good being done. And then he moved us into the nonprofit world, just like Suzanne. I didn't know there was a game going on in the investment world. I'd hadn't even understood that investments have an impact other than depositing some money back into my own account when I invested Well, and the inflection point I remember clear is about. I'm at a generous giving conference about ten years ago next to somebody from Eventide, an asset management company whose tagline is Investing that Makes the world Rejoice. And of course, my analytical side was like, That's so cool. What a great concept. And then as soon as I went home, I'm like, But that's not for me.
So, you know, the Bible, God tells us repeatedly he is good, he is trustworthy, and we are not to fear. What did I do? Monty Python. Runaway. Runaway. You know, I knew the Holy Spirit was saying, look at your own investments. And I ran away. Okay. Fear, lacking trust and trying to do it in the worldly way. But he is so patient. You know, the Holy Spirit just kept prodding very gently, very patiently through my husband, through our Christian financial advisor. And finally I said, okay, I surrender. I need to look at our investment portfolio, both our nonprofit and our Donor Advice fund through the National Christian Foundation, because those assets are invested until we decide to deploy them. But we also needed to look at our personal finances. And I can't imagine now why we wouldn't do it that way. Now I look back and say, Of course that makes sense, and it's even fun and joyful. But it didn't start out that way. So be careful who you sit next to at a generous giving conference.
Suzanne Daniel If I can just add and relate to a day and I said if I had been exposed to this ecosystem the way she had, I would have done the same exact thing. The only thing that made me dig in was that we had a college scholarship program in Haiti and we needed those jobs to be sustainable or we were going to put these kids through college and they would have no employment. There are so few thriving businesses in Haiti. So it was only because I knew exactly who this was going to impact that. It made me do the thing that I wanted to do least. There was nothing less interesting to me than learning the jargon around investments that is like nails on a chalkboard for me. But because I love the people that this is going to benefit and I wanted to see them have a hope and a future and their identity restored to where the Lord wants to see them be. That was the only reason that motivated me to stay with it. But I am with you, Dana. If I met just an investment manager that said there's this thing, if it wasn't personally connected, I would have completely walked away.
Luke Roush Well, I think both of your comments really point to this idea that the things that tug at our heartstrings are often complicated, and they often require different tools to address different parts of the problem. And so, you know, the reality of issues being multifactorial and making sure that we apply the right tool to the issue at hand, eventually, you know, what is needed is for people to be able to have stable employment and to be a part of either building something individually or joining in somebody else's vision and helping them build that in sustainable enterprise. And so what I think is unique about you two is you both had experience implementing multiple solution approaches, not just giving, not just, you know, investing, but really thinking about problems holistically and trying to figure out, all right, what makes sense. You know, in the here and now with this part of the issue. And then how do you both of you have been, I think, encouraging and engaging with other individuals to come alongside you where you come alongside them? Because part of this is actually what do we do in community that we couldn't do on our own? Maybe speak to an example of what one of those collaborations has looked like for you all.
Dana Wichterman Yeah. Okay. Well, I'll just say the faith driven community, once I discovered it, has been so instrumental in motivating me and giving me new ideas and encouragement and normalizing looking at your investments and knowing that they have an impact and then trying to use them for good. And so I would say even though Bill and I were very familiar with where God was calling us individually and as a couple in terms of our calling and individual impact, we didn't know the where and the how and the why and even the when with investing, there's a lot of timing involved in how to do smart impact investing. And so I would say the collaboration, even Suzanne and I and another friend, Michelle, we just have such a joy in drawing other women into this space because women are typically not as represented. We love to look at bringing underrepresented founders into the space and we love to learn from the other investors who are further along in their journey. I mean, just like Susie and I had to learn all this jargon. I had to look at Investopedia, like constantly.
Suzanne Daniel Yup.
Dana Wichterman And Suzanne and I helped each other get over our fear of imposter syndrome and just say, you know, we're going to show up and learn from everyone. And we were so welcomed and mentored and so. I would say the collaboration has been instrumental to where both Susanne and I are headed in the future.
Richard Cunningham I think it's that spirit of humility that both of you have led with. Kind of brings me back to that comment earlier. Just been heroes of this movement because I think we all have it. The imposter syndrome, the don't want to be found out, whatever it is. I mean, the theme of this year's conference, Dana, you're tugging on is the courageous capital. And you mentioned it with you and kind of Bill's walk and your own journey was, do we really want to look under the hood? Do we want to do the uncomfortable work of looking under the hood and seeing what we're invested in and how we're going to feel conviction over that and how we're going to make change. And that dovetails. Suzanne, we don't want to, you know, tease out too much of your talk on the seventh that folks are going to hear in the video story that they've done on you and the Pilgrim Foundation, everything you're involved with. But maybe give us a little bit of a teaser of kind of your story and how it relates to this year's theme of Courageous Capital, what you're going to be talking about in that feature story?
Suzanne Daniel Sure. I've sort of explored that a little bit more as it's come up with this topic. And of course, in the position that we're in that we find ourselves in. It doesn't seem like you have to be courageous. It's a pretty blessed, wonderful life experience that I've been having with capital. I would say the courageous part was, first of all, realizing I didn't understand the language. My degrees were in physiology, animal physiology. So I couldn't even get further from the topic of business or investment. And I was also as generous and amazing as my father was in this process. He was an expert, and I felt intimidated by his shadow. And I remember years and years ago when I was probably ten years into making grants, asking him, can we look at what we're invested in and determine if it's aligned with what we're trying to do in the world. And he very kindly said, it's invested. Great. We're trying to make as much money as we can so we can give away as much money as we can. And, you know, what else do we need? And I would open my mouth to say something, and I realized I didn't have any words. And it didn't seem like there was an ecosystem or anybody else saying.
That's why very quickly felt imposter syndrome. Like Dana said, that I was misunderstanding the Lord. I felt pretty compelled, but I also felt like I could and even to this day be misunderstood as sort of a bleeding heart female that just wants to make everybody happy and feed the children. And that wasn't what my intention was. Even in our grant making, that's not my intention. I want to build sustainable structures to move people forward. So I think that all of those things combined along with it being a very male dominated space with a ton of jargon, and the men I met were incredibly welcoming. But when you don't have the language, there's very little you can participate in. So I just had to keep showing up, but I didn't want to be silent, but I didn't have anything to say until I learned more about even just the vocabulary, like Dana said, like keeping a running list of words I didn't understand or concepts that in a granular level were beyond my ability to sort of track with. I understood portfolio design and realizing that you need diversification and things like that that I have been exposed to as I grew up with a professional investor. But as far as nitty gritty and understanding, different vehicles, it was so far over my head.
Luke Roush Well, one of the things that both of you understand, and I've been around you both enough to I think appreciate this is while jargon matters and it's certainly important to be able to talk the talk and understand what people are referencing, the majority of investing is truly about people, and the majority of giving is really about people and leadership. And so, you know, it's harder to give people the tutorial on how do you understand and evaluate people. It's much easier to train on some of the jargon, but what really matters is actually understanding how people and teams work. And that's what both of you guys have understood. And you've both, I think, had the courage to lean in early with something that's nascent. You know, what we always say in our venture work is it's okay to fail, but you want to fail fast and fail cheap. And so this idea of low cost probes and being willing to sort of jump in early to assess an idea and provide some of the seed capital to help make those ideas become a reality to be tested. I think both of you have been active in that regard, and I don't know if you have a story or an example of what that's looked like in your own either grant making or investing work.
Dana Wichterman Yeah. Well, I would say that through Impact Foundation and helping people use their charitable capital, which is tax deductible at that moment and then invest it in transformational companies as opposed to granting it to nonprofits. I have seen a lot of people use that as a way to catalyze businesses that should be in the world but don't exist because right now it's too hard for them to start. Startups are hard. They're risky and. So a lot of people use their impact account to catalyze. They know that they have to have patient capital. They may have to take 7 to 10 years to see a return. They may have to take a lower, you know, return on their loan. But they want to because they're saying this business should be in the world and eventually it will get on its legs and be sustainable and be scalable. But for right now, I'm going to be a part of that ecosystem that is helping it get its wings. And so I think that's a beautiful way to use your charitable capital in investing in faith driven companies.
Richard Cunningham That's really cool. All right. So both of you have interesting perspectives in that You both have kind of approached the FDI network in the space and stewardship alongside families. Suzanne, you with your father in the Pilgrim Foundation, kind of, you know, has been instrumental in how you guys have carried out everything you've done for the Pilgrim Foundation. Dana, you just wrote a book with your husband, which in of itself, we need to hear about just that process and journey. But what is that look like kind of from a community aspect of, you know, the FDA network. You know, everything about it speaks Catholic community. What does it look like when you brought your family into the fold? Suzanne And what does stewardship look like in that particular context? I kind of let you start and talk about that journey.
Suzanne Daniel Sure. I think as I grew up in my family, my dad, I didn't realize this until much later in life. Always made it comfortable to talk about money. It was just like talking about the weather. And he would make comments like, When I drop dead, you know, this is going to happen and this is going to move here. And we just always were. It was just sort of like what we're marinated in. Unfortunately, he didn't speak in jargon, so it didn't help me. But I think it was just always a very unemotional topic. Nobody ever got triggered. So as I've experienced other people, as our family has grown, I've realized, gosh, this is a really upsetting topic for so many people and I just hadn't experienced that growing up. So I we always talk to our kids that way. We talked about their futures, about saving, about them, but like, just matter of fact. And that was something that was really important to carry for the lack of drama around money and then moving into raising my own family for kids. We tried our best to just model generosity, do it rather transparently with our kids, whether when they were younger. It was our time. As they've gotten older, we've been more transparent about what we're doing with our money and then also always pointing them back to the fact that as an inheriting family, which they understand, that came from my father's hard work, it really is. Just ask the steward. We didn't earn it. So I often equate this to my journey with faith. We didn't do anything to earn our faith as if I didn't do anything to earn what we inherited from my father's success. So it makes it even easier for me to look at it as a stewardship role instead of an ownership role. And I'm so glad that Dana wrote about this, because obviously we have been blessed with more than we needed. So it's even more clear that there's a further purpose for the resources that we don't need. And I think that's a very high calling and really important to see as a stewardship position and not an ownership position.
Richard Cunningham Man, thanks for the realness there, Suzanne. I think a lot of people can learn from that. All right, Dana, we got to know who's the better writer, your bill, and then, of course, tell us about the book.
Dana Wichterman He's the faster writer and the more concise writer. But we're both writers by profession and really enjoy both thinking and writing together.
Luke Roush So what you're really doing there is sort of quality versus quantity. That's kind of what I heard come out of that book. Quantity. Bill's got it. But in terms of depth, it's all.
Dana Wichterman Dana But thank you for asking. So we have discovered so many amazing people living out their kingdom, calling with whole life stewardship in that faith driven movement community that we just felt their stories need to be amplified. I mean, too often people say, why is God not showing up? And we're like showing up everywhere through his people. We need to amplify these stories. So we chose 24 people to tell their stories. Suzanne is one of them, and Henry Kaestner is another. And many of the others that we've met through Faith Driven Entrepreneur an investor. And we wanted to show that God has as many ways to build and back or found and fund his good works as there are people on this earth. I mean, there is no one right way, but everyone can and should get in the game. I really think we were all made for good works and these are the good works that you can lean into. Everyone has agency in some capacity, whether it's to pray or to act or to fund or to build solutions to these problems in the world. The world is broken and God wants to bring his healing to them as us being his hands and feet. And I see the faith driven movement as. Activating those hands and feet to be more effective and efficient. And so our book is just showing that capital has influence and that we need to take that seriously and steward it, not own it, do it joyfully and in community. The book is called Stewards, Not Owners The Joy of Aligning Your Money With Your Faith. It's published by four front books and distributed by Simon Schuster and available on Amazon and available for preorder now and will be out in March.
Luke Roush That's beautiful. That's going to be a message that resonates, I think, with couples all over the place. And I'm excited to go through it with Brooke. This next question is really for both of you. And so as you reflect on all that God has allowed you to do within the broader FDI arena, where do you feel like the Body of Christ has made significant progress? Where do you feel like we still have a lot of room to grow? And this whole idea of solving the world's greatest problems, which has been a big push from faith driven recently and over the remainder of this year, just be great to hear your sense of kind of where have we made progress and where is there still a lot of work left to do?
Suzanne Daniel I think there has been tremendous progress. I would say I've been focused on this for about 5 or 6 years, and in that time I have seen tremendous progress in the fact that there's more that's available to invest in. There's more advisors to guide us. When I started, there was a handful that I felt like were accessible, and now there's a buffet of choices of just services that can help you figure this out, specifically aligning your whole portfolio with your values. And there's an entire ecosystem like we talked about to explore. But I feel like what's limiting is most of this is only available to accredited investors. So as I talk to my adult children and their friends and Christians in my church, everybody of course wants to do this. But it really is difficult for them to penetrate the ecosystem when they are investing for their retirement, for their kid's college funds. So I feel like we need to work harder to make it available to Main Street investors. And one thing that I'm working on with our advisor is really comparing the returns in our values aligned portfolio with our secular aligned investments, whatever they may be, and just proving to the ecosystem that you don't have to take a loss, that there's more and more data showing that you can compete with indexes and make the return that you need to to accomplish the goals that you have for non-accredited investors. So I think that that's something we need to disprove, that assumption that you're going to take a financial hit by aligning your values. But for me, I'm still trying to figure out if that's actually true for myself, my own portfolios, but then also for different investment positions and strategies. And I just want to make sure that that's true and get that message out and make more available to mainstream investors.
Luke Roush I think it's a good word, Suzanne. And one of the things that has been on the group's mind, I think consistently over the last dozen years is this question of is impact really at odds in a zero sum game with returns? And so I love the fact that you're gathering that data. I think it's super important. And also being able to just differentiate, you know, in some areas there may be a trade in other areas or may not be a trade off. And so gathering data not just in aggregate, but also by different asset classes that are available to different types of investors to really, really important part of what each of us does individually in this space. Dana, over to you on that question.
Dana Wichterman I would ditto everything Suzanne said. She's spot on and I think it's encouraging to see so many financial advisors become Kingdom advisors certified. There's conferences now. It's really through FDI and FTE that you all have brought the ecosystem together so we can find one another. You're having the conferences, you're having the fund managers come together, you're having the entrepreneurs come together, the investors. So these small groups, you've helped us have shared language which Praxis really started that process of the right language. So we didn't feel like freaks anymore. But now it's like, okay, now we can use that language and develop tools and instruments. And so kudos to sovereigns for doing that with the ETF and Eventide for doing that. But we do need more products and we I think we will over time, but we need to demand more products, which means you all need to just continue your efforts to open more eyes. There's a ton of Christians that just haven't heard this message yet and once they hear it, they're super excited. That's why it's important to come to the FDA conference and bring friends, and if they don't come, send them some of the video messages in terms of so that their eyes can be open, because I really think it's an. Invitation and one that once they see, they'll appreciate. And I would say the area that really needs work is spiritual metrics and metrics in general. The nonprofit world has learned that, you know, to be effective and efficient and to know that you're hitting your goal, you actually need a metric and you need to measure and you need to report on it. I think the Faith Driven Entrepreneur and investor world is starting to also take that on. But I think we need to work harder on it and provide money for our entrepreneurs to actually spend time tracking and developing metrics. I would encourage people there is a group that has formed out of the faith driven movement called Christian Impact Framework Project. Look us up on LinkedIn and join to see what we're trying to do to have an open source language indicators and shared metrics that we can use in this ecosystem to really start learning more better practices and linking arms together.
Luke Roush I think it's a great word, and the construct of things that are measured tend to improve. It's absolutely true in faith driven businesses the way it is in secular businesses. Richard, back over to you.
Richard Cunningham Yeah, that's awesome, guys. All right. Well, hey, grounded in some wisdom. And take us home with this question we love to ask at the close of each and every podcast. And I will start with you, and that is, hey, what's God been teaching you in and through his word lately?
Dana Wichterman Well, the verse that motivates me is a Fusions 210. For we are God's handiwork created in Christ Jesus to do good works which God prepared in advance for us to do. And I think of it two ways, particularly as it applies to my journey in the Faith Driven Investor space. The positive one is kind of the Eric Liddell feeling that when I run I feel his pleasure. And Suzanne and I both feel this way when we're investing under the Lordship of Christ into faith driven entrepreneurs and seeing them grow and really solve problems. We feel his pleasure, right? That's just such a joy. There's another example I use, though, too, is Michelangelo. When he was sculpting the David, he said the David was always resonant in that marble. I just had to chip away at that, which was not David's. And so sometimes it hurts a little bit to be shaped and sculpted by the Lord, to become who you were meant to be and to step into those good works. But I see that as God sculpting out the sin, the pride, the greed, the fear, the worldliness so that I can become the Dana God wanted me to be. Richard and Suzanne and Luke. You can become who God created you to be. And then we will run and fill his pleasure.
Richard Cunningham Suzanne, take us home.
Suzanne Daniel Sure. I just finished a profound book that I just wanted to share with you guys. Maybe you've all read it. The Knowledge of the Holy by Tozer said everyone's favorite.
Richard Cunningham Tozer is amazing and dense all at the same time.
Luke Roush Deep. And that's the deep end.
Suzanne Daniel I was grateful. It was 117 pages. It was an easy read, though, but I think that for me, just circling back after many, many years as a Christian into the holiness of God and the attributes of him really brought me to my knees as far as reverence and the posture I needed to have as I do this work that we're not serving our body. We are serving a holy and omnipotent God that loves and adores every single person that this work touches. So I just wanted to read this two short statements from that book that just closed the last chapter. The more perfectly we know God, the more we will feel the desire to translate this newfound knowledge into deeds of mercy towards suffering humanity. And then the last line of the book, We are left for a season among men. Let us faithfully represent him here. So I think for me, reorienting myself around the fact that with whatever the Lord has put in my hands, I'm going to serve humanity because that's the only reason that we're here. And this book just made me really focus on the holy attributes of God in a fresh way.
Richard Cunningham Come on. Well, friends, if you want more of Dana Wisdom and Suzanne Daniel, they're speaking on the Faith Driven Investor conference February 7th. Go to Faith Driven Investor conference.org. Click register. Now you'll be able to find a watch party, hopefully local to you. If there's not one local view, there's still time. Raise your hand. Host it locally hosted at your church, in your living room, whatever it is, gather some friends, as Dana said. But Suzanne Daniel, in a way, thank you both for all you've done for this movement. The ways you have both boldly let out, whether it be philanthropically with investment capital. I think a lot of people look to your humility, your example, and are deeply encouraged by it and feel that same kind of push to get in the game thanks to the ways you guys are leading up. For Luke Roush, I'm Richard Cunningham, Folks, thanks for tuning in to this episode of the Faith Driven Investor podcast and we will catch you next time.
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