Henry Kaestner: Welcome back to the faith driven investor podcast. We’ve got an edition today that is probably a little bit overdue, and that is that we’re going to talk to some folks that are in the businesses professionals helping customers from retail through an institutional understand how to process the world of faith driven investments. A good number of our audience, of course, are direct investors and are in in the process of figure out how did they do angel investments, how do they pick out funds? And I think that we can all realize pretty quickly, that’s pretty intimidating stuff. There’s a lot there’s incredible amount of complexity. There’s incredible amount of selection. And through the grace guy, that selection is just increasing. And so the question then is where do I go to get some good counsel or how do I talk to somebody about my own particular needs rather than just reading an article about where I might invest in the latest trends or listening, of course, to a podcasts like this. How does that really impact me in my own financial situation? So faith driven advisors that are in the investment world are incredibly valuable and they view what they do as a mission and a ministry. And we’ve got two of the very best with us today. And I’ve been looking for this episode. Eric and Rachel, thank you for joining.

Rachel McDonough: Thanks for having us.

Henry Kaestner: Tell us a little bit as we get started just a little bit about each of you. Where are you calling from today, what your background is? We’re going to start back in my hometown of Durham, North Carolina, to Eric, who is a friend and neighbor in. And then we want to move to Wisconsin and hear from Rachel about what she’s doing. But, Eric, tell us about what got you to this spot where you are full time ministry in the financial marketplace.

Eric Chetwood: Yeah, yeah. Well, first of all, Henry, I think I speak for Rachel when I say I feel really grateful for you and your team because you guys have really let out in the faith and work discussion, at least for folks in my circle of influence. And many of the guests that you have had are heroes of mine. So I feel really humbled to be speaking with you all today.

Henry Kaestner: Well, before you go on. Thank you for that. That just helps me feel that much better about having had you on the show. That was awesome. Thank you. It’s awesome to serve.

Eric Chetwood: It is really a humbling experience. But for me, I would say that my story after college at USC, I spent a gap year doing a Bible program in Denton, Texas, right outside of Dallas. And that year was really one of the most amazing investments of time that I could think of. And I give thanks to it for this day. But I knew that at the conclusion of that program, I wanted to come back to North Carolina and specifically play out my life in Durham, North Carolina, because I joined the church here during college and I wanted to come back and be a part of what God was doing through the summit church. And so after coming back home to join an advisory team in 2004 with an amazing mentor and boss who later became my business partner, who taught me what it looks like to love Jesus in this industry and how to care for clients holistically. So, you know, I got certified from a planner designation in 2007. And really the only other significant data point in my story would be that our team left our wire house in 2005 and started an independent registered investment advisory firm, which has given us a lot of the freedom to implement some of the initiatives that we’ll talk about today.

Henry Kaestner: Rachel, tell us a little bit about the same on your side to your background, how you found yourself, where you are today.

Rachel McDonough: Sure, I am an unlikely candidate. If you look just at the data from my background, I guess unlikely candidate to be a financial adviser. I was raised as a missionary kid in Kenya, East Africa. My parents as missionaries did not have a lot of wealth in this world. Maybe they stored up some treasures in heaven, but the balance sheet was looking a little lean. I remember we would come back on furlough to the United States and have a free lunch, get government assistance to get a free lunch at school, and then we would go back to Kenya. And I was obviously the rich kid in Kenya. So I’d go this back and forth from rich kid to poor kid in Kenya. I would have other children and come up to me in Nairobi and ask me for money. And I always had at least a little bit of spending money in my pocket. So it really made an impression on me at an early age about what it means to have wealth and what it means to be wealthy. I learned a lot about some of those intangible lessons of internal wealth and external wealth and what it takes to, I guess, transition from having money to being in a place of abundance, of being able to use that money to create something good in the world. So I was taken with that idea very early on in my career. As you know, how do we actually use the money that God’s entrusted to us to make a difference in the lives of the people around us? So fast forward a bit. After college, I took a job as a receptionist at Merrill Lynch in downtown Minneapolis, and I got bored with that after about the first 20 minutes. And so I started studying for some licensing exams. Much to my surprise, I passed them all quickly and I marched into the director’s office one day and said, I want you to hire me as a financial adviser. And here’s my 20 arguments of why you should do that. And to my surprise, he didn’t need any of my arguments. He just said, yeah, OK, you can have a shot. So there I was with no family money to start with and no book of business to inherit or purchase. And somehow, by the grace of God, there was always enough provision. I would always bring in just enough clients to meet all my hurdles. And shortly thereafter, a much like Eric the Lord released me from that warehouse and I went to the independent channel at Raymond James and then from there followed the Lord again to make a change to Ameriprise Financial, where I served today.

Henry Kaestner: You’ve had some leadership positions at Ameriprise, correct? You’ve gotten together with other groups of faith driven advisers there.

Rachel McDonough: Yes, I currently serve on the leadership team as a vice president of the CFAN Network. That’s a Christian franchise advisory network. There are eleven hundred of us at Ameriprise Financial Advisors have raised their hand and said, yes, I’m a Christian. I want to figure out how to bring my faith to work and live at the intersection of faith and finance and be well equipped to serve Christian clients who come into our practice and celibacy found that work has really become a group of friends and had the honor and the privilege to help train them and equip them to take values based investing or faith based investing and apply it and implemented in their practices through quarterly webinars and newsletters and some one on one coaching.

Henry Kaestner: Eric, you talked to at the beginning about your relationship with his friend and mentor, now partner, Rick Adams. What was it that he taught you about integrating your faith with the vocation you’ve got?

Eric Chetwood: Yeah, I think one of the things was just that how we care for clients comprehensively and that can for clients comprehensively is a lot more than just rates of return and standard deviation that it is speaking in to really all of the way that money impacts people, which money impacts people relationally, it impacts people emotionally, especially during this current pandemic. So being able to care for clients in every way that money impacts them is one of the ways that we can really reflect and represent our savior.

Henry Kaestner: Well, both of you have been a great encouragement to me and your involvement in the larger movement of faith driven investing. And Rachel, you’ve served really well and with great leadership in some of our working groups. And Eric, you’ve written an article for FDI. I am talking about how you see God calling us to live fully integrated lives. Talk to us a little bit about what you mean by that, about fully integrated lives within the context of finance, or maybe not just within the context of finance, but just what do you mean?

Eric Chetwood: Yeah. So one of the things that I have really loved about listening to you guys in this podcast is that you all examine integrating faith and work from so many different angles and living a life that doesn’t segregate the sacred and the secular. And I would say that that’s a topic that I really enjoy talking about just because I used to have a very disintegrated, compartmentalized life where I saw my relationship with God and personal ministry over here and then work over here. And that worldview caused me to buy into a lie. Early in my career. And that why is this? That work is something that I endure. So I can make a paycheck in order to fund the activities that I’m actually passionate about. And I think that lie is very prevalent in our culture. And I think financial advisers are really complicit in that, even in how we frame the retirement discussion. You know, Mr. Card, do what you have to do so that you can retire and then do what you want to do. So whenever I hear that logic, it’s usually a sign that someone doesn’t understand the integrated purpose that God has for them. And it will be very difficult for them to experience the abundant life that he promised. So for me, I didn’t understand the theology of work, and because of that, I didn’t really grasp God’s full purpose for me. I didn’t see all of the redemptive opportunities in my job as a wealth manager, and they were right in front of me because I was looking for them. And that led me to kind of a crisis of confidence and work, feeling very meaningless and empty. And so over the course of some time, I learned something that just dramatically impacted my life and career. And I learned that all of us, you and me and Rachel and everyone joining us, regardless of their profession. If you’re a follower of Jesus, you’re in full time ministry. And, you know, where do I get that? Ephesians for specifically eleven and twelve, says that the primary function of a posture or a minister is to equip the Saints for the work of the ministry. They are to equip the Saints for the work of the ministry. And that statement just has massive implications. It means that our pastors should not be the only ones doing ministry. It means that our pastor should need to be the primary ones doing ministry. It means that we, the Saints, get to the ministry. And that means that everyone listening to this is both empowered and expected to be primary agents of gospel, ministry and reconciliation. And Henry. And till we understand that until I understood that this democratization, until we see ourselves as the aroma of Christ in real estate or a kingdom of priests and wealth management or as ambassadors of price and private. We miss out on. Part of the great adventure, we miss out on the joy of knowing that we’re fulfilling our integrated purpose in life. So the first application for us is financial advisors is to recognize that our relationships with clients are, by nature. One of the most intimate professional relationships that they have and that no one may be other than their doctor is allowed in to their hopes and dreams or abilities. The way that we are. So God could potentially use us as financial advisors to make a bigger impact in a client’s life than any pastor or priest.

Henry Kaestner: That’s an awesome thing to lean into. Rachel, I know you well enough to know that that’s something you absolutely subscribe to, too. How do you see that actually working out with your clients? What does it mean when the rubber meets the road? Client comes in, you’re having that meeting. How is it that you even just approach this concept of a more integrated life and the meaning of purpose? And is Eric just said, you know, you’re invited into this special relationship to understand their hopes, their dreams, their fears and their anxieties. How do you see that mission’s been part of the Saints being equipped to do the work of the church?

Rachel McDonough: Yes, I agree with Eric and Eric. I love your passion and enthusiasm. I share it. I think that our role is a very pastoral role and it’s a role of coaching as a role of helping clients to hear God for themselves. So as the word of God tells us, we don’t actually need a human teacher per say. We have the Holy Spirit and he promises to lead us and guide us into all truth. And we have the word of God, which is sufficient for instruction in every area of life. But what an adviser can do is come alongside a client or a couple and really help them to lean in and listen. Right. I remember some of the greatest memories that I have as an advisor are times when I’ve just been able to almost be outside of the conversation, just facilitate a setup for a husband and wife to come together before God in prayer and discover his plan and his purpose for their life. One of those examples was there was a couple. The husband was a civil engineer and the wife was a CPA. And they had some extra money that they talked about potentially investing in public securities. And as they talked further. The wife really said, you know, more than anything else, I have faith and confidence that God has given my husband tremendous capacity for creating wealth and creating jobs through his business and his company. And I would rather see us reinvest this money back into his work that I believe God’s call them to and bless them to. And she must not have said that to him out loud before because, I mean, he was almost moved to tears. And that was just the result of us, not me having some kind of tremendous insider wisdom, but me just saying, come on, Dad, we need you to show up and do what only you can do to be the shepherd of your sheep. And the word of God is very clear, says my sheep. Hear my voice, my sheep know my voice and the voice of a stranger they won’t follow. So we should, as believers, come to God’s word and come to our decision making in real life with the expectation that we can anticipate the shepherd’s voice being present to lead us in a personal and relevant way in day to day decision making.

Henry Kaestner: Hear, hear. That’s awesome. Eric, I want to ask you, Rachel brought up this illustration about a husband or wife working together. Are there times that you’re invited into people’s lives that you feel like you’re a little bit of a marriage counselor first?

Eric Chetwood: Sure. You know, it’s amazing that the husband has his own risk tolerance and his own financial goals and aspirations, and the wife has her own risk tolerance. And surprisingly, in the humor, you know, God’s creation, he normally allows people who are diametrically opposed to marry each other. And so a lot of times you yeah, you are dropping financial grenades, so to speak. You’re asking questions and then maybe even ducking a little bit. And that is, you know, an area where so many times I tell people that our role a lot of people think that this industry is all about financial analysis and it is to some degree. But I feel especially in the last few weeks during the Kovik crisis, I have felt more like a therapist than I have a financial counselor. And so, so many times people will come to us in the last questions that really aren’t necessarily financial. They’re just about life wisdom. And that’s why it’s so intimate. And that’s why it’s so far to get to walk through different chapters of life with books.

Henry Kaestner: Rachel, as you do this and you walk through different chapters with different people and it’s had hundreds and hundreds of conversations with individuals and with couples and with families. How has it impacted the way that you yourself think about me? You talked about, of course, your upbringing and being rich and poor at the same time. But as you’ve gone ahead and just heard the collective responses about financial planning and how to think about generosity and investments from your clients, has that changed the way that you think about money, too?

Rachel McDonough: I would say the biggest influence on the way that I think about money has been, you know, hopefully the word of God. Right. That’s the right answer. But also, Kingdom Advisors has been a tremendous blessing to me and the wisdom of Ron Blue and Rob West and some of the other leaders thought leaders there.

Henry Kaestner: For those of us who don’t know, who are listening, who don’t know what Kingdome Advisors is, what is Kingdom Advisors?

Rachel McDonough: Kingdom Advisors is a fantastic organization for financial professionals. And they created a core curriculum. I know, Eric, you’ve gone through it and I have as well. This CKA certified kingdom advisor curriculum, is kind of like the biblical version of the CFP, I guess. And that allows us to really take a deep dove into God’s word to develop personal convictions on several different topic areas, to read the scriptures and then pause and listen for the high spirits voice to make decisions on different areas of life, such as giving, managing debt, spending choices, investing choices and so on, has been a tremendous resource. They’ve created lots of things that can be shared with clients as long as you’re if you’re a financial advisor. Of course, you need to check that with compliance, but they’ve been great tools and great resources for our clients and that’s really had a huge impact on me. The client conversations themselves. I would say have just given me a tremendous amount of depth and understanding and appreciation for the level of each person is at a different place. You know, it’s really a journey. This is a financial journey. And our job, my job and Eric’s job should be to meet that person on their journey, whatever stage of the journey they’re at. Not with condemnation or judgment or you should do this and you shouldn’t do that. But help me understand how you thought here. Helped me understand where you’d like to go. And then let me come alongside you and help you and assist you to complete that journey.

Henry Kaestner: Eric, what do you think is the biggest mistake you see a lot of your clients make in the way? Just that they think about money and planning?

Eric Chetwood: Yeah, I would say a lot of times having a short term mentality and allowing the headlines of the day to determine their investment decisions. I know that that’s something that you guys have talked about a lot. That’s why one of the things that we say to clients is that outperforming the market is not a financial goal. It’s not a financial plan that their behavior is going to have probably more to do with their investment outcomes. Specifically, the discipline to hold tight to a quantifiably data driven financial plan. Their ability to adhere to that plan is going to have more to do with their long term financial success than any market timing or stocks.

Henry Kaestner: Do you ever find out that you work with clients that don’t yet have a faith and you get an opportunity to share within the reason for the hope that you’ve got?

Eric Chetwood: Yeah, absolutely. So our book is probably maybe 50 percent of our people are believers and 50 percent of them are not believers, some staunchly opposed to faith in the gospel. And so one of the things that we talk about a lot as a team is that even if our clients don’t yet love Jesus, that doesn’t change the fact that Jesus loves every single one of our clients and that we can be if we are the aroma of Christ. You know, that means when clients interact with us and the way that we care for them, we do everything for them as if we were doing it out to the Lord. And as they interact with their sets, they smell us, if you will. They ought to be able to smell love and joy and peace patients, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control. And because we’re able to speak into so many areas of their life, not just their finances, then we’re able to be that aroma or we strive to be that aroma and reflect well on our king.

Henry Kaestner: So I want to ask you both something that’s obviously it’s top of mind for all of us on this podcast, which is this concept that we might be able to invest guides, resources for his glory, participate in the work that he’s doing in his kingdom, and not just necessarily being of the mindset that, gosh, I want to make as much money over here and then give it all away here. But that very process of stirring the wealth and investments might provide investment capital to different enterprises that are being used to transform culture. So any thoughts what you guys are seeing in terms of trends? Is this something is becoming more mainstream or more clients talking about it? Just want you both riff on that a bit.

Rachel McDonough: I have a couple of statistics to share on that. So there is currently about 51 trillion dollars held by Christians who have specifically expressed an interest in aligning their investments with their values. And as we know, money, especially in the financial services industry, really has a voice of its own. Money talks. What would happen? I just want to think hypothetically, what would happen if we saw 51 trillion dollars exit a particular industry like pornography or abortion. And it’s not all about what you’re against instead of what you’re for. I understand the importance of embracing positive investments. But what would it do? I mean, that’s an easy thing. The exclusionary screening, the ability to screen out certain types of industries or certain companies from our portfolio is becoming increasingly easy and accessible to investors of all sizes. So what kind of a message could we say with our cumulative voice and then with the shareholder advocacy that’s been going on as well with certain fund companies just actively behind the scenes? Even if we don’t personally engage with those companies ourselves, we know that we can easily hire a mutual fund company who’s going to engage on our behalf and express our values, the values that are portrayed in the Bible. And if we have the ability to do that. Why not? You know, I think we should not ask ourselves why should I engage in this activity of using investment vehicles that have a values alignment? But why wouldn’t I? Especially as far more products are being created that have better and better performance. And the fees have come down substantially. There is just such an opportunity for us to give our clients the gift of not only having a relationship with their investments that’s based on returns, but also a relationship with their investing activity that’s based on their values and a way to live out who they are and have a greater sense of wholeness in their investing.

Eric Chetwood: Yeah, I mean, I’ll just add to that for us. This is something that we’re growing in and we’ve grown in very recently because I think a few years ago, as we were looking at the investment arena, faith driven funds and ETF and things like that, it was pretty slim. And there wasn’t a lot of track record or at least that I saw there wasn’t a strong track record. And so we have revisited that because this is absolutely that we want something that we want to at least provide to our clients and make sure that they are living in integrity, that their investments are congruent with their belief system. And it’s something that we’re growing in for sure. And I’ve been very encouraged. I think Rachel probably knows more about this space than I do. But I’ve been very perche saying that the universe of available investment options or fund options that are specifically focused on redemptive investing is growing. And the track records are getting better and better and the internal expenses are decreasing. So I think that’s a positive for financial advisors who are listening to this, who are open to the possibility that they might incorporate those into their portfolios. And one of the things I think Rachel made a great point on is that in the event that you’re not in a position where you’re managing a portfolio where that’s outsourced, you know, to the advisory team within a bigger warehouse or something like that, you can absolutely be an advocate for some of the fund companies, Henry, that you guys have had on this podcast. You know, even tired and thrive, Praxis and Timothee and Inspire and Nabay, Maria and others, God Stone to be an advocate for them to have access on those trading platforms, I think is really important that all of us can be a partner.

Henry Kaestner: I think that a lot of strides that have been made in a lot of the warehouses, in a lot of the larger platforms for financial advisors to incorporate more faith friendly, faith driven investment vehicles. And yet, because of compliance, anybody’s on a platform like that will never be able to have complete carte blanche on the things they do. Believing that angel investing and finding faith driven entrepreneurs in your own community is a great place to be able to put your shoulder to the power folks, to be able to mentor, to be able to get actively involved. By really having skin in the game, be strapped to the mass. I got to be careful about mixing metaphors here. But are there ever times where you see that you need to encourage your clients to investigate other ways that they might be able investigate according their faith that are beyond your own abilities as financial advisors on a specific platform?

Eric Chetwood: Yes. So I think one thing for us that I was very encouraged to see was just the opportunity to within donor advised funds, specifically a partner that we’ve used in the past, National Christian Foundation. Being able to have exposure to some private equity vehicles within those donor platforms. And I think that is really encouraging. And there’s always going to be a conflict of interest whenever you have an advisor who is compensated as a percentage of the assets that they manage. There’s going to be a conflict of interest there to redirect some of those funds elsewhere. But as long as that is acknowledged and. You know, walking through that with the client to say, hey, I do think that their private placement, real estate investment, that I was having redemptive component to that. I think that absolutely has a place in your portfolio. I do think that that private equity component that has a redemptive quality to it has a place in your portfolio, because when we as advisors only focus on, oh, I don’t want to lose assets, then we’re giving in to a scarcity mentality and we are doing what is right for the client in building those allocations in a way that is truly diversified, then I absolutely believe that God will replenish that in order that I just add to this isn’t about private investment, but one of the things that I’ve been seeing that clients have really appreciated has been understanding what’s inside the fund wrapper.

Rachel McDonough: So, so many of the investments that advisors use with their clients are not individual stocks for other their ETF or their mutual funds. And that’s a great idea. If you don’t have time to be tracking individual stocks all the time. Right. So by using a fund, though, we kind of remove investors one more step away from the companies that they are owners of as being shareholders. And so I think it’s important. I’ve been including in the quarterly agenda with my clients quarterly review agenda. I’ve just been adding in a little segment at the bottom of each meeting agenda that says know what you own and reintroducing clients to the companies that they own, not X, Y and Z Fund, but the individual companies inside of the fund and telling the story of the companies to the clients. So one that I put on an agenda recently revealed a medical technology advancement that had happened through one of the companies that was inside of a mutual fund that a client owned. And as I sat across the table from her, she got really quiet. Now, all of a sudden, she just said, well, you know, if I could do that with my money, I don’t even care if it makes money or loses money. And it’s not that we’re advocating that you should see your investment dollars as charitable giving dollars. But what a value and a blessing for clients to be able to have a positive impact even with their investment dollars. For most of us are giving dollars are a smaller bucket than the dollars that we need to invest and save for the future. And so if we can have a positive Kingdome impacts, not just with the charitable dollars, but with the investment dollars to start to understand what’s inside the wrapper and understand that those are businesses and that as shareholders we are business owners. It’s really been a powerful and positive experience for clients.

Henry Kaestner: I think that’s a great illustration. You touched on something there about the difference between investments and giving. And I want to delve into that a little bit. I know each of you both enough to know that where you stand in terms of storage versus ownership and that kind of concept, and you’re both familiar with Randy Alcorn and his work and things like that. What are some of the tools that you use to work with clients as they wrestle with things like structure versus ownership, may wrestle with things like this? Should I tie? Is the tie enough? How do I think about generosity? And just how do you wear some of the different techniques and tools that you’ve used when you find an opening with some of your clients? To be clear, I understand, because I’ve heard from both of you attorneys, attorneys, yes. You need to listen first. You need to hear what they’re saying. And yet there must be times over the engagement with a client, the relationship with a client. Do you get an opportunity to encourage them towards generosity or maybe even challenge them if you’ve worked with them for a very long time? How does that work out? And are there tools are there different things that you use to bring that topic to bear?

Rachel McDonough: Well, Henry, I think that the financial plan is the perfect tool and the perfect platform to do that. When you set out a financial plan with a client and you’re saying, OK, here we are here your retirement goals, here’s what you’ve saved, here’s what you need to live on. It’s just a really easy and natural way to have the conversation about what else would you like to do besides survive? It’s a great time to talk about those charitable goals, the desire for a kingdom impact. Clients have passions. They have passions that God’s place on their hearts. And when you give them the freedom and understanding that actually they have capacity to do more. I have not found that clients are tight fisted. I have found that they primarily need to understand that they’re being responsible, but that they already have an inherent desire to be more generous.

Eric Chetwood: That’s good. I think the only thing that I would add to that is that because our relationships with clients are so intimate. One of the things that I found really helpful for myself and for clients is to share with them how I’ve grown in my understanding of generosity. And I’ll give you a personal example. You know, a couple of years ago, I read the book, God and Money by Gregory Barber and John Cortinas, and it absolutely wrecked me. I mean, wrecked me in a good way and how that changed my view of stewardship and generosity and how that changed my view of really releasing my business to be God’s business was very helpful for me.

And to share my journey with clients was helpful. And so we provide them resources like God and money. That’s actually one of the KPI that we track. How many copies of that did we give away today? How many copies of Every Good Endeavor by Tim Keller? Have we given away how many copies of How to be Rich? By this day we have given away. And that’s one of our KPI is one of the other resources is that we have a chaplain for our clients. A lot of companies have chaplains for their employees. Henry, I know that you’re a big advocate of that. We have chaplains for our clients because we do work for many different chapters of life with clients. And when we see that a client gets a cancer diagnosis or they lose a spouse, they don’t care. They don’t want to talk about the internal rate of return or the standard deviation of their portfolio. They want to talk about bigger things. And so when they share that with us, you know, we hurt with them. We pray with them if they’ll allow us to. And then we say, I want you to know that we have a chaplain on staff who is trained to help you process this. And they want to come and sit next to you and process this with you in a non-threatening way. But that is another resource that we can use and leverage to guide our clients to a Shulem relationship with money.

Henry Kaestner: That’s awesome. Rachel, I don’t know that I ever appreciate the fact that you grew up in Kenya and that you had that type of background and that experience. And now that you’ve been more more exposed to faith driven investing. What are your hopes for what the development of investment vehicles might look like for the kind of guy that you grew up in?

Rachel McDonough: I think Africa will always be on my heart and my mind. It has a way of getting under your skin. I was really excited. There was a culvert, 19 bond that was invested in by one of the mutual funds that we’ve used. I was excited to see that I would even be more excited to see, you know, some type of for profit endeavor to bring clean drinking water and increased amount of economy to the continent of Africa. Well, I grew up in Kenya. I did spend a few weeks in the country of Ghana. And we really see that business and developing economy is the way that there will be a sustainable ramp out of poverty and for Africa. And so we did a fish farm project to try to create some jobs and kind of create some. Bonhomie in one of Africa’s least developing nations and just being there for that few weeks. With the focus on incorporating business and the gospel was a tremendous impact on me.

Just to see, you know, what would it mean to give real people their dignity back by allowing them to produce income and produce revenue for their families? You know, I’d love to see some mutual funds dedicate a small percentage of their overall a, um, to economic development in the continent of Africa. I’d also be really excited to see some things happening in the private sector that, you know, people could invest and expect a return, but also, you know, really see Africa lifted out of poverty.

Henry Kaestner: Guys, you’ve been around this ecosystem long enough to know that. We ask every one of our podcast guests things that they’re hearing from God in his word, maybe today, maybe yesterday, maybe this week, but some way that you feel that he’s speaking to you through the Bible. And I’d love to hear what that’s been looking like for each of you.

Eric Chetwood: Yeah. So one of the things that I’m learning right now is that I have a tendency to needlessly complicate what God asks of me. I realize that I have a big to want to do things for God rather than just enjoying being with God. And so one of the things that I’ve been meditating on is what Jesus says to the disciples. You know, one day when right before the ascension, he says two things. He says you will receive power and you will be my witnesses. And so I’ve been thinking about you and on what it means to be an effective witness. And one of the comforting things for me is that you don’t really have to be particularly smart or articulate or even talented or rich. The only thing that you need to do to be a witness is you have to be willing to relay what you’ve seen and heard. And that’s it, because the power he said in the previous verse, the power has already been taken care of. And so I think that manifests itself in a variety of different ways. Day to day. But being willing to be a witness and being the aroma of Christ again. You know, I think about, yo, my wife smells great and she has this perfume that sometimes at the morgue, I give her a hug and then I’ll come to the office and sometimes I will smell her perfume at various times throughout the day. Sometimes other people will smell her perfume on me. And in the same way, in the same vein, I cannot be the aroma of Christ if I’m not communing with Jesus. And all the things that we talked about earlier were the fruit of the spirit comes out of that daily communion with you.

Rachel McDonough: I love that. It just sounds exactly like what that’s been laying on my heart and a lot of ways. I’ve been reading this book, The Secrets of the Secret Place, by Bob Sorgi. If anyone needs a little Kickstarter to their quiet time, I think it’s a fantastic usually one or two or three pages to just give you some keys to ignite your personal time with God. And we know that it is out of the abundance of our intimacy with him and only through our abundance of intimacy with him, that we can really have something valuable to give to clients. But I would say, like if I just looked at the scripture, that’s been kind of a guiding scripture for me over the past 10 years. I would say First Corinthians, chapter three verses ten through fifteen. So by the grace God has given me, I laid a foundation as an expert builder.

This is Paul writing and someone else is building on it. But each one must be careful how he built for no one can lay a foundation other than the one already laid, which is Jesus Christ. If anyone builds on this foundation using gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay or straw, his workmanship will be evident because the day will bring it to light. It will be revealed the fire in the fire will prove the quality of each man’s work. If what he is built survives, he will receive a reward. If his burned up people suffer a loss, he himself will be saved, but only as if through the flames. That verse is just so powerful and so haunting and so inspiring at the same time. I love the concept of gold. You know, before building with gold. You think of a goldsmith. They don’t build quickly. They build with quality. And so sometimes, especially in our culture, we tend to be busy, busy, busy and not so much in Kenya. Kenya, there’s a more laid back culture and a less hurried pace. But here in the United States, we just tend to go, go, go 100 miles an hour all the time. I think what that does is it distracts us from the important things, the things that will last, the things that will have eternal fruit. And yet Jesus told us in June 15. It is to my father’s glory that you bear much fruit, the fruit that will remain. So we know that our goal as believers should be out of our intimacy and our abiding relationship with Jesus. There should come through our. Lives an eternal fruit and eternal quality to our work that will last even far after our lives on this earth are done. And what an awesome challenge and one awesome ability to just call labor of a thought in our lives.

Henry Kaestner: Guys, it’s been great having you on the show. I’m encouraged by your partnership, by your friendship, by your faithfulness. By the way that you’re getting out there and you’re really leading. Rachel, I think about eleven hundred people on a platform that you get a chance to minister in addition to administering your young basin. Eric, I love the way that you’ve been thoughtful about integrating your life in the thoughtfulness that you have with Rick about promoting and encouraging generosity and through different resources and just the way that you do life on people. This has been encouraging for me. I’m grateful for both of you and your time.

Eric Chetwood: Thank you. This has been a joy.

Rachel McDonough: Thanks. You too. Eric.

Rusty Rueff: Welcome back everyone, to the Faith Driven Investor podcast. If you were able to attend the FDI conference this year, we’re so glad to have you join us because today’s podcast is going to feel familiar, but we think you’ll probably want to hear it again and again. Finny Kuruvilla shared how capital creates influence and what it looks like for faith driven investors to steward that responsibility. Well. It’s a poignant reminder for all of us, and we’re grateful to him and the whole team at Eventide for thinking through this topic. Listen in. Enjoy. And let us know what you think.

Finny Kuruvilla: How do you change the world? I’m not looking for platitudes or nice sentiments. I’m looking for tangible, practical strategy rooted in sound principles. Our world is changing rapidly and not always for the best. Thus, for good reason. There’s a lot of talk today about how to change the world for the good. There’s a lot of young people who hope to use their lives to change the world. And there’s a lot of older people who want to use their influence to change the world. So how do you actually do it? Let’s first dispel two common myths of world change strategies. First, the power to change the world is not found in politics. Politicians make lots of promises they rarely keep. They’ve got to make lots of deals and concessions to get them elected, which in turn makes them beholden to other constituencies. And then on top of that, politicians have their fingers up to figure out which way the wind is blowing so that they get reelected. But what makes that wind blow? Politicians in general are much more reactive than transformational. The second myth is that world change happens because of autonomous individuals, especially in America, where we tend to lift up rugged individualism. It’s easy to fall for this myth. In his book To Change the World. Sociologist James Davis at Hunter makes a compelling argument that the real power to change the world lies with institutions. Certain institutions have concentrated power to shape hearts, attitudes and beliefs. Think of school systems, churches, Hollywood, social media or the news. Certain institutions have concentrated power to affect how you spend your time. Think of professional sports leagues, for example. By the way, these leagues are for profit businesses and how many millions of hours that people spend watching those activities, or how many young people dream of being like Michael Jordan or LeBron James? Renaldo. Serena Williams. There’s other institutions that have concentrated power to shape spending. Think of the people who make commercials. Think of all the online businesses like Amazon or brick and mortar places like shopping malls. It’s difficult to overstate all of these forces. In fact, we’re a little bit like fish that swim in water, but we can’t tell you what water is because it’s our only experience. In the book of Colossians. Paul talks about Dominion’s principalities and powers that are both visible and invisible. These forces define and shape our existence. And if you can change these forces, you can change the world. I’m going to be focusing mostly on business here, but I want to illustrate world change with two historic examples. Let’s start with the very famous voyage of Christopher Columbus. Most of us know he wanted to get to India, but this enterprise of trans oceanic sailing was risky and expensive. You needed investors to supply the capital for such an endeavor. So Columbus traveled all around Europe looking for investors. He unsuccessfully went to France and England to procure these investors after failing there. He eventually got support from Spanish investors. Make no mistake about it, this was very much a business proposition. Columbus took their capital and in exchange for his labor, he arranged a contract where he personally would get 10 percent of future revenues from such expeditions. And he also got the option to invest in one eigth, a future commercial businesses that came from his explorations. Now, the rest of his voyage is history. But I want us to think for a moment about an alternative narrative. What if Columbus secured French investors? Central and South America today would be French speaking and have a very different culture. What if Columbus secured British investors? Central and South America would be English speaking and Protestant, not Catholic? Think of the hundreds of millions of people affected by this small group of investors and explorers. These investors that backed Columbus changed the world. As a second example, consider the British East India Company that was formed in sixteen hundred. Many people consider this to be the first modern corporation financed with a complex mixture of stocks and bonds, and they even had an exchange through the influence of this company. India would go on to become a colony of England that has affected the culture, the language and the politics of India. And you may not know that India has the second largest English speaking population on the Earth. Billions of people have been changed by the geopolitical power of these corporations. Now let’s jump to the future. Consider the modern multinational corporation. How much has Google, Facebook and Nike changed our habits, our desires and even our vocabulary? Companies were funded by venture investors as well as public investors. These investors changed the world through these companies. Want to change gears a little bit and talk a bit more about some of the ethics. The thesis that I’m going to lay out is very simple. By willfully becoming an owner of a company or an owner of a business, which is what investing is, you are sanctioning and benefiting from the company’s activities and practices. This ownership confers an ethical responsibility to the investor for the activities and practices of the company. Investing has long been, however, divorced from this original and basic purpose, which is supplying capital to support businesses. Instead, most investors today are trying to profit from the market itself rather than any productive and intrinsic value of the underlying companies. Basically, investing today has become about making money. The mantra is low cost, low fee products like ETF and investing has become commodities and depersonalized. Frankly, most people don’t even know what companies they own. Investors have forfeited the power to change the world using their hard earned capital to convince you of a more modern example of the positive power investing. I want to share one last example of what can happen if we work together. Let’s go to the year 1971. In 1971, Christians were having a growing concern for apartheid. If you don’t know what apartheid is, it’s an Afrikaans word. That means separation. It literally means a part hood. It’s basically institutionalized racial segregation. Apartheid was practice, of course, in South Africa. And the government had already ignored U.N. sanctions and embargoes. But a group of Episcopal shareholders filed a shareholder resolution with General Motors, a well-known car company. Many people believe this to be the first example of modern shareholder Abigail. They enrolled the help of a Baptist minister whose name was Leon Sullivan. He was an anti-apartheid activist. And Sullivan proposed specific resolutions for the General Motors board that they ended up adopting because of this Episcopal shareholder resolution after GM adopted these resolutions. Then Ford and Goodyear followed suit. Thus, one of the key instruments in the fall apartheid was coordinated investor pressure from Christians think of the many, many problems that we face today, lack of access to clean water, polluted air, difficult jobs, diseases like cancer, Alzheimer’s infections like coronavirus, educational systems that can warp students minds, misinformation and confusion in the media. Every one of these problems could be fixed through institutions, specifically virtuous businesses and a strong church. These are the sleeping giants that we can enable through our investing and participation. Right now, we need all of us to deploy our capital in positive ways to shape the world for the good. Using biblical principles that promote human flourishing. So let’s use investing as a tool to positively change the world.

Henry Kaestner: Welcome back to the faith driven investor podcast. This is a special edition. I guess I said that for other guests, and yet that’s true every time and that we’re taking some new ground and looking at an area of investing and putting a faith driven investment lens on it. And so today we’re going to learn and together we’re gonna learn because I don’t know a lot about opportunity zones and investing, but we’re going to learn from some experts and some guys with some really interesting backgrounds have gotten to know a bit over time that have brought them into the opportunity zone space. And so we’ve got two guests. Jerome Garciano and then we also have Jeff Shafer on the line with us. Guys, thank you very much for being on the program.

Jeff Shafer: It’s great to be here.

Jerome Garciano: Yeah. Thanks for having us.

Want to start with each your backgrounds. And Jeff, we’ll start with you. Tell us a bit about how you’ve come to this space maybe weave in just a bit of your faith journey, but then most specifically, common good capital and in opportunity zones. And of course, Jerome, we’re going to do the same with you.

Jeff Shafer: Yeah, great. Well, let me take you back just a little bit and I’ll try to get through this quickly, because this is a story that could go on for a long time. But as you mentioned, I was an executive at a company called CNL, which we were leading alternative investment manager. Today, that company’s been around give or take, you know, 45, 46 years. I’m not sure. I left roughly five, six years ago. But the quick story was I was an executive there. I was a workaholic. And when I was 40s, this is almost seven years ago now. God literally and figuratively brought me to my knees through a number of circumstances. But really, it was a combination of back surgery. And so it’s a great analogy of probably where I was at. I was trying to carry too much of the weight on my own and was brought to my knees. Out of that time period, though, my wife and I started to ask the question of what does it mean to be a steward of our time, town and treasuries? And I’m sure we’ve all asked questions at different times. This one just felt like a much deeper questioning across every aspect of our life. And in that time period, a friend of mine actually came to me and from an investment opportunities here in the Orlando area, they were doing some investing in affordable housing. And I remember I was recovering from back surgery on my couch and was watching the little DVD of the video. And yes, there the investment thesis, which was very compelling. In fact, the returns were extremely compelling. But really what hit me was what that did to the residents and the communities, what that capital did without intentionality did to those communities. It lifted them up. And the residents talked about and I can still hear it in my head today. They brought me dignity. I’m excited to have people come over to my house. And so that’s what a light bulb went on for me. I’d been in traditional finance at the time for about 20 years. And we really then started to look at this whole idea of how do you align your values? How do you on your faith with your capital? Now, typically in the faith based world, at least my growing up. That’s a question I’d ask. But it always been on the giving side. And I never had really thought about it. I’m an investor capital side. So that’s really what spawned me. And then also my brother to start Amen good capital is. How do you essentially take the traditional financial world? How do you marry together with our values and our faith? And how do you make an impact? And not only in the lives of the individuals who this capital is going towards or investing in. And that’s typically what most people talk about. The part that intrigues me, even maybe not more, but equally so, is when you invest this way. What it does to the heart and psyche of the investor. So we start a common good capital with that very vision that there is these massive trends and movements that are happening. And so we essentially source due diligence. Different asset managers who do impact investing. And then we create a platform and we bring that to financial advisors so that their investors are able to access different deals. In that vein is how we came into opportunity zones well before they were out. And well before they were popular. It wasn’t that we were ahead of the curve because we had some great insight. It was the opportunity zone legislation, which I’m sure will touch on, was created for this very thing to go into now and make competitive returns, but equally important, to lift up, increase human flourishing among the community of individuals in these opportunity zones.

Henry Kaestner: OK. Thank you. Great overview. Jerome, I want to do the same with you, especially because you not only are interested in opportunity zones, but you’re just more generally interested in Christ centered community development as well. So bring us through your background, how you got here as well. And then what we’ll do is I’ll ask you each to define what are opportunity zones and help us to understand what in the world we’re talking about.

Jerome Garciano: Sure. Thank you, Henry and Justin. So, you know, I was born in Southern California. My parents are immigrants from the Philippines. It wasn’t really, you know, until college when thinking about. Career and kind of purpose, and you know how the gospel really impacts my life is where I think I you know, my faith really kind of grew. And I think a critical component of it is by calling and vocation. And I think, you know, a lot of people interested in FDI talk about all the time reflect upon that all the time.

But I feel like where God calls us to is a place where we are flourishing in the skills and the gifts that he’s given to each of us individually and as organizations and a calling to serve others and a reflection of thankfulness for the gospel and for what God has done for us and to pour that thankfulness into concrete action. So I think for me it’s a lot about creativity and bringing together skills and experiences that might not necessarily be considered critical ministries. So, for example, I am an attorney in Boston. My firm is called Robinson and Cole. I started off my legal career in doing a lot of tax work. And currently I’m doing a lot of more finance and real estate and have done almost 20 years worth of transactional work in affordable housing. And so I’ve done a lot of work in tax credits and you markets, tax credits, community development efforts generally for for profit profit making companies and developers and investors. So my whole journey has been, you know, how can those opportunities and skills and experiences be leverage for the kingdom, be leveraged for the care of the most needy? And I’ve been very blessed in terms of I mean, I do affordable housing every day. You know, that’s that’s what I do every day and have worked for a really developer that focus on that. We’re for investors that are very sophisticated and creative in terms of, you know, trying to use capital for that type of purpose. As you mentioned, I’m also involved in a group called Christian Community Development Association. So it’s a faith based network of churches and nonprofit ministries that are really trying to, you know, seek God and his kingdom in the city among the least of these among those who Jesus calls us to and very inspiring group. And I’m very privileged to be on the board of that. And so it’s talking with groups like them about programs like tax credits and opportunity zones and different types of impact investing and social enterprise to really be creative and to engage people of faith churches, you know, in all these aspects that might not necessarily come to mind as ministry, but really, in fact, I think could be more creative tools in that space.

Henry Kaestner: OK, good. Thank you. So we’ll stay with you. What is the definition of an opportunity zone, as you understand it, and help us help a lay person to get that?

Jerome Garciano: All right. So first of all, it’s a program it’s a federal program that was enacted in 2017. It’s part of the tax reform legislation. So a zone is obviously a geographic region and it’s broken by census tracts. So if you’re talking about opportunity zone, so that’s a place and it’s designated as a U.S. Census tract and that there are certain definitions around poverty and other types of demographic information about that census tract. There was also a period when the program began where certain governors and other leaders can designate which low income census tracts could be opportunity zones. And then after a few months, the Treasury actually officially selected those zones. So the zone is a place. And in order to benefit from this program, an investor has to make an investment through a qualified opportunity zone fund into that opportunity zone. So those are the basics.

Henry Kaestner: Jeff, build on that a bit for us. And also maybe give us some illustrations of some of the opportunity zones that you’ve worked in.

Jeff Shafer: Yeah. Let me just take one quick step back. I think it’s important, in addition to information, you’ve just heard the rationale for why opportunity zones were created. I think it’s helpful here that a white paper that was written in 2015 by a group called EIG, the Economic Innovation Group, and they point out three things. One is they analyzed the recovery of communities after the global financial crisis. And what they found is there’s huge dispersion in the recovery, economic coercion. Secondly, they recognize was with the markets going up. At the time and there’s been a huge stockpile of capital gains. And then the third thing they looked at is they said, hey, there, that other programs and fact, some of the programs are just what we just heard. They’re tried to help these communities out. And some had been successful, some had not been successful, but they essentially kind of put that into a blender, so to speak, and out popped this legislation. So I think it’s important to note that the whole idea was to create human flourishing and then to attract capital to those areas. They created some tax incentives for investors really accessing private capital. To me, the starting point for as you look at opportunity sounds. I think it’s important that if you want to be congruent with the rationale for why these were created, you could simply attack it just as a tax benefit, which I wouldn’t personally. I don’t give a wrong with that. But that’s not how I view it. I look at it go. How do you create human flourishing inside of these zones? And how do you also get a tax benefit from it? And by doing that, you’re creating a win win. And actually, I think there are reasons besides, you know, moral reasons or even ethical reasons why you’d want to do this. I think as soon as you start investing in upcoming zones that maybe don’t have a meaningful impact to the communities, you set yourself up for scrutiny. And you saw that early on in the program. But practically, just give some examples. And I didn’t realize we both were going to have expertize in affordable housing. That is a natural asset class that fits with inside these opportunity zones. So we personally are involved with a group that does affordable housing all across the United States. I think one thing important to note is affordable housing is just a huge need anyways. And then a lot of these developers have been developing in these opportunity zones already. They just haven’t had this extra benefit. And so I think one of the things that we looked at early on is we want to find a model that could capitalize on this capital gain structure or relief. And I can explain that here in a second. But it wasn’t just a new business model that a company goes into. And so the natural spot for us is affordable housing. It’s just there’s a fundamental need that we get in some of the stats and reasons why. I will tell you, the group that we work with has done one here in Orlando in my backyard, and I’ve actually done that with the major bank. One other thing I should note is as an investor, you need to view this as an investment and then you need to look at the tax benefit kind of as gravy. And then obviously you need to think about the impact that you want to have. There’s really two things to look at from a tax consideration standpoint. This program allows for an investor who has a capital gains for simplicity. I’m going to say it’s pretty liberal in what type of capital gain it can be. There are some nuances, but whether it’s a stock, whether it’s the sale of a house, whether it’s a business. So there are taxes. If you’d sold that asset that you don’t pay taxes, that the government is basically said if you take that capital, that whole capital gains, then have all that. But you take that capital gains and you roll it into a fund that is investing into these geographic areas, then you don’t have to pay capital gains tax on that that you normally would have until the end of 2026 and you get a step up in basis in this case. Today, it’s about a 10 percent step up in basis. So you get to defer it. And presumably of tax rates stay the same. You actually will pay less as well in 2026. That’s one component. And the second component is the money that you invest inside of the qualified opportunity zone to fund those assets. If they’re held for 10 years, which you’d want all the Putin years when those assets are sold. Then you do not pay capital gains on those assets as well. And so to extent, we want to we can go into examples of that and you’ll hear, you know, how much kind of return that should add to the investments. It is real dollars in your pocket when you do the math, assuming you buy a good investment, assuming you buy good investment.

Henry Kaestner: So talk to us about what’s the most good investments are. Jerome, illustrate an example and maybe will stay in affordable housing. Something you know of. Talk to us about specific zone specific investment and maybe one that was done in a fund, maybe one that was just done outside of one. But what were the mechanics of it?

Jerome Garciano: Yeah, so our fund that I’m a part of has been involved in a couple of transactions. They were last year. One was affordable housing in New York. So in that instance, there was an investor who had a capital gain. It was a financial institution, and they worked with what they call net farm housing interest, syndicator of essentially of a broker or intermediary that matches up investors with projects, you know. And so in that case, you know, there was the typical tax benefits for an investor that would be driven by the credits. Obviously, they would still need to underwrite the project in terms of the rental income would qualify both for the housing program as well as an operating expense needs and debt service for the project. So, you know, it’s typical underwriting the tax benefit, again, was calculated really at the fund level. So it was a part of the benefit, but it was separate over and above kind of what the real estate economics were about. So certainly that was one example. The other example that we had wasn’t actually an operating business to keep in mind. Opportunities on is not just about real estate, it’s actually about operating businesses as well. And so so that was an M&A transaction. I wasn’t. Directly involved with, but my colleagues were. And so they were working with, you know, a private equity firm that acquired some assets and. And those happened to be an asylum so that they were able to get work with kind of underwriting and evaluation of the business. And then, you know, kind of a key component of that was there is a requirement that assets need to be either new assets being purchased by a qualified opportunities on business or that those assets need to be substantially improved. So, you know, there are definitely some structuring and some programmatic things that need to be laid out and everybody needs to be on the same page on that. So that was an exercise of making sure that there was in this acquisition of a business, that new assets would be placed in service, there would be substantial improvement on the property that that business had. So those are a couple examples.

Henry Kaestner: Jerome I want to stay with you. Both of you are very motivated by your faith. I’ve come to know and appreciate and love that, both of you. But, Jerome, you come out of this from the CCDA perspective, the Christian community development. What is the particular faith lens on this? Presumably at some level, of course, we’re investing in human flourishing and we’re investing in some really challenged neighborhoods. But is there a way to bring the church in? Is there a way to bring word ministry in? Is that too contrived? Talk us through that.

Jerome Garciano: I mean, I think you come at it from a couple different angles. I mean, certainly because, you know, the ease of kind of connection between real estate in place, making an opportunity zone. I mean, I think churches are already good at that. They’re good at kind of creating places and experiences that, you know, point to God and they can point to, you know, our faith. But I think it does take some creativity. I think it takes some new almost like, you know, because this concept of new wineskin for a new time and in kind of a new place of ministry and serving others, you know, for such a time as this as, you know, what we’re experiencing now.

So I feel like investing in people and relationships are at the core of everything. And one of the core tenets of the Christian community development ethos is really being with the poor and being in solidarity with kind of the struggles and the challenges and often the injustices that face those on the margins. And so I think that expresses, you know, theologically this idea of, you know, guy coming down to man and really experiencing kind of what the challenges are. And I think that reflects on even those of us who aren’t, you know, in that economic situation, like what that means and how that reminds us of kind of our need for God and hopefully thankfulness for kind of what he did for us on the cross. And so I think very deep past theological. I mean, I think there’s also, you know, very strong kind of biblical references to what it means to be just and to be equitable and to give everybody an equal opportunity. And so I think that discussion is raised in the context of kind of our Christian community development groups that, you know, kind of focus on that. I think there’s also a sense tragedy of we’re not just meeting physical needs, we’re not just meeting kind of financial needs, but we’re bringing in the gospel and what that means and how God has made us whole through Christ life, death and resurrection. And so, you know, a lot of it is also, you know, people aren’t going to hear the message until maybe you show them that you’re more interested or you’re equally as interested in kind of their practical situations and challenges that they’re facing. So I think there are a few different ways to think about it.

Henry Kaestner: Jeff, would you pile on to that?

Jeff Shafer: Yeah. So let me give you some tangible examples of where I have seen integration. It’s not necessarily an opportunity zone structure, although these assets are in opportunity zones. So we’ve come across managers in specifically affordable housing who they have a nonprofit organization that sets out the properties. And there is so management company that manage the day to day operations of it. But they almost are a dorm parent, so to speak, for the communities. And, you know, part of their ministry is fixing flat tires and being a counselor there, you know, 2:00 in the morning. And when somebody gets sick in English as a second language and then obviously embedded in that is their faith component. And so I’ve seen that model in several different ways. They other think that I’ve started to think about is from a biblical perspective. If you think about this emotional ministry, you know, are we called to be more. I don’t think it’s right or wrong. Are you called to be more evangelistic in the way that you invest? And I think that would be obviously more directly kind of faith based, at least in my mind, than you have. Is it more of a discipleship model or are you cycling coming alongside of people of faith and continuing to build their faith or even the other type of ministry that, you know, through a faith perspective we talk about? Is it more of a mercy ministry where you’re doing it in the name of the Lord, but you’re feeding the poor or whatever it is? And so I think you can use those models as framework. When you look across different types of assets and their faith integration and, you know, we not only work on the real estate side, but we also do. Private credit and private equity, and there isn’t a cookie cutter, a way to integrate it, which is part of the excitement of it, because it’s yet to use your creativity and ingenuity in each scenario and figure out how to meet whatever need that you’re trying to meet. And obviously, spiritual is a huge part of it.

Henry Kaestner: I’m intrigued by that. I love the framework that you just gave. And I think that we all, as Christ followers, need to be thinking through the different models. And we should never be prescriptive. We should never be over the top. We should definitely not force a ministry impact in this. Something that doesn’t feel genuine isn’t done with gentleness and respect. And yet it sounds like these are different investment projects that are going on in different zones where there might be a partnership with either a parish church ministry. I think that’s Jeff, what you’re talking about, but then also potentially with the local church as well. We’ve done episodes in the past where we’ve talked about what it might look like for a local church to adopt multi-family real estate and get involved there. Drome, are you seeing people within the church that are leaders of denominations or individual churches that are seen? This is something that they can get alongside and partner with?

Jerome Garciano: Yeah, definitely. I mean, you know, even before kind of the shutdown and the things that we’ve gone through now, I mean, you know, underutilized church property. Right. I think it depends on the different type of church or denomination. But there are opportunities to use building assets, you know, in ways that are beyond have the traditional Sunday service. And I think there were a lot of creative thinking around, you know, how do we engage the community? How do we serve and meet the needs of a community through these facilities, whether it be something that’s related to something like a community center or something that’s related to, you know, working with the children and after school programs. And so, you know, multi-family and affordable housing is definitely on the forefront. You know, I know a lot of churches that are looking to incorporate on their actual church campus or property housing. And, you know, I think even more so in the future. And let’s see, you know, how this plays out. But I feel like there’ll be a lot of opportunities to kind of rethink and reimagine kind of how these assets are used. So, you know, one group in California, in major cities that have homeless crisis, they’re looking into do some tiny home development, like on church property, you know, and the idea would be to lease some of the land to the developer so that a local church can get a little bit of income and then they would provide these homes that would be able to be, you know, occupied by people who need the affordable housing. You know, there’s certainly other partnerships in terms of, you know, parking lots that have been sold and, you know, developed into housing tax rental projects. So, you know, depends on obviously the sophistication of a local church and kind of what the development team looks like and what their overall goals are. But there are plenty of examples and opportunities to partner in that way.

Henry Kaestner: Okay. I think I’m following I think a lot of our audience is following now about the origination 2017 of this opportunity zone legislation, some of the financial benefits to investors. I want to talk next about how to get involved. If you’re listening to this either as an investor or as a service provider, maybe we’ll start as an investor. We’ll start with you, Jeff. Some listeners podcasts. I might get us this great. I can love on the poor and these challenging neighborhoods and put my investment capital to work there with flourishing. Maybe there’s an opportunity partnering with the church, but definitely motivated by my faith to see a disadvantaged neighborhood get back on par. What do I do now? Are there funds that do this? Are there individual deals? Is there a marketplace? Is there a funder? What do I do?

Jeff Shafer: Yeah. Funny as you’re asking the question, I’m like, what do you do? So a couple of things. And let me start with this and Be very practical for you. I myself have invested in an opportunity zone fund as well. And I think these are three questions that every potential investor needs to ask themselves. And depending if you can answer. Yes. And I think it makes sense to continue the dialog. You know, where do you find opportunity zones? And then really, you’ve got to also think through, do I want to go into a fund? Do I want to do a single asset deal? Do you want somebody else to manage or do you want to manage it yourself? But here are the three questions that I think are foundational. And there’s more than that. But if I just was to give you three questions you need to ask is in this order. So you have a game. You go. Do I pay tax on this gain or do I take some mosquito and roll it into an opportunity zone on? The first question is, you know, what kind of return can you generate? I think you have to view this fundamentally as an investment, because if it doesn’t perform as an investment, then ultimately you’d be better off just paying your capital gains and going elsewhere. Now, obviously, you can try to find different assets to perform at different levels and a different level of risk. But I think you need to start from. This is fundamentally an investment. That’s number one. Number two is can you hold this for 10 years? The way the rules are written to maximize all the tax benefits, you need to hold it for 10 years. It doesn’t mean that they’re. Ways and there may be some reasons why you wouldn’t hold the 10, but the blanket statement, that’s pretty solid. If you can’t hold the investment for 10 years, then you shouldn’t consider it. And the last thing is, can you get comfortable with some incremental risk that needs to be followed so that you actually get the tax benefit that you can? And if you can answer yes to those three questions, then it probably makes sense to go. All right. I want to look at this. One of the things, too, that’s unique. If you’re familiar with the 10 30 one investment, some people compare these and their similarities and differences.

But one of things I want to point out is if I had a half a million dollar gain as an example, I do not have to roll my whole half a million dollars into an opportunity zone. And at ten, thirty one, you really do. And so then you need to figure out how much you’d want to put in there. The other things you want to consider is do you go into a fund that has multiple assets in it? Or do you try to find a one off deal? You can find both out there. Some Web sites that I would at least looked at would be a Web site called AIG dot org. Another one is Noboa Graddick. There really is no great centralized place. I mean, there are some typically you are going to talk to your advisor, attorney, local real estate developers. This whole marketplaces developing in. One of the big questions is, does it continue to develop long term? And I think part of that is dependent on the regulations. And if they continue this program, which is, you know, we’ll find out. I do think they’ll given the Koban 19 and what’s happened there clearly is a renewed interest in that why opportunity zones were created. So not to predict what the government’s going to do. But man two the statement said earlier, for such a time as this, this structure could be extremely powerful tool to help rebuild America at a time when we’re going to need it. The short answer is we can help you find opportunity zones and we can get some places where you can go to Henry Antin and you can check out some Web sites as well.

Henry Kaestner: Jerome, maybe supplement that. But I also want to focus on the service provider aspect of it. Say I’m a church Amen ministry, not for profit in an opportunity zone. I can think of creative uses. Maybe it’s unused property on a church, maybe it’s unused facilities within a church building. Where do I go to take next steps and learn more so that I can get actively involved? Or maybe it’s just I’m a church and I just want to partner and just love on people through some of these new investments are coming in. What do I do?

Jerome Garciano: Sure. I saw, you know, through the CCD network, there was a group of us that started the Jubilee Impact Fund. And so Jubilee Impact Fund is trying to use the Opportunity Zone program to gather faith driven investors, other types of denominational connected investors to opportunity zones, and also trying to bring in on the debt side groups what they’re calling the community development financial institutions. Essentially, you know, lenders and banks that are focused on lower income is providing capital. So we are trying to launch this and we’re trying to partner with local churches. And so we have, you know, dozens of organizations around the country doing ministry already. And, you know, typically inner city areas and we’re having a discussion with them is how can you, you know, look at the existing initiatives and projects, incorporate things like affordable housing and things like a business incubators that could, you know, provide venture capital and other technical assistance and support to Minority and Low-Income Entrepreneurs. How can you engage the neighborhood with, you know, other types of services that could be funded through opportunities on equity? So the niche that we’re trying to make is a connection between the kind of faith driven investors, the people of faith who would be interested in opportunity zones and these initiatives on the grounds where these churches are already serving. I mean, I think that’s thing. I think the churches are already serving in these neighborhoods that are designated opportunity zones. It’s really just trying to make the connection and create, you know, the fund structure and kind of a consistent approach to capitalizing these projects. And I agree with what’s been said before. I mean, it has to make financial sense. I have to pencil out. But the idea would be, how do we creatively do that while maintaining the ministry impact as well as having the positive benefit for the community? Because I think was alluded to earlier, this program is fairly open. I mean, there are not a lot of rules and regulations, which is, you know, in some sense a nice thing, a beautiful thing, a flexible thing. But in other cases, there are no restrictions in terms of challenges like gentrification or displacement of, you know, the existing populations of the zones which actually harm these neighborhoods. So. You know, given the very flexible nature of it, there is creativity. But I think we need to be intentional in terms of what types of products we invest in and how we do that and how we engage the community for true stakeholder engagement to be able to do a successful opportunities on investment.

Henry Kaestner: Fascinating. I’m intrigued by this. I’m grateful for both of you being on the program. If you’ve turned in before, you know, one of the things that we want to make sure that we close out every one of our episodes with is asking our guest what they’re hearing from God about in his word. And it doesn’t need to be necessarily this morning through your quiet time, but maybe sometime last week or sometime recently about some way that you feel that God is speaking to you through time in the Bible. Jeff, we’ll start with you and then Jerome, close out with you.

Jeff Shafer: Yeah, well, if we want to get really personal, what God is challenging me on this question of, and it’s funny, I wasn’t planning on talking about this, but I started to write just for myself. I wrote a question and the question was, can you trust God in the midst of human suffering? And I just wanted to know obviously have Russell before, but I really want to get this on paper for my own self. And really, what is the question ultimately key and personal senses? Do I trust God? Is God a good God in the midst of all this, in the midst of just human suffering?

And I tell you, I’ve got a senior and a junior in high school, and obviously my wife and I and we have been chatting about this very question the last two or three days. And really where I want to go is is intellectually I want to have an answer. But more importantly, I want to know that my heart’s in alignment. And then the key is, am I actually living in that truth? And I got to be honest, I think intellectually I’m probably there. I think my heart is there at times. But really, what’s been challenged in me is, is am I living that out intentionally? Day to day. So now to be where I’m at this very moment.

Henry Kaestner: I think a lot of us are at that very moment. And I love the fact that you lean into that with your kids. Jerome.

Jerome Garciano: Yeah. I guess for me, you know, this almost hopefulness about kind of what is to come, because I feel like God is doing something. And obviously in the midst of very difficult times, there is always hope and we need, as Christians need to carry that and amplify that and share that with those who might not have any right now. So this idea of kind of the new wineskin and you kind of creative models and theories and programs. I feel like people are ready to be creative. And that is very refreshing. And I feel like there is such an opportunity there. So, yeah, I mean, this idea of new wine scans and how can we prepare and be humble and be creative in a time when in a lot of ways were challenging kind of the existing way we do things right. And so how does that balance in terms of, you know, a lot of ways, morning, maybe what we’ve lost and maybe things that we’ve lost permanently in terms of kind of how we gather and kind of how we worship and how we express our faith, but then also embracing kind of a new. And so for me, that definitely still attention and praying about that every day. But I also am very hopeful because I think there’s things that our God will show us and we can just live into and just be thankful for drove.

Henry Kaestner: Thank you, Jeff. Thank you. This has been great. Really appreciate you taking the time. I hope that people will look into the Jubilee Impact Fund, common good capital websites, Jeff, that you shared and put up some show notes to this as well and just appreciate the opportunity to talk to y’all about what does it look like for Chrysler to be intentional about their investment deployment and how to be wise as a serpent, innocent as a dove, be able to take advantage of tax code opportunities, to be able to take advantage of of the passion that we all have to love our neighbor and to take care of the least of these. And lots of those are in our midst and some is opportunity zones that are not very far away from us. So thank you for taking the time and for your leadership in the movement.

Welcome back everyone, to the Faith Driven Investor podcast. The Praxis team has been so faithful about the way they think through and process Christian entrepreneurship and investing. We’re always glad to put a spotlight on their work. And today’s episode with Andy Crouch is no exception at the faith driven investor conference. He shared a redemptive framework for investing. And that’s what we’d like to invite you to listen to today. Here’s Andy now.

Andy Crouch: I’ve been thinking about the extraordinary success in our lifetimes of Islamic finance, which is based on actually one very simple, powerful and radical rule, which is that in Islam, interest is forbidden, which means that debt, as it’s practiced in Western capitalist economies, isn’t really practical. And a two point two trillion dollar industry has grown up to kind of work around this prohibition on interest and finance ventures and personal needs in the Islamic world. And of course, this has me thinking if Christian investors, the faith driven investors, were as influential and focused on what we’re aiming for as Islamic investors, how many trillions of dollars would be redirected and how would the world financial system be potentially quite reshaped? Now, this is a tricky question because there is a problem, I think, from a Christian point of view, with the Muslim approach to this, which is it’s based on a law, it’s based on a rule, and lives based on law and rules become easily become legalistic. And legalism is when you define a kind of a boundary that you’re not allowed to cross. But then everyone spends a lot of time right at the edge of the boundary looking for loopholes around the boundary and the reality of Islamic finance, in spite of the genuine good intentions of those who practice it sometimes is that it is often about just getting around this prohibition on interest through creative structuring of things that look like equity, but really function a lot more like debt with interest. And there’s actually a much deeper issue than just this legalism issue, which is that when you actually look at the structure of the economies that are controlled by people with power in the Muslim world, especially those of the Arab Gulf states, unfortunately, these are very oppressive places for many, many of their members, especially the actual labor of those economies. So usually immigrant labor who build the cities on the soccer stadiums, but really under conditions that are very close to indentured servitude or forced labor. These are not just economies. They don’t charge interest, but they’re not necessarily pieces of justice. And of course, this was exactly Jesus critique of the legalists of his time, the Pharisees, who had lots of very laws, but he said, you strain out these tiny little things. You screen for these particular things that you’ve neglected. The waiter matters of the law. So we are not out to create a Christian financing. That’s just a kind of legalism. And several everyone have to look for something that is deeper, more based on the orientation of the heart, and ultimately might be more transformative than any legalistic system will be. And our community Praxis has been thinking about this under the heading of what we call redemptive investing. And there are three themes that keep emerging as we talk with people who are doing really transformational investing out of their Christian faith here. They are redemptive. The message as we’re starting to see a practice prioritizes people, prioritizes people over money or deals or transactions, redemptive investing seeks out and takes on meaningful risk. It’s risk seeking in a in a certain meaningful way. And redemption investing takes responsibility for the nonfinancial outcomes to some extent of investments, not just looking at financial return, but all the other effects that our investing has on the systems around the companies and ventures we invest in. So to illustrate this, I thought we’d look for a moment and think about Jesus’s strangest and least legalistic parable, because this is a parable about someone who does everything wrong. He is, in fact an investment manager, but he’s a dishonest one. He breaks every rule of investing. And yet, Jesus says this story actually teaches us something essential about how to live truly righteous lives, not just superficially righteous lives with what Jesus calls dishonest wealth. So it’s found in Luke 16, and you may remember how it starts. There’s a man who as someone managing money for him and he learns that this man is squandering his property. Jesus says so he summons the man who says, What are you doing? Give me an account. Give me an audit and then you’re fired. The manager says to himself, and this is Jesus’s way of putting it. This is quite remarkable. What will I do now that my master is taking my position over me? I am not strong enough to dig and I’m ashamed to beg. And he says, I know what I will do. So that when I no longer have my position, people will welcome me into their homes. So he summons his masters debtors. One by one he asks the first one, How much do you owe my master? The guy says, I owe one hundred containers of wheat. He says, Okay, take it. Sit down and make it 50. Then he signs the next. The guy says, I owe you one hundred containers of olive oil.

Says, Okay, make it 80. And then Jesus says something quite unsettling and strange. He says the master commended the dishonest manager because he had acted shrewdly, because the children of this age, Jesus says, are more shrewd in their dealings with one another than are the children of light. So you two should make friends for yourselves with dishonest wealth so that when it is gone, they may welcome you into eternal homes. So how do we see the three principles I listed very quickly there and the choices of this dishonest steward? Well, first he prioritizes people, he prioritizes people. He knows that his access to the money that he’s been a steward of and his position are very temporary. But those people will still be around. And if he can develop relationship, friendship with them, they’ll welcome him into their homes long after the money is gone. Transactions are temporary. Money is temporary, but people and relationships can last a long time. In fact, this guy is just looking for a place to stay after he loses his job. But every person we interact with is someone who if we really were to be Christ for them, if they were to see Christ in us. And if they were to trust in Christ, they would actually be our brother or sister eternally. Money is very temporary. Our access to whatever’s been entrusted to us is so temporary. Every single person we meet is potentially our eternal friend.

Second thing that this guy does. He takes meaningful risks with the money entrusted to him. Now he had a low risk option. His master has asked just for an audit and he should turn in as clean and audit as he can tell the whole truth. Hope to get away with at least not a negative recommendation, maybe just a no comment. When someone calls for a reference, but instead, this guy who Abdulnasser has seemingly been totally thoughtless and lazy, suddenly has a very clear reason to take risks with the owner’s money. How do we think about risk? I think we have a complex relationship with risk as we ourselves manage money and as we manage other people’s money, because every single Christian is called to take incredible risk in order to join God’s adventure. God’s call on their life for the sake of justice and the repair of the world. And there are some risks that are not meaningful. Inflation risks, currency risks, concentration risk, sector risk. These are not particularly meaningful risks. And we’re right to prudently hedge them and and limit them in appropriate ways. But the point of having resources is to deploy them in meaningful ways, and that’s always going to mean risk. And it’s so tempting when you have resources to make the point. Safety and preservation, rather than setting ourselves up for the maximum risk we could take. For God’s call in our lives. And then the third thing he does is he. He has a non-financial outcome in mind for the money. He’s not great on the financial side as M. ends up with a 20, 50 percent haircut on the debt. But there is something this Masterda, this manager does, right.

He sees there’s something good available that isn’t just about money that the proper use of money can obtain. And I think this has a parallel to us, too, because we cannot look at our investments only in terms of what they return financially. These are this is ultimately God’s money. And all all resources are gods as we know. So what is God after? God’s interests are ultimately not financial. God is not going to be auditing our lives for our IRR. What is God seeking? He’s told us. I’ve told you people what I desire of you. To do justice and to love mercy and to walk humbly with God. So any money that we are entrusted with needs to be invested in ways that do justice. Instead of furthering exploitation, they create environments of mercy, rather environments of legalism and punishment. And that encourage humility rather than feeding human pride, because that’s the accounting God is going to ask for for our whole lives, including how he’s stewarded, whatever was entrusted to us. So the crazy thing is the owner commends him. He recommends him. He’s going to get a positive reference. That seems like why why in the world? I think there are two things going on here. One is it said that he was squandering the owners money before. He wasn’t doing anything with it. He’s wasting it. He wasn’t paying attention. And now he starts paying attention. I think the Masters just impressed the final. He started actually being shrewd in what he was doing with it. But there might be something deeper going on here. It could be that not just the manager, but the owner actually benefits from these acts of voluntary debt write downs. How would you feel about a creditor whose servant came and voluntarily had you write down your debt? I mean, you’d be grateful to the servant for sure, but you might well feel grateful to the owner as well. And it may be that this wealthy man’s relationship with his neighbors and the whole economy that he’s part of is going to change for the better because of what this servant does. He’s going to be known as a generous, merciful man. And maybe in the end, that matters more to this particular master than the hundred percent return of principal. Now, the dishonest manager was not a faith driven investor. Jesus tells us that his motivation was fear. He was a fear driven investor. And yet he prioritized relationship over transaction. He took meaningful risks. And he seeks non-financial outcomes that may not just benefit him, but benefit his master in the bigger picture. If a fear driven investor does that. What’s it, faith driven investors Bedi? Imagine if Christian finance was defined by loving people, taking meaningful risk and pursuing real justice and repair in the world with money as the instrument of those ends.

We would end up with a lot of friends who would welcome us, perhaps even the eternal dwellings and the master we serve, who is not in the money business, but in the redemption business, we’ve got so much glory and we’ll get to welcome so many more people into his house because of the way we steward what was his all along.

Henry Kaestner: Welcome back to the fate of an investor podcast, great episode today we’ve got two awesome guests to help us to understand the concept of permanent capital. And we live in Silicon Valley, which is really the capital of venture capital, if not more broadly, private equity. And it’s interesting that we’re going to be looking at this topic today with two guys that really come from a background of venture capital at the very highest levels, talking to us about a new model that we really all think might transcend the 10 year lifecycle of a fund, as Henry mentioned.

William Norvell: A big thing we want to dig into is you both have a lot of experience in capital raising, both as entrepreneurs and as venture capitalist, as a lawyer, as an investment banker. I mean, I personally think you really redeemed yourself. I mean, going from law investment banking. I mean, that’s where, you know, the magic happens. I know people see them and much, much better light. I like the journey you’ve taken here now, but this permanent capital idea. Walk us through it. What is it? Where does it come from? Is it something brand new? Is something that’s old that people are finding again? What is the essence of it and why are you too fascinated by it? Well, I can start with that.

Tom Blaisdell: I got fascinated by it when I was doing this research up at Tuck and they came at it from two different angles. One was clearly the returns angle. I was always been a big fan of Warren Buffett and Charlie Munger and what they’d been doing, a Berkshire Hathaway, and they had, you know, their famous saying, know, our favorite holding period is forever. And they had this holding company, which is in essence a permanent capital structure for the companies that they’re buying that give them lots of leeway to pursue their growth strategies and their missions individually as well. I also took it from the point of view of the entrepreneur, though, and that’s really where I thought I saw the whole and the market was, as I said, look, I want to get more involved in mission driven entrepreneurs. You know, a mission driven on tour is on a mission. Most of the investors out there that they’re going to pair up with are on a mission to make more money. And this might be a good time to talk about a really important differentiation I make between investors and what I call capital allocators and thinking. I think all the people who are listening to this podcast should be recasting in their mind, thinking to themselves as a capital allocator as opposed to an investor. And the simple differentiation is an investor. Invest money to make more money. That’s what their job is. A capital allocator. Their job is to allocate capital to worthy endeavors while respecting and honoring the value of the capital. Capital is not free. Capital has costs. It has to be respected. That’s what the parable of talents is about. But the capital needs to be allocated to what I would consider you would consider the individual investor a worthy cause. So if you’re thinking of your job as being a steward to the capital entrusted to you, that means being a trustworthy allocator of capital, not just an investor. And I just want to say this is an extra degree of difficulty. Being a good investor is very hard. Being responsible allocator of capital is even harder. Warren Buffett and Charlie Munger had this concept, the too hard pile. Generally, it’s a good idea. Keeps you focused on your specific giftedness or your core competencies. But within your circle of competence, you need to be responsible in what you’re investing in. And one thing I want a big takeaway from this podcast to be is don’t put values align investing in the too hard pile. This is important. This is worth doing. And, you know, John can talk more about how he made that transition to taking that out of the too hard pile and putting it into action of going from an investor to actually starting a business like that.

Henry Kaestner: So I want to get into that a bit and actually dystrophin on what William was just talking about in terms of career progression. John had I think about that T-shirt which talks about the evolution of man. So it starts off life as an attorney, then investment banker and then venture capitalist being a higher form of life and now maybe the highest form of life, being a missional entrepreneur in a permanent capital type of structure. Maybe we might even get some feedback from the audiences, what they think that makes sense or not, or if there’s a next progression in the in the evolution. But I actually really like the way that that’s gone in in that it connotes that there are some aspects of venture capital or private equity that may have some limitations to it. So maybe it can deal with Tom and and Jon. I’d love to get your comments on this, too, when we talk about permanent capital. And I think that I’m glad that you brought Berkshire Hathaway. It’s a model that a lot of people can be comfortable with and familiar with. But what are some of the inherent limitations to the traditional private equity and venture capital model that maybe permeate capital solves for.

Tom Blaisdell: Absolutely. Yeah, first and foremost. Traditionally, all venture capital funds are private equity funds have a 10 year structure, which is, you know, they raise a fun one hundred million dollars, a billion dollars, 10 billion dollars for the big P funds, and that as a 10 year life. And normally they’re going to invest, make new investments in the first three years and then spend the next seven years harvesting those investments. And so a typical model for a private equity investment, for example, is they want three to five backs in three to five years. So they want to put. Money end. They went to work it for three to five years and they want to get the money out. Similarly, on the venture capital side, especially the early stage folks coming into the series A, Series B, we know that out there, the time period from initial investment to liquidity event, which is either getting an M&A getting bought out or an IPO has been extending from, you know, typically used to be five years, seven years, 10 years, 12 years. And we know that’s getting longer and longer. But those are the first two constraints just built in to the venture capital. Private equity models is that 10 year fund life now immediately put that up against the perspective of the Michigan entrepreneur who is building a multi decade or maybe even a multigenerational business to attack a problem that’s very important to them.

You know, what that means is you’re going to have to recapitalize their business every three to five years that they’re using private equity or every seven to 10 years if they’re using venture capital money. And I’m not saying that that model is broken. That’s a terrific model that’s created tons of creative power and financial success for venture capital and private equity. The whole I saw in the market was these longer term thinking mission driven on tourism. I’ll just take one more moment to talk about, you know, there isn’t every entrepreneur mission driven. Sure. They all say, oh, here, here’s our mission. We got our mission. We’ve got a vision. I have to test for what’s my definition of a mission driven entrepreneur. The first question is, and this isn’t I don’t sort of ask this, but it’s what comes out in a conversation. And as you ask what they’re doing right now. And you’re gonna get two answers read and get some that essentially you talk to the CEO of a startup, ABC, or private equity backed startup. They’re either going to need a description that says, this is my current gig. This is what I’m working on right now. And if you talk to mission driven entrepreneur, they’re gonna be telling you about their life’s passion, their life’s work. They wouldn’t know what they would be doing if they weren’t doing this. That’s question number one. Question number two is. And this is more perhaps from the investor’s point of view, but also a lot of funds from the private equity CEO’s point of view is always begin with the exit in mind. I never make an investment if I don’t know what the X is going to look like on the other end. When you’re talking to a mission, you’re an entrepreneur. They say, what’s an exit? We’re not exiting. We’re solving a problem. This is our mission. This is our cause. This is what we’re here to do. And so now you have these mission driven operators that are fundamentally different than the other entrepreneurs. And now if you take a traditional again, let’s go back to that venture capital model. So now you go out, you raise your share easy. And all these people, you need growth, growth, growth, growth, growth.

You raise your series A. Then your series B, then you need your series C, then you need your series D.

It’s hard to find the money in each round. Now find people that have values alignment in each of those rounds. Or even just financial incentive alignment. In each round in terms of what their timeframe is, et cetera. Keeping that alignment, this is almost more than just about the permanent capital. It’s about the alignment of the capital. And that just becomes increasingly impossible in that traditional venture model. And then private equity model, it’s essentially we have a mission for three to five years. We don’t have a mission for 20 or 30 years. We have a mission for thirty five years. And that’s do just start right out of the gate with some serious alignment problems.

Henry Kaestner: John, you’ve been on all sorts of different angles on this from the venture capital world, more permanent capital entrepreneur. How would you respond to permanent capital and make the case for that as something that really helps support mission?

John Denniston: We imagine somebody gives you a choice, an immediate payment of one million dollars or a magic penny that doubles every day for 30 days. Tell me, which do you choose?

Cash upfront, million dollars. I bet you the answer is number two. OK. That is correct. Would you hazard a guess? You can’t put your calculator right now. I’m watching you. Yeah.

OK. If you got a penny at a doubled every day for 30 days, what is in your bank account at day 30?

Henry Kaestner: Tell me what can be more than a million dollars? We know that many of the owners say it’s going to be a big number. Go with three point seven form billion dollars.

John Denniston: Man, are you smart that rounds to the five million dollars that it is, OK. That’s the idea in our minds.

Deusen. Is it five million or five Divino I hinders that billion. OK. I don’t know.

William Norvell: I think I now know we have a recording Henders a billion here. Smart enough to the right answer. But math, you know, still working on it.

John Denniston: Henry thinks big everything specked. The answer is five million dollars. Five million dollars. OK. That is an astonishing phenomenon. It’s wonderful. So wonderful that Albert Einstein called that compounding the eighth wonder of the world. Now, that’s the idea. And so who knows? Ten year convention came in to the private equity and venture capital world, I imagine, in my mind’s eye. The early funds, they find some investors categories that don’t even exist today. And the investor said, well, certainly I’ll get my money back. And so the people raised in the voice, OK, well, 10 years will give your money back. I mean, something like. But there’s no rhyme or reason. Here’s what it does from perspective of Eighth Wonder of the World. It interrupts it. Imagine that you take your penny and 10 days in the compounding stops or slows down for a while, or you don’t get the full 10 days amount because there’s a fee that you pay somebody and then you have to find a reinvestment. And by the way, you’re doubling with the penny that you had. And what you’re reinvested in is not doubling. It’s five percent growth every year. So from a financial perspective, there is a permanent capital movement taking place right now and there’s a lot of the big money coming into it. Blackstone has raised hundreds of billions of dollars on this Apollo. I think roughly half of their assets under management are in roughly the category of permanent capital. Last week, KKR and our private equity firm bought an insurance company. That’s how Berkshire Hathaway began. That was an insight for the purpose of getting more permanent capital. So here’s the point. And now I’m coming around to answering your question. How is that relevant to redemptive imagination? The gospel in the market? How is that relevant? Because the same principle applies. Imagine there is a for profit company also delivering the gospel into the market in some form or fashion chaplains, poverty alleviation, education, health, you name it. Romans twelve says many parts of one body. Right. A lot of different ways to deliver the gospel into the market. OK, well, imagine you have invested in a company that’s doing that really well, making a difference in the world. And compounding the gospel on the market over time at your 10, you’re going to want to keep going with that from a redemptive perspective. And so the idea is to allow the eighth wonder of the world to be realized for both financial return and from a redemptive perspective, both.

Henry Kaestner: So it makes a big impression on me. And I think that also building off of that dynamic, which is not just the concept of compounding interest in financial return and not interrupting that, it is suboptimal time. One of the reasons why Solomon’s Capital Fund, we want to twelve year funds because we saw so much agitation from co-investors in your six and seven. Looking for an exit and then taking less a lower price. But because they had to get out. It just doesn’t make sense if you’re getting the flywheel going on, really figuring out product market fit and really scaling a business to get out just in an arbitrary time doesn’t seem to make sense. Permanent capital headset. But even more powerfully, more powerfully, I think on the spiritual side, when Tom talks about an entrepreneur warm coming about this because this is their mission and their consuming thing, especially if it has a gospel integration to have somebody on your cap tables like I’m with you. I also see this as life mission, and we’re going to go, hey, let’s do this together and let’s not talk about the exit. Let’s talk about the mission. Let’s talk about it. How to reinforce success without any type of artificial, arbitrary type of thing of needing to get out. That would seem to be powerful as an investor and it maybe having a strategic advantage, because we all know if we’re in the fund business, it’s all about deal flow. And it’s the getting the looks at the deals, which means that you need to be able to show an entrepreneur that there’s something special about you and your partnership that’s different. If you can say to an entrepreneur whose life has a mission is going to come on board with you and I don’t need to get out. That would seem to give you an advantage versus a different funding vehicle that says we love you, but we love you for six and half years.

Tom Blaisdell: I saw a great cartoon. It was people sitting across the desk, each other. And one person was saying to the other one. Think of it as permanent capital that you have to get back in three years.

So not permanent capital. So investing, not again, is moving from being ambassador to being a capital allocator. You’re not just investing your dollars for the high to maximize your return, but you’re investing your dollars to solve a problem that matters to God. I picked that phrase up actually from a podcast you guys had recently, I think was Dick Blanc from Cedarville University. Somehow I pulled out from what are you saying? Were solving problems that matter to God. And there may be a terrific investment opportunity around doing the next caffeinated hard seltzer. But is that a problem that matters to God, you know? Or is there something where you’re leaning in and saying, you know, even when times are tough, I can continue to lean in?

Because what we’re doing matters to God. And by the way, if it’s a problem that matters to God, there will be an investment return profile there as well. This is, of course, separated from philanthropy. And I don’t know if you get into that. William and Henry, on any of your other podcasts, have, you know, where is that line? And that’s certainly an interesting topic in itself. But I think what we’re talking about here are real investments with real market returns, capital Honorine Returns. But, you know, it’s capital with a mission, not a deadline. And that’s what we’re talking about with permanent capital. And I do think, Kendry, to your point. It’s a differentiated value proposition.

William Norvell: OK, Tom. John, this may be self-proclaimed self-proclaimed provocative person on the show here. Some here in this. And I’m entrapped. I’m in. I’m actually thinking, you know, why would I ever work for someone that doesn’t have personal capital? Why would I ever tell an entrepreneur to take money from someone who’s not permanent capital? I mean, this is good Kool-Aid here. And Tom, you made a comment earlier. The tenure model wasn’t totally broken, that it had value. But I want to dove in back. I think someone could listen to this and both an entrepreneur award investor and say, well, that’s the only model. I mean, clearly, you’ve made a compelling case. That’s what God would value, is that you’re along for the mission. You don’t have investors pounding on your door. You know, you can build the company as long as you want, you know, and and, of course, God requires companies to sell and opportunities come along. We always have to be looking for that.

But, man, I would never take money from a tenure fund that doesn’t feel God honoring. Let me ask that question. Is that how you guys feel? And you’re welcome to feel that way. I’m just interested in where you stand today as you’ve done this research over so many years.

John Denniston: So I think it’s an excellent question. William, let me offer this perspective.

As I said, there is a growing market for permanent job, but there’s also a growing market for impact, redemptive imagination, startup companies that integrate financial and redemptive for secular impact. There’s the equation that I use to describe the current dynamic in that marketplace of capital and ideas.

See is greater than I. That is to say, the volume of impact capital currently exceeds the volume of great breakthrough impact or redemptive business ideas. That’s a problem, but it’s also a creative opportunity. And Christian entrepreneurs should consider attacking that with all the creativity God gave them in new novel ways to integrate finance and business with redemptive imagination. That’s an opportunity. And we’re in the early days of it. And so the thing that I’ll say about shifting offers impact and permanent. We’re combining the two in this podcast. But on permanent Kamper Watch is a permanent capital investor. Want permanent capital investor wants a high probability of permanence. The penny keeps on doubling every single day. So a demonstrated momentum that, yeah, I’ll put my money in for more than 10 years. But if I’m a university endowment or insurance company or pension plan, maybe 20 or 30 or 50, maybe there’s no limit on it. Something like that. But for me to feel good about doing it, I want to see momentum that just me a strong feel. This has some competitive differentiation and that’s going to keep on going. That’s what Warren Buffett has done successfully, a virtual ask away. The last thing I’ll say on this. Likewise for faith driven investor would like to see the same thing. To make a permanent investment in a redemptive imagination company. See the momentum and the success that gives you a very good feeling that that redemptive activity will continue to compound going forward.

Henry Kaestner: It’s if the world you know, as I’m thinking about this, I’m thinking of venture capital and private equity are getting a little bit potentially of a bad rap. Now, to be clear. Part of me looks at this through the lens of an entrepreneur. Most of my life has not been as an investor, has been as an entrepreneur. And I know how it’s really encouraging when you’ve got somebody alongside strapped in mass with you. Just like I’m in it with you. And I’m nothing about exit, but it also makes me think about the role that venture capital plays in. I’d be remiss if I didn’t talk about that with two guys who spent a lot more time in venture capital than I. But I think that there’s maybe an occasion, I think particularly in both. Have you made significant investments overseas in emerging markets? John, you’re living that out right now. But as I think about deploying capital overseas in places like East Africa where they need startup capital, and you look at and say, gosh, there’s a generation right now of entrepreneurs that need capital, but this can be another generation of entrepreneurs who get a new capital seven or eight years. So if I have a certain amount of money to invest, if I invest in these people and it’s tied up for 30 years or 40 years, then I’m not able to invest in the next generation. But it strikes me that you won’t invite those entrepreneurs into this partnership. Like, here’s the money Amen invest in you. And to be clear, my model dictates that I don’t need to get this money back out six or seven years. I get a 10 year fund because you’re going to participate. The returns that you have are going to be part of what provides the startup capital for the next generation of faith driven investor in Nairobi. That’s why I’m looking for an exit, because we want to continue to invest in. And you going to be a part of that story before we completely and I want to get back to permanent capital to be clear it, before we completely dismiss all of venture capital in its redemptive purpose. Do you want to either you want to riff on that and comment on that?

Tom Blaisdell: Absolutely. Henry, and you’re exactly right about the role. Venture capital plays a very specific role. Right. And if you think about it in the typical sense, you’re putting that venture. It’s venture money. It’s very risky money at a very early time, at a point where that company’s going to be growing like crazy. In fact, there’s a metric out there for SAS companies. Software’s a service company right now, which is a triple, triple, double, double, double. Right. So in the first two years, you triple your revenue and then after that, you’re doubling your revenue. These are amazing growth rates, right? So say you do a million dollars and you’re supposed to do three million dollars, which was nine million dollars and 80 million and 36 million and seventy two million dollars. That is a rocket ship, right? A rocket ship takes a different kind of fuel. And that fuel is the venture capital because they’re investing in these hits misses. And some of those rock chips are going to get, you know, escape velocity and go into orbit and be amazing. And a lot of you are going to blow up on the launchpad. And so you’re invested in that super risky period of the company, which is that first 10 years and really more like the first three to five years of the company. Right. So that’s the role of venture capital. If you sort of zoom out, though. Venture capital is only a appropriate fuel for a tiny segment of all the companies that are going to get started in the world. Right. So every thousand companies that get start, including the local bagel shop or a car wash or a paving company, they don’t need venture capital. Right. So already we’re talking about out of 1000 companies, one of them needing venture cap. Now, within that world are the same people, again, as I had defined as these mission driven opener’s building, multi decade or multigenerational companies. And maybe they’re trying to build it on a more sustainable path. They’re not going to do the triple, triple, double, double, double, but they’re going to try and get profitable sooner. There’s something called the Evergreen Journal, which has specifically been de Borten is building this community of evergreen businesses that are, you know, sort of safe and sane, profitable growth businesses.

And that’s a terrific, different way to go. And then I’ll finally just fall back on the fact what I said at the top of being a capital allocator versus an investor. It’s hard. So I came out, you know, bright eyed, bushy tailed, come out of the academic world. I’m going to go to permanent capital. Right. William And the next thing I know, I’ve got three or four angel investments in a series seed going out to raise the series A, Series B, you know, it’s who I am. It’s where I live. It’s the network I have. It’s the model that I know works. And, you know, obviously, we’re very important Vestas to have in that ecosystem as well. And to have at least one investor on your cap table who’s able and you know this very well from sovereigns cap. And even just having one mission driven, faith driven investor in your cap table is a huge encouragement to the CEOs. I’m still working at this coal face. Henry of. We get more of that permanent capital to actually, you know, extend out to more of those companies that aren’t the traditional targets gonna triple, triple, double, double.

Henry Kaestner: Makes me think about something from in and out burger, like a menu item before we come back into permanent capital. From your perspective to what you see as the redemptive purpose of venture capital.

John Denniston: Yeah, I think that the question of redemptive verse is venture capital. They’re both good. So venture capital has provided the fuel for a great many discoveries and innovations that have done good in the world.

A great many. Now, there’s a current debate about is all of that good?

I don’t want to get into that, but you can read about that every single week or day in the newspaper. Get into it. So what did the focus on hypergrowth. Is very good and helpful. Or if it’s just.

Well, the purpose of the company to begin with and its method and its integrity and and and and all of that. All of that, you can read about it. I’m not taking a side much, but, you know, so. Yeah, sure. Is hypergrowth required? Are there different ways to go about growth that, you know, all of that. But it’s a hard growth, but also what’s the purpose of the company? And redemptive companies are declaring some of them a dual purpose. Financial return. Yes. But also redemptive return through their imagination. A dual purpose.

Henry Kaestner: Tell us about that redemptive and mental purpose that you’ve got it shared. We didn’t spend a lot of time at the outset talking about that. But what of your last five years been? Was it look like as you’ve sought to provide investors that have come along side? And just in a quick disclaimer. We’ve done some convincing to get go done some co-investor together with Tom as well. And we are a shareholder and shared ex and one and without having an exit in mind. But talk to us about the five years that you’ve had and what share tax does is you blend the redemptive purpose and the financial purpose.

Was it look like. Yeah, well, first and Rick, thank you for your confidence and faith in us. And actually, let me just riff off of that. One of the great joys over the past five years has been just the great, amazing set of impact, faith based other investors that are looking to do this, to looking to do this. And so we have investors from North America, South America, Europe and Asia. A lot of different categories, including faith based. And it’s been marvelous, really just one of the great parts of deciding to embark on this adventure. So here’s the Shattuck’s. We’ve designed what we call an inherent impact business model, which is to say that the financial model that we have designed inherently produces impact in lifting smallholder farmers or deploying regenerative responsible farming methods. And correspondingly, the fact that we are doing good in the world itself brings financial benefit because the market wants more of that. It’s in the data. Consumer markets, work or markets.

Capital markets are all there’s this triple up shift and demand curves for purpose, and it’s gone largely unseen under cover of darkness over the past five or 10 years. And so companies that decide in an authentic way to come in to combining the two have a very good surprise in front of them, which is they’re going to be embraced to some degree by the triple up shift in those demand curves. So the question that I want a bridge off that a little bit, when you find investment vehicles like yours and others that have a redemptive purpose in them and where somebody can be brought into the mission. Do you ever see a danger with capital sources coming in and possibly distorting the market? Give me an example. Company comes out and there’s some redemptive part of what they’re doing. And it’s a feel good story. They’re providing employment or they’re feeding people and because of their redemptive purpose on the economic side. So maybe they’re doing a million dollars of top line. Maybe they’re going at 20 percent and they come out and they say, well, we’re going to raise two million dollars and we do that at thirty five million primary valuation. That would seem to be at odds with where they are in terms of their numbers. But it’s a really good story. People love the impact they’re making. Do you see any danger there? How do you think about pricing those deals? It’s a lot of the people they can be listening to. This is like I get it. I get it. I’m listening in favor of an investor podcast motivated by my faith. I want to see a redemptive edge in what I’m doing. But I also want to still be a really good investor. And how do I think about valuing these companies at the entry point? I get what you’re saying in this episode of the podcast you’re talking about. Let’s not focus so much on the exit, but how do I think about the entry and how do I provide counsel to the entrepreneur about the right entrance valuation riff on that bit?

Sure. Short answer is the market determines that. And.

Henry Kaestner: Lynette, but so the market determines that at a particular time, so if a company is raising a million dollars and you’re saying I’m going to raise 20000 kids from five different people in your practice, have you ever seen a situation where they are able to raise money at an out of market valuation that then hurts them longer term, that it took them too long to grow into that valuation?

John Denniston: I’m sure that happens. I’m sure that happens as it does in the venture capital world. I’m sure it does. And so, yeah, just that put a risk if, you know, there’s a down round and that company’s future. Definitely. So that poses a risk for both conventional and a redemptive company. And I’m very sure that happens.

Henry Kaestner: Yeah. Tom, talk to us about entrance valuations, whether it’s in venture capital, but then especially in permanent capital, when you find a business that’s aligned on impact, but because they’re not so much focused on, hey, here’s how you’re going to get triple your money back in four years, we’re gonna be building this for long term. How do you think about entrance valuations?

Tom Blaisdell: Yeah, I think the term that comes up all the time is concessionary returns. Right. Are you willing to accept a concessionary return? So if a venture capital investment supposed to return 20 to 30 percent IRR, you know, on average, should you be willing to suggest that, you know, you’ll do 15 percent or 10 percent?

Tom Blaisdell: And is that okay? It’s so case dependent. And I think this also gets to, you know, how many people have to come around the table. If you have a pool of Perman capital and you can go in and you can fund the series A and B and the C and keep pure people around the table, then this becomes much less important. Right. It’s just we all decide how much equity needs to be in the hands of the employees and how much equity needs to be enhancing investors. Once you start getting multiple entities around the table, that’s where the alignment issues really start to perk up. I think this is also. And again, this is why William Perman capital isn’t the answer to all the problems right now, because while there’s a lot of permanent capital out there, there really is. It’s not in structures that are very easy for entrepreneurs to tap into. And I know that’s probably one question I want to talk about is where can you go find this permanent capital? But I think one thing, if you think of one source of Perman capital, especially in the faith driven investor movement, it’s going to come from family offices. Right. Family foundations, family endowments, high net worth individuals. And those people need to be more active in aligning, you know, the why of how their money is being invested. There’s a general problem in economics and investing called the principal agent problem. Right. Which is that the principal, who’s the one who’s putting up the money and the agent who say is the general partner in the fund have different incentives. Right. In terms of like how quickly they put out the money, how much they charge for fees, how quickly they sell the company and, you know, decisions they might make internal to the company about sharing the wealth with employees and how they treat their communities and things like that. So there’s a principal agent problem. I actually see that sort of expanding into a principal agent, agent, agent, agent problem, which is, you know, you have the high net worth individual who has the estate planner, who hires a money manager, who puts it into a fund of funds, who puts it into a venture capital fund, who hands it to a general partner. You now have five agents in that chain who are all making different alignment choices. So, Henry, when you said his venture capital, good or bad, I think that all too easy answer is it’s very simple for venture capital to be a moral right. It’s just it’s neither good or bad. This is what it is. And normally what’s said when the money is given is maximize my value, maximize the return on my investment within the bounds of legality.

That’s the guardrails. Don’t break any laws, but otherwise maximize my return.

That’s how you know, clearly something like Jewel, the vaping company, can get funded and can make a ton of money for investors. And it’s within the guardrails. It’s legal. But is that what that principle? All the way back at the beginning, that change is now with the principal wanted to do. And that’s why I think the principals are the ones that have to take the responsibility or to pull that chain back in and say, I want to be in direct communication with the agent, whether that’s Henry and William, sovereign’s capital or somewhere else.

And I want to make sure we’re on the same page about where our guardrails are, which are gonna be different than what the guardrails of society at large are.

Henry Kaestner: That has got to be an episode on podcasts. We’ve got to unpack that. The principal agent, agent, agent. Do you think about some of the the very large venture capital funds that have been known for saying you want to know what our investment thesis is and how we invested seven deadly. You want to know why we made investment? Jordache. That’s easy. SLOSSON Gluttony. Well, it did. All the LP is all the people who provide that money behind the investment. Did they know that or is that a victim of this whole principle agent, agent, agent thing? There’s a lot there. We need to come back to that.

Tom Blaisdell: I think the people listening to your podcasts here are interested in having their capital solving problems that matter to God. And if you’re listening to this podcast and you care about your capital, you’re stewarding, working to solve problems that matter to God. You’re going to get closer to the agents that you’re working with to make sure that’s happening.

William Norvell: That’s a great point, Tom. And yeah, it’s a great lead on. It’s the same in the public markets, right? You give either through a money manager or either through an ETF or most people have no idea what their money is in. And there’s people out there trying to solve that problem to at some level. But it’s a similar issue that I think God obviously all of us here agree. I think they got cares about that right. At some level. Probably each of us have different levels of where we think that matters. But so we did open a big topic. We had 45 minutes to get through permanent capital. How it impacts entrepreneurs, the pros, the cons. It’s a huge idea. I’ve really just thank you both for doing that with us. I would encourage anyone to read Tom’s paper. I think it does a great job in three to four pages of talking about the pros and cons, transaction costs and return thresholds and and all these different things that come about the structure and a really eloquent way. So I know we’ll link to that. And as we wrap up, one of our favorite things to do is connect our listeners to our guest through the word of God. And so if you wouldn’t mind sharing a quick bit on maybe where God has you in his word, that could be this morning. Something you read or heard. It could be a season that maybe God has you in meditating on a specific verse or story. Can any of those things we loved know what God’s word is and how it’s coming alive to you during this time today?

John Denniston: Yeah. Thank you, William, for me. I recently have been reflecting quite a bit on Matthew 13. The parable of the sower and the seed that falls on good soil yields one hundred sixty thirty fold. And so for me, I think spiritually seeing that in a new and fresh light. But also, this is true of a great number of Jesus parables based on agriculture, farming, because people could understand it. So, I mean, and actually a shirt ex were working on yield enhancement as one of the things that we do. So, yeah. Matthew 13, the parable of the Sower. Good word.

Tom Blaisdell: We recently just wrapped up an eight week sermon series actually stretching all the way back to Easter on Hope, which was really terrific and so timely for so many reasons. Just a timestamp. This we’re in month five of the pandemic, the Cauvin pandemic now. And in California, we just went back into a more tighter form of lockdown.

One of the key learnings for me in that series was that in Jesus’s day, hope would have been considered a character flaw, wishful thinking, by most of the mainstream religions and philosophies of the day. But the burse that we keyed on throughout the entire series was Romans 15, 13, made the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in him so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit. So Paul is calling God the God of hope. For Christians, hope is a virtue, not a flaw. It’s a feature, not a bug. And so hope is very different from optimism, of course. Optimism is just the expectation that things are going to turn out well. Hope, as explained in the sermon series, is a combination of imagination, desire and importantly, belief. Its trust in God. Right. And so Psalm 27, some trust in chariots and some in horses. But we trust in the name of the Lord, our God. When your revenue goes down 97 percent. Who do you trust and where is your trust? Where’s your hope? Right. It’s not in your bank balance. Not your contingency plan. It’s not your all star board or your reseize. Nobody can or should have had a business contingency plan for this kind of havoc that’s going on in the market right now. It doesn’t matter whether you’re an ant or a grasshopper all summer. Right. When your business literally goes to zero or all night, whether you were putting away stuff or whether you were playing, when your revenue goes to zero, it doesn’t matter. So where is your hope? And so the path is it’s been speaking to me is Isaiah 40 31, which says that those who hope in the Lord will renew their strength, they will soar on wings like eagles. They will run and not grow weary. They will walk and not be faint. We’ve been called to a mission that’s much greater than our personal comfort or sustainability. And so, again, I just close with don’t put faith driven investing in the too hard pile. Invest in just causes. Because it’s our joy to do this work together.

Henry Kaestner: That’s a great word, guys. I’m very grateful. Pray to you. Thank you for spending time. Thank you for your leadership in the movement. Thank you for being with us today.

Tom Blaisdell: Thank you so much. And Ray, William, Tom, thank you so much.

Henry Kaestner: As we finish up, we like to spotlight a ministry that is locking arms with our listeners. We know that many listening to the show are business owners and entrepreneurs looking to live out your faith in the marketplace. So this week, we want to make sure everyone knows about the faith driven entrepreneur. It’s a weekly podcast, a monthly newsletter, a daily blog, along with other video Bible studies and events that help you get provisioned for. Journey you are on. Check it out at Faith Driven Entrepreneur, dawg.