Henry Kaestner: If you’ve listened to this before, you know that I like to say this is a very special edition and this is indeed true. This is actually the first time we’ve ever had an investor and two entrepreneurs on the podcast at the same time. First, a word about the investor. Jeff is a good friend of mine and we’ve traveled the world together, or at least we’ve traveled to Africa together. But Jeff has been a great encouragement. We’ve done a lot of co-investing together. A man really serious about his faith, committed to the movement of Faith Driven Investor and is a part of this story we’re about to hear. But before we meet Paloma and Keren. Jeff, welcome to the program. It’s so great to have you. This is your first time on the program. Did you sleep well last night?

Jeff Kahler: Yes, I did.

Henry Kaestner: Good, good. Okay. And we’ve got Keren and Paloma with us as well. And the two of you are with Ethical Apparel Africa, you co-founded together. Welcome to the program. Really glad you’re here.

Keren Pybus: Thanks for having us.

Henry Kaestner: Awesome. We like to get an autobiographical flyover of all of our guest as we get started. And I’m going to go back to my friend of many words, Jeff Kahler and ask it. He do that first and then I to go back to Paloma and Keren. And I want you guys to each take a turn. Talk about who you are, where do you come from, and then bring us into the work of ethical apparel. And then we’ll have a great conversation from there. So, Jeff, you start, please.

Jeff Kahler: Okay. Well, I’m an old guy who is in a business his whole life, been a believer, follower of Christ since I was in high school and I spent my career as the CFO of multiple operating businesses. My background, I’m a CPA, and over time, that business background has morphed into working for a wealthy family and helping them invest. We’re Christians, and we just have a strong motivation to do good with our capital, not just be able to provide funding through foundation of money, but actually use the capital for, you know, the work in the kingdom. And, you know, we just have a strong belief that we want to be lovers in the world and care for people and be very missional with our capital.

Henry Kaestner: Indeed. Indeed. And that what is what unites you to our audience. Paloma and Keren, tell us each about your story and maybe work. Well, yeah, start at the beginning. But I do want you to talk about how you guys connected.

Keren Pybus: Right. So I’m Karen. I am English. In case you hadn’t worked that one out from my accent. I was born and brought up in the UK, but I spent some of my early life living in Tanzania when I was in my gap year and that kind of ignited my love for Africa. I was there with the Mission Aviation Fellowship a long time ago and really I ended up in the textiles and fashion world through lack of being good at much else things. But I think probably now realizing that that was what God brought me to. So I studied it and I worked for a couple of very large retailers in the UK across merchandizing and sourcing, which took me eventually to Bangladesh, where I started the George clothing sourcing office for the UK supermarket retailer Asda, which was owned by Wal Mart at the time, and started looking at how we source our clothing from Bangladesh in a different way. And that got me really excited about being close to the needle point and understanding what manufacturing really was about and how you could impact workers lives. And then I think really my faith has always been a core part of the vicar’s daughter. I am now married to a vicar as well, so I’ve kind of had that shaped all the way through my life. But for me it was a real moment of realizing that I wanted to do something that was going to shape an industry that had so many bad things about it and workers being treated in so many bad ways. And I had moved from Bangladesh to South Africa with Wal Mart as well. And when they were starting a business there and as I started there, a friend of mine called me with a prophetic word and said, But if you want to walk on the water, you’ve got to get out of the boats. And I thought for that, that was doing something terrifying. I was 40, I was single. I was like, I can do anything I want. I’ve lived in Dhaka and Bangladesh. You know what’s terrifying? I didn’t know what terrifying looked like. I was looking for it. And then my sister sent me the oceans Hillsong, which said the same thing basically. So I carried on looking for what the terrifying thing was and then realized that I didn’t feel scared of anything. So I was looking for different jobs. And then one day I got made redundant eighteen years into working for one big company and. I just I didn’t know what to do with myself, but I ended up being in Africa on gardening leave for six months. And so I was able to travel around and ended up in Ghana actually with a different company doing some consultancy work and realized this incredible opportunity there. And that was how I met Paloma, she who was also consulting for the same company in Ghana as well. And so we met in the country with this united vision about how did you take an industry that can create so many jobs and therefore create so much change in this incredible environment that had this incredible history but hadn’t really turned into an industry that was growing. And then I to cut a long story short, and I’m sure you’ll ask more about this, when we started, the company realized that actually being a CEO of the company was my walking on the water. It was the thing I was absolutely terrified about. I am terrified about on a daily basis. And the only way to get through being a CEO is to have God as your chairman and being able to know that you’ve got hope and trust in the person that created you and the person that’s giving you the vision to do the good work. And that’s my walking on the water.

Henry Kaestner: It’s fascinating. And we talk a lot about a Faith Driven Entrepreneur that entrepreneurship can be a lonely journey and what’s baked into that is an entrepreneur is their CEO, and it can be a lonely journey, but it doesn’t need to be. It’s kind of our tagline, a rallying cry, so to speak. And it’s fascinating that against a backdrop of having tried and been in so many crazy, crazy places, that the terrifying experiences, indeed the lonely journey that it might be to be a CEO. If you don’t understand that it sounds petty and cliche that God is my copilot. Right? But as it turns out, you also have a co-founder, the wonderful Paloma, who’s with us as well. Paloma, who are you? Where do you come from?

Paloma Schackert: Yeah, thanks. It’s great to be here. We have just been so impressed and overwhelmed by the support of this community. So, yeah, wonderful to be speaking with you guys. I am originally from Seattle, born and bred, but similar to Keren had these opportunities early in life when I was 14 – 15 to spend a lot of time in emerging economies. And actually for me it was more in Latin America initially in the Dominican Republic and other countries. And those experiences really pushed me around, kind of reflecting as to the privilege and opportunity I had in my family, especially through the economic empowerment of women. And this is something that I think about a lot in terms of the generations of history where my generation has been the first that I think has grown up as girls being told, you know, you can do anything you set your mind to. And my mom’s generation even didn’t have that. And yet she went on to have an amazing career in sales and had, you know, 200 people reporting to her around the world and was a real outlier. And being able to do that as a woman and as a mom and her mother also was one of the first in her family to go to college, worked at a time where her husband wasn’t able to work and really held up the family economically. And then on my dad’s side, his mom, my grandmother there was also incredible in being the first teacher in her family and really not only becoming economically empowered herself, but then later in her life working with women in the maquiladoras and the factories in northern Mexico and helping them to create economic opportunity for themselves. And so having these experiences young around being in countries where those opportunities literally do not exist for girls and for women and those examples don’t exist, just really became my kind of path and passion in life in terms of being able to create that opportunity and use my power to try to help other women and girls who wouldn’t otherwise have those paths available to them to create agency in their lives and to be able to feel God’s love through that. And really, my grandmother, that’s kind of when I think about my faith, she’s the shining beacon of that in terms of the the pragmatism of letting that come out through care for others and through letting people have dignity and possibility and hope and the economic opportunity ahead of them so differently from Keren, my background is not at all in garments or apparel. My friends and family when I first went into this industry were like, Are you? Are you kidding? You’re not a fashion person. Like you couldn’t care less about what you wear, which is true and remains true. But when you start to think about the economic opportunities for women in emerging economies, it’s, you know, apparel manufacturing is the obvious industry. It’s the answer to what can support a mother who has not had education opportunities in her life to have a career path within a couple of months. That’s an incredibly powerful thing. So very serendipitously and I’m sure we’ll talk about this more met Keren when I was taking a break doing that what’s called an externship away from I was in management consulting at a large firm at Bain. And saw the opportunity together in Ghana to create this opportunity for women at scale and went from there.

Henry Kaestner: Okay. So I want to hear about Keren and your Bonine as well. I want to hear about how you saw while I get how you saw the opportunities it baked in both of your backgrounds, in your stories. I want to hear about how you got started on that, because there’s a lot there. You’ve got a dream of creating thousands and thousands of manufacturing jobs. You’ve already made a big dent toward that bigger goal that you have. But in order to do that, you’ve got to bring a product to market. Paloma, by your own admission, is not a fashionista, but maybe Keren, as Jeff most assuredly is not. But what does it look like to take a product, bring it to market? And then the other parts, of course, which is how to identify the customer. But maybe the most important of these three things is how do you do what you just said, which is to encourage, inspire, equip, bring hope to, and bring training to and real skills to this population of these women that you’re enabling. What does that look like? And you put out an ad and say, okay, we’re we got a factory, we’re going to get started. I mean, how does that even start?

Keren Pybus: That’s a really good question. And honestly, and this is really it sounds cliché, but it’s honestly, it was God completely because we had this vision to basically prove that ethical manufacturing should be the normal way of doing things. And the ethical manufacturing generally is very linked to high end and luxury goods. And we were like, why can’t it be done at mass scale? And what is stopping it being done at a mass scale? So we started with a vision of an operating model that we still have today where we basically said, if you can create operational excellence within a factory environment, whether that’s lean manufacturing, whether that’s the way that you use renewable energies, however it is, and you can then create something that attracts those orders. And for us, it was export orders and not necessarily making for the African market at that point in time. There is enough money in the system to then generate profits that you can reinvest back into your workers. That, in turn will create operational efficiency by lowering absenteeism, by lowering labor turnover, by giving people a better place to work and a more valuable and sustainable job in what you do. So we created this model, and the obvious thing to do would be to then go down the consultancy route that was Paloma’s background. I had the background of being in the factories to go into factories and say, okay, we’re going to help you be operationally excellent, but actually without any orders. And what we had in Ghana was a whole load of factories that had had money from the government previously but didn’t know how to market themselves, didn’t know how to operate at an international level from a quality, efficiency perspective. If they didn’t have any orders going through those factories and you could make the factory look as beautiful and great as you want, but it weren’t proving a single thing. And so we needed to create a model that meant that we were bringing those orders in. But the timeline of the way that the garment industry works is that you get an order and you don’t get paid for that order for at least nine months to a year after you’ve made it. So you’ve got to finance all the raw materials, you’ve got to do all of that stuff upfront, you’ve got to pay all of your workers and then the retailer might pay you when you’ve actually delivered the goods. So like, how do we do this? So praying about it, one day we got I got a phone call from a friend of mine who is working for US Aid in Ghana. And the US Aid had started a trade hub where they were specializing in certain industries and looking at growth in certain industries. And the apparel industry was one of those industries and I didn’t know at the time that this friend of mine was suffering from cancer and he needed to subcontract his contract. Now you don’t get a USA contract unless your company’s been in existence for three years. We had been in existence for one week at that point and he called me and said, I need to do this you know and I need to help you with this. And literally, like a week later or something, we had $30,000 given to us by USAID and said, go off and recruit your technical experts to start training in the factories. And we have developed that relationship with U.S. aid and other donor agencies over the last seven years. That has been the reason that really we didn’t need to come to face driven entrepreneur and investors until recently because we’ve had a lot of donor funding believing in what we were doing from a training and a development point of view that enabled us for the first two years to just train factories and develop relationships, develop relationships with brands, and not even need to bring product into the market for that time period. So complete God, just giving us the starting that we needed to be able to do that.

Henry Kaestner: Can you walk us through the life of one of the workers that you have? Just make it real personal. Help us just understand what their life is like and living in Ghana, what their job opportunities have been before you started this together and then what is their life look like now? And maybe even just maybe it’s just a fictional name. You come up with. Maybe it’s somebody real name, but help us to just walk in the shoes of one of your workers a bit.

Paloma Schackert: I can give kind of the overarching structure. And then maybe, Keren, if you want to share a specific person story, I’m thinking even maybe one of the mechanics and you trainees at the factory but so we recently to lay the context have acquired a majority stake in a factory that’s 2 hours outside of Accra, where we first walked into this factory two years ago. There are about 40 people sitting on machines, but there was room to employ 800. And we were just floored because it was the largest industrial space we’ve ever seen in the country. And by the way, in situating Ghana and West Africa from an economic point of view, huge potential. So that’s a big part of the driving reason why Keren and I went there as well. If you look at the duty free rates, the logistics rates, the level of cost competitiveness, where there’s longevity to that cost competitiveness versus what’s going on in Asia and being able to really pay a living wage and create a decent livelihood while still remaining extremely cost competitive. So all of that is kind of laying the groundwork for the opportunity here where there’s heart involved. But there’s also a lot of head involved in the strategy of how Keren and I ended up in Ghana. So we saw this factory a couple of hours outside the capital as a huge opportunity to not only be deliver a competitive manufacturing solution for our clients, but also make a tremendous difference in the lives of the workers and the community that we could create, because the alternative employment opportunities in this region are basically non-existent. We’re now the largest employer. We have about 500 employees at this factory that we majority own. The next largest employer is between 50 and 100 people, and this is in a region of nearly a million people. So the vast majority are employed by completely informal endeavors. And this is actually, from a personal standpoint, a huge driver of and I didn’t kind of tell this part of my story, but I spent time living in Ghana in 2010, working on a philanthropic program to open savings accounts for women in the northern part of the country. And I would speak to a lot of women who were informally employed in the same way that a lot of individuals in Koforidua this region, where we now own our factory are informally employed and we were offering these women savings accounts, we were saying, you know, it’s great to be able to have a savings account and to put money away. And it’s financial literacy and all of these important things. But in the focus groups that I was running, where I would speak to a lot of these entrepreneurs, these women would say to me, I don’t want to be an entrepreneur. I’m not an entrepreneur by choice. I’m an entrepreneur because I don’t have any ability to have a wage where I know that I’m going to have a steady job and be able to put food on the table and send my kids to school. That’s what I would prefer. And I think there’s a lot of romanticizing that happens among the development community around. You know, it’s so great to support entrepreneurs and micro entrepreneurship and, you know, loans and savings and all of the financial mechanisms to help them. And I definitely think there’s value in that to give more financial freedom to people. But ultimately, the vast majority of us in our developed economies want to have a paycheck. And that’s the exact same motivation that I think is present in Ghana and other countries, and those opportunities just aren’t there. So being able to provide that formal that ability to have a steady job and, you know, that kind of basic economic well-being is, yeah, the driver for us.

Keren Pybus: For most of all. To your point about the people, so the vast majority of our factory, 75% of it women and 80% of them are between the ages of 18 and 29. So it’s a very young workforce. People come a lot directly from school. The Government’s done an incredible job recently of making education free up to the age of 18. So it is generally people are leaving school and going into jobs and they will live with families or live with friends so it’s a large groups of people living in one property together. You don’t have. You have some, but it’s not the same kind of slum environment you would find somewhere like Dhaka, where I lived in that sense of factory, particularly as rural. So we’re in a a large market town relatively rather than a city in that sense, very heavily Christian country. 85% of the country is Christian and particularly in our region. So we have Muslims and Christians working with us and we have a team, an expat team and a local team that managed the factory together and an expat local team at our office in Accra of mixed faiths, mixed religions, mixed backgrounds, I think from about 13 different nationalities we employ in total. So for the average worker, their opportunities are limited, particularly where we are, they have a basic education. Most people can read and write, but they haven’t had the ability to learn how to do a job that enables them to. Think outside the box or to progress. So the idea of career progression for a woman there is about you get a job, you leave and you have children and you work your way through the family kind of model in that sense. So being able to support women as they have children, if they want to come back to work as well within there has been a really important part of what we do and we’ve got some great examples of people. A young girl who Florence, who was an operator, obviously had something about her in terms of the way that she handled the fabric, her enthusiasm, the way she did it, the way that her mind was working. We developed her, gave her opportunities to be a sample operator, to do some things differently, and then we put her on to. So we worked very closely with GIZ, the German development organization, and we’ve developed a specific training program with a public institution in Ghana to do specialist training at those kind of middle management technical roles. So most people in Ghana can sew, like you’re brought up with your own sewing machine. That’s kind of the easy part, sewing complicated garments and then doing the next stage of things pattern cutting, mechanics, those things, all skill sets that they don’t have. So we’ve brought this training program in with this training school to be able to do that. And we’ve trained around 150 people across 39 different factories in Ghana, in schools in those areas.

Henry Kaestner: So well beyond the factories that you own.

Keren Pybus: Yes. Yeah. This is not specific to that.

Henry Kaestner: Because I was going to ask the question. So you’ve got this highly trained workforce now. Are you finding that they’re a flight risk and is that something you celebrate or is that something you try to protect against? But you are absolutely trying to just change culture in the skill sets of the populace.

Keren Pybus: Absolutely our vision with more grace, which is the factory owners. It will be a model factory that can teach at the factories. So we regularly have other factories in. We also have partner factories that we also place business in as well that we don’t own. So we have five partner factories that have reached the right level of international compliance and standards that we also work with to develop. And then beyond that, we want to be a light to train the industry and to develop people and move people on. In fact, our compliance manager this week has left to go and run one of the factories and to take on the management of another factory. So we absolutely believe in that and we have a US aid grant that we want as well that is enabling us to do that as well. So the money that we have raised through this investment round, through Jeff’s money has been matched, funded by US aid to effectively double up the investment that we’ve got there into the factory to enable us specifically to do the model factory. And we get measured by U.S. aid on how many factories we are outwardly teaching.

Henry Kaestner: Okay. Gotcha. And so 159 factories a lot. So you presumably your measurement, your grades are pretty good.

Keren Pybus: 39 factories, 139.

Henry Kaestner: So 159 is aspirational then.

Keren Pybus: hundred and 50 people.

Henry Kaestner: Maybe that’s prophetic.

Keren Pybus: Fifty nine factories.

Henry Kaestner: Just go with it.

Keren Pybus: Yeah, that’s right. Yeah. So 159, will start 300 at least?

Henry Kaestner: Sure. So, Jeff, I want to bring you into this again. It’s not every day that we have an investor and the entrepreneur together on the podcast, I guess I doubt our audience knows the back story of how you two met. How did you guys meet?

Jeff Kahler: Yeah, we just met through one of your entrepreneurial days. What do you call those?

Henry Kaestner: Demo days?

Jeff Kahler: Yeah. And these two put on a pretty impressive little demo, and then they have chat rooms afterwards, and I ended up being the only one in the chat room. So it was a great time for Keren and Paloma. And I get to know each other. And you know, as you can tell by listening to these two, they’re very impressive. And we were looking for these kind of things and this just hit all the buttons for me. You know, we’re ethical capitalists. So when you name your business, ethical in your name, that speaks to us. And, you know, we’re looking for ways to partner with people like this. And we also found that we had a lot of interesting connections. I had actually spent a short time, 30 years ago working in West Africa, in the Ivory Coast. I worked for USAID briefly, in fact, because our coast is French speaking, almost all the employees that worked in the USAID office were Ghanaians. And so because Ghanaians largely speak English, they were most of the employees there. So we found that we had that connection. And I’ve always had this heart for Africa, for the kind of the poorest, the poor. And we’ve done some investing in other places in Africa, and we’re just looking for things like this. And it was a good business model. These women were impressive. They have all this interest experienced with Keren. And so we felt like it was a good mix and a good match for us. And it’s just wonderful to be able to have a connection with somebody to about how they operate and and understand what they’re doing and to share our faith. And in that they care about people like we do.

Henry Kaestner: So some number of our audience want know that we have a ministry also called Faith Driven Investor. Faith Driven Investor was started because we found that a good number of faith driven entrepreneurs we came across really did appreciate the content and community we have. We have these groups. And the January, February cohort, we had 1600 entrepreneurs from 66 different countries getting together in groups and learning about the call to create and learning about each other’s stories and just super encouraging. I think the average group probably has members of three or four different countries in them, but we do content, we do community, of course, we do the conference, the blog and the podcast. But we also came to understand the felt need for many entrepreneurs is to raise capital, and that really made a special impact for us, for those entrepreneurs that are in markets like Africa, where there are not a lot of angel investors. And so we started the demo day in the marketplace out of response for that for a group of Faith Driven Investor. And unfortunately, because the way the tax laws work, they tend to have to be accredited investors. We’re working on expanding that through a new partnership we have with we funders. So stay tuned on that. But I actually had known that that you guys had met that way, so that’s a great encouragement. I love hearing that and it’s really neat when the Body of Christ comes together. Tell us a little bit more and we’ve obviously heard some of that through the background. You want to invest in a problem to be solved. You want invest in who’s trying to solve the problem, how big of a problem is it, etc.? What are some of the other things that you’ve picked up on from their story that you look for in a Faith Driven Entrepreneur that you might invest in? What are the things that just they grab you? Obviously Africa is part of it because of your background, but what are some of the other things that if you’re an investor listening to this podcast and saying, okay, I think I want to get involved in investing in Africa, but my goodness, you talk back about the things that Keren listed is terrifying. That sounds kind of terrifying. How did you go about doing it and make it a way that maybe some of you might be able to take action on this listening to this podcast?

Jeff Kahler: Well, it’s a good question because, you know, I do believe that investing in Africa is pretty risky. We’ve done a number of investments, but we are continuing In fact, you probably don’t know this, Henry, but we’ve made two more investments kind of through this Faith Driven Investor Network just in the last three months. Two things that we found on that trip to Africa we’ve invested in. So we’re committed to it, but we’re also lies wide open. You know, there’s supply chain risk, there’s political risk, there’s exit risks, there’s there’s a lot of risks. But so I’m looking for business models that work. I’m a financial guy. I’ve been a CFO for 30 years. I eat, breathe and sleep financial statements and, you know, cost profit margin. So I have a strong belief that if a business isn’t profitable, it’s not sustainable. So I’m looking and we’re kind of willing to take kind of an extra risk, but I’m not really willing to invest in something that doesn’t look like it’s going to be very profitable because I don’t think it’ll survive. And I do kind of believe in the triple or quadruple bottom line that a business needs to work for everybody and be good for everybody, including the owners. You know, my scene I probably told you this, Henry, but that the cost of everything is a sum of its costs. And one of those costs to some of us is the cost of capital. And so business has got to be profitable.

Henry Kaestner: Yeah. Do you, have a rule of thumb, then look at an investment and say, okay, is this going to be the last money they’ll need to raise?

Jeff Kahler: That’s unlikely. So, yeah, you do it. Typically, you need to look at it in the long run and think in terms of am I going to be able to do another round or will they need another round? And if they will, will they be able to get it elsewhere? In our case, we have a fairly large pool of capital to work with, and so our minimum investment that we like to do is too large for angel investing. So we’re looking for bigger things in most cases. And you know, probably the one drawback about long current business that is pretty capital intensive. There’s a lot of equipment, you know, receivables equipment. There’s a lot of it’s a pretty capital intensive business. So it needs a fair amount of money to get going and to sustain it and might need more money, you know, down the line. It’s probably will given the kind of growth that they want. But that’s why we’re here. And I know it’s a real cliche, the whole thing about, you know, giving up a fish to somebody that we have for a day or teaching somebody to fish they’ll fish for a lifetime. But what people really need is a fishing boat. You know, a lot of people know how to fish. They need the fishing boat.

Henry Kaestner: Yeah. So I want to switch it back into Faith Driven Entrepreneur lessons here and say I’m going to hand it back to Paloma and to Keren. But I do want to throw one other thing that I think as you talk about investing in Africa, that I think is good for the audience that are investors and listening to this, I love the way that you talked about profitability. I think that while many of the businesses you might invest in could take in other capital to continue to have a great growth rate. And when you listen to Keren and Paloma, you get a sense that you really want to help them to grow as quickly and as long as they can grow with quality as much as they can. And if they’re just limited to profits, they might, you know, get to their goals in 20 years instead of five years. Some number of them are going to be able to be qualified for bank financing. But one of the things that I think that an investor needs to know is that the larger late round ecosystem for equity deals is not as robust in Africa as it is in America. And sometimes we’ll think, well, we’ve invested in a company and America and it’s going great. They tripled revenues and surely some other venture capital firm will come in and then continue to fund their growth. In this case, one lesson that we’ve learned is that it’s good to have an idea about where the future funding will come from. And to a point that you made is let’s have at least some visibility to where the company could go profitable, even if they have to throttle down their growth rate, lest otherwise we find a company has some success, shows some promise, maybe even has a product market fit. And yet the next round of institutional investors isn’t there yet. I think in five or ten years we’re seeing that developing ecosystem where more and more institutional funders are coming in. But just a word of just caution on something like that. I think that that is mitigated, though, by working with entrepreneurs like this that have these types of longer connections and have this type of a background. But I want to throw back to them, as you have work with investors, they come in to get involved in what God is doing through you. What have you looked for? What are some of the lessons that you’ve learned? What’s maybe been different than maybe you might otherwise have expected?

Keren Pybus: I think the first thing has been the values alignment. So whether they’re being Christian investors or non-Christian investors, having somebody that understands that what we are trying to do is create a profitable business. But it’s more than that. This is about creating a model for the industry, but also about the creation of jobs that are sustainable, worthwhile jobs. And if that means that we reinvest money to be able to get there rather than paying back sooner or what those things are that we have got that heart. And so to find investors that have got that same heart and that passion and are as excited about receiving our impact report and wanting to come visit us and see what we’re doing as they are about receiving the P&L. That’s been a really key thing for us. And so a large percentage of our early round investors were friends, connected friends, people in that kind of industry. And in fact, our seed investor is the ex CFO of Microsoft, and he and his wife have a trust and they provide that perfect balance for us of he’s got the CFO side of things. She doesn’t care about the numbers. She is absolutely passionate about the people and that’s what she wants to know about. So we have these great calls with them where you get the both side of things.

Paloma Schackert: And I think the other element of it is, just as Keren was saying, the individuals who have came on the journey with us are motivated by so many different factors, but also do bring that understanding of what the capital evolution will look like. So our seed investor, John, for example, was pushing us from the very beginning to think about, okay, what is the next round look like? What is the round after that look like? And very clear about what their involvement in that journey would be. Similarly, you know, Jeff and the foundation, absolutely the same mentality of this is not just a relationship of one investment. This is thinking about the long term and wanting that participation over and over again and everyone being excited to do that because the values are so aligned. I’ll give just one other example. There’s an investor we have who this is a private investment he’s making as a high net worth individual. But in his day job, he runs a private equity firm that invests in emerging economies, mostly focused on India so far, but now expanding into East and West Africa. And they would be a perfect fit for our next round, where we’re thinking about raising closer to four or 5 million to stand up a couple more factories. So it’s laying the groundwork through the people that are committed to the journey from multiple angles, but still have that strategy of where does this go from here in terms of growth and scale?

Henry Kaestner: Well answered, great perspective. And I look forward to hearing more how you progress and how you expand and how you bring in the right type of development capital from some of the governments. You mentioned the Germans, how you bring in some of the right type of grant capital from people like USAID and then the right type of investment capital and maybe on a different podcast will get into that kind of destruction in that I can get detailed on that. But with the time we have left, I’d love for you to talk a little bit more about how your faith ends up working its way through to the bottom line worker. And I don’t want to be presumptuous or prescriptive about what that might look like, but how do you see God show up every day and what does that look like in the relationships you have with folks? What are you saying?

Keren Pybus: So prayer is the most important thing because you can’t ground everything in your relationship with God in prayer. Then what else do you have in that sense? And so we have various different networks of things that happen in that area. So we have a prayer group on WhatsApp that any employee of any faith can be on. That’s where we share prayer requests or people or situations or things, and their friends and family can be on that group too, so that they are praying and there’s people praying for that industry. We have personal prayer networks then too as well that we lean on for things that may be a little bit more confidential or things that are personal in that sense. I’m also part of the Faith and business network in the U.K. and there’s also another pro network called Fashion for Christ and based in the UK as well. So those are two other networks that are very, very powerful for me. And then the factory has prayers every day. So they start the day with prayer and they start the day with what they call devotions. And we have a space in the factory for other faiths to be able to pray as well, so that we create that environment of a focus on God and a focus on prayer. And as a board of directors, we pray together in terms of the factory as well. So the later that we’ve acquired the factory with also very strong faith in terms of that being the driving force. And so that really has been the part and then being able to share those answers to prayer. So, you know, those parts where the miraculous has really happened and being able to share back so that even for those that maybe don’t have the same faith or don’t have the same level of faith, see that for us that we see those coincidences being actually a result of prayer and trying to understand where God wants us to go next with what we’re doing, rather than just sort of plowing ahead into what we’re doing.

Henry Kaestner: Paloma, maybe you build on that, but also maybe you take us in another direction. We don’t oftentimes have partners on the podcast together. We have 12 marks of the Faith Driven Entrepreneur you might know about them, but we talk about them, of course, in the book and we talk about them in our courses, etc. And one of them is in partnership. As an investor, as an entrepreneur myself, that’s been blessed three times now with incredible godly men that have encouraged me in my walk with God and I would have been lost without in terms of my business. What are some lessons that you are learning from as partners in this business?

Keren Pybus: That is so horrible when each other goes on maternity leave.

Henry Kaestner: But I’ve never had that problem.

Paloma Schackert: That it’s so great to have somebody who understands it. Yeah, I think I was reflected on this the other day, actually coming back from maternity leave. My daughter is now six months old and Keren’s is three and a half years old. My gosh, I can’t believe it’s been three and a half years that it’s just having our partnership has been the thing that has never wavered and has always been as strong as it is now. And I don’t think we’ve ever had any moments of doubt around it. Speaking for myself, yes, you can go again, which is incredible because we’re doing something that is so, so risky, so challenging, so new, so audacious. And to have that level of strength and trust and just ability to lean on each other in every circumstance.

Keren Pybus: And I should add that we probably only see each other once a year. So Paloma is based in New York and I’m in the UK. I mean, Covid is obviously made it worse, but even pre-COVID. So the whole like online, working from home, doing everything on Skype and Zoom was completely normal to us. But we’ve developed that through our faith and through the things and through a level of trust of each other. Also not being in the same place or even on the same time zone.

Paloma Schackert: And I think we’re also just so complementary in our skill sets. Like, as I shared at the beginning, I don’t bring anything related to the apparel industry, but, you know, management consulting and strategy and finance and investment and all of that side is my bag. And then Keren brings everything in terms of the networks and the knowledge of account management and critical path and factories and manufacturing and together. It’s been such a just incredible journey.

Henry Kaestner: Outstanding. Keren, where are you in the UK?

Keren Pybus: I’m currently in a little village just outside of a place called Peterborough, which is an hour north of Cambridge.

Henry Kaestner: Gotcha. Okay. I’m an Anglophile and many of our listeners are as well. I got engaged over there and I’m coming over next month. I shouldn’t timestamp or time guard this so much, but I’m going to a next month. I get a great treat. I get to do a Faith Driven Entrepreneur event with Holy Trinity Brompton. We had Nicky Gumbel on the podcast recently, who’s a great entrepreneur and really helped to grow the Alpha project. And I love what God is doing over there. I’ve taken some notes down fashion for Christ. It sounds like there’s some other networks of what God has been doing for a long, long time.

Keren Pybus: Fashion for Christ came out of HTB after 24 seven prayer movement.

Henry Kaestner: Oh, wow. Okay.

Keren Pybus: Yeah. So. Okay, yeah. Let me know when you’re in town. I’m always down in London as well.

Henry Kaestner: So April 27th, Tuesday night, April 27th, I think is when we’re doing the event and I’d love to see you in person. That’d be great. And for any of the listeners that might listen to this before, maybe you can show up. And the odds are that most of you will listen to this after we’re done. So look on the podcast for the time we spent with Nicky and Pippa Gambol at Holy Trinity Brompton and the work that they’re all doing over there. I want to close out the podcat, the way we do each one of our episodes, which is to ask our guests what they’re hearing from God through his word. I’m going to ask all three of you so we’re not going to be able to spend maybe as much time unpacking each one. But nonetheless, I fully believe that God is answering your prayers. And Keren, thank you for that emphasis on prayer, and that is answering your prayers. And oftentimes he’ll do so through his word. What are you each hearing from God through his word? Maybe it’s today, maybe it’s this week, but some way that you feel he’s talking to you. Please.

Keren Pybus: For me, it’s very clear at the moment it’s about David and Goliath. And David saw that opportunity, saw how big that thing was and wasn’t scared because he had God with him. And we deal with a huge amount of very large corporations. And we’re a small company trying to grow, but actually it just takes. He selected five stones. He only needed one of them. And actually it’s about seeing the giant and then trusting God to go after it.

Henry Kaestner: Good word, Paloma.

Paloma Schackert: I think for me I’m feeling very reinvigorated, so I share that I recently came back from maternity leave. There’s been a lot of ups and downs for the business over the past six months to a year and as there have been for so many with COVID and pandemic and now what’s going on in Eastern Europe and the world just feels like it’s kind of moving under our feet. But a number of things have happened this week and just having this conversation as well as just rerouted me and where we’re going and then the strength of the foundation. I’m very grateful for that.

Henry Kaestner: Excellent, excellent. Jeff.

Jeff Kahler: Well, I think it’s just that God loves us. He love us so much. He loves people so much. And that gives me a great deal of hope and encouragement in the world that people may be lost, but they’re still lost children of God in that, you know, we get to be a partner in sharing that love in the world. And I’m just more excited about doing that than ever.

Henry Kaestner: Well said. Well said. Okay. I should have probably asked this question earlier on, but if you’re listening to podcasts and you’re just inspired by the story, what are ways to get involved maybe as a consumer? Yes, it sounds like you may have another round that you might be talking about in the marketplace at some point in time in the future. But maybe as a consumer where we find your products, how do we support the work of your workers?

Keren Pybus: That’s tough as a consumer because we sell to businesses. We don’t sell directly to consumers. So, oh, we supply to brands that they obviously then sell. So the two biggest brands that we are supplying at the moment are called Refrigeuor. If you happen to work in cold storage, there are uniform specialists that working really well, just what our very.

Henry Kaestner: Small percentage of our listening audience.

Keren Pybus: Or just want the most amazingly insulated sweatshirt you’ll ever wear in your life.

Henry Kaestner: I bet they’re great. And coming out of where that’s bizarre that it’s kind of you’d think there’s something like that come out of Norway’s coming out of West Africa.

Keren Pybus: Yeah, yeah.

Paloma Schackert: There’s a lot of value addition in that. Yeah.

Keren Pybus: We also supply a big nightwear company in the US called Pajama Graham, which is an incredible company. So nightwear like a telegram and through the post, get your family ready. So those are two businesses that you could buy from. But we have a foundation based in the states called the EAA Foundation as well. So there is opportunities if you wanted to if we have that nonprofit, we also have a nonprofit in Ghana as well that does all of our training and development of some of our compliance programs. So enabling the factories to kick start things like building a kitchen so they can feed the workers, buying a bus, so they can transport workers, that kind of thing as well. So there are opportunities there. Just get in touch via our website www.ethicalapparelafrica.com.

Henry Kaestner: Excellent. All right. God bless you all three of you. Thank you for being with us.

Keren Pybus: Thank you.

Jeff Kahler: Thank you Henry. And good to see you both too.

John Coleman: Welcome back to Faith Driven Investor podcast. I am here with my partner Luke Roush today and we’re very excited to welcome a very special guest. Luke, how are you today?

Luke Roush: I’m doing great. I’m excited to be on with David Wills, who is our guest and long time friend of Henry and myself, and just the broader Faith Driven Entrepreneur and investor movement and just grateful to have him and his wisdom with us today.

John Coleman: Indeed, it is exciting. So, David, for those of you who don’t know, is the president emeritus of the National Christian Foundation was a co-founder of Generous Giving, a board member of various organizations involved with the Impact Foundation, author of multiple books. A truly interesting guy and a leader in the faith driven giving and faith driven investing spaces. And we were just really privileged to have him on today to talk about a number of topics which he’s uniquely qualified to introduce to this audience and to address. So, David Wills, thank you so much for joining us today.

David Wills: Well, it’s a privilege to be with you guys. Looking forward to this.

John Coleman: Well, why don’t we just start with the basics? For those who don’t know you, David, would you mind just given us a little bit of your background and what led you on this unique journey?

David Wills: Well, certainly just a quick introduction, kind of who I am. I have a dear friend when they’re asked this question, has a special way that they answer some of the news. Her method, if you’ll allow me. So I am the son of Don in Sioux City and the husband of Chris, the father of Jonathan, Maggie, Chuck, Luke, Josh, Drew and Sam and the father in law of Abby and Courtney. That’s right. There’s seven. And then now we have plus two and soon to be the grandfather of a bouncing baby boy who is arriving in the next month. I’m also blessed to have some of the best friends in the world, but most importantly, I’ve been delivered from the domain of darkness and transferred to the kingdom of his beloved son, in whom I have redemption and the forgiveness of my many sins. So that’s kind of who I am. My wife and I both grew up in Wichita Falls, Texas, and I’ve known her since she was five and I was nine. Now, we didn’t start dating until we were in her twenties, just to make sure that’s clear. We now live outside Waco, Texas, after having spent about 25 years in the great state of Georgia. So let’s see. The last question was, how did I get to where I am today? I think, as you might imagine, that’s a people centric thing as well. So I’m a lawyer by profession. And in 1991, I, I actually met a stranger who spent some time with me, and neither of us even knew there was such a thing as half time. But he essentially was challenging me to go into half time and leave my litigation practice to move on to a tax practice and help Christians become wise stewards. And his name is Greg Sperry. That’s how Greg has been my mentor since the first week of 1992. We talked day before yesterday, so we are constantly engaged to this day. And I sit at his feet both from a professional and a spiritual standpoint. And then a few years after we got together, we met a guy named Terry Parker. And when we crossed paths with Terry, Greg and I both ultimately landed at the National Christian Foundation. That was about 25 years ago. So along with that and my wife, he’s been my best friend and counselor through it all. That’s kind of the path that the Lord has brought me on.

John Coleman: David That’s awesome. And I think you’ve won the intro sweepstakes. I have to say that’s the best one we’ve had so far. You know tons of topics to dig into there. Maybe just to start and I know Luke wants to get into some questions about donor advised funds. You’ve been involved with two organizations that have just been central to giving within the Christian movement, to innovating on giving, which is the National Christian Foundation and the Impact Foundation. Could you just tell us a little bit more about those and how you became involved with them?

David Wills: Well, I like the Impact Foundation at first. The Impact Foundation is a relatively new entity, really set up to meet a need that just was constantly increasing inside the NCF world and outside as well. And so Jeff Johns and Aimee Minnich founded the Impact Foundation. I’m honored to serve them as a board member. And really the simple purpose is to use charitable capital to invest in for profit impacting ventures, which of course in the world we live in now, it’s like, well, we do that all the time. Well, we didn’t used to do that ever. So it’s a new thing. And the Impact Foundation is growing like a weed and it’s just fantastic. So I commend it to anybody. NCF has been around a little bit longer and it’s kind of helped to in partial ways, birth these kinds of generosity entities. But this is our 40th anniversary this year for the National Christian Foundation. And a couple of weeks ago, we granted our $15 billion in grants, which is just crazy. We serve 25,000 plus families. And so at this point, they’re granting. About $1,000,000,000 every seven or eight months. So we keep the money moving. As I mentioned, we were founded by Terry Parker, a lawyer from Atlanta, and he had two clients 40 years ago, a guy named Larry Burkett, a guy named Ron Blue, who really nobody even knew who they were except for Terry. And the three of them were the founders. Larry is now in heaven, but Ron and Terry are both in their eighties now, and they are both going as strong as ever. Incredible role models.

Luke Roush: So David, thank you for that overview of where Impact Foundation has been and where NCF has been. Love to go back to the origin story of NCF, which really involves the concept of donor advised funds which are familiar to many of our listeners but not all. Be great to get a definition of what a donor advised fund is. And then maybe also just have you walk us through history of how they have evolved as a structure for givers over time.

David Wills: Sure. So donor advised fund, I’m going to take that kind of in reverse order. They’ve been around way before. NCF was around. So maybe over 100 years there have been donor advised funds and really kind of donor advised fund started in the community foundation world. And there are well over a thousand community foundations around the country. And it’s a tool that sort of is a cross between a charitable checking account and a low cost personal foundation is the way I would describe it. And of course, nowadays they’re all driven by technology, so the use of them is turnkey and simple. You can click and contribute into your fund. You can click and grant out of your fund right off your phone. And so it is it’s a very simple way, I guess, to describe it also, I could kind of give you my own personal experience. My wife and I have used a donor advised fund since before I worked with NCF. So maybe 30 years we’ve been using a donor advised fund and the first reason we did it is because we got bombarded with literally maybe a hundred receipts per year for our charitable giving and the donor advised fund just eliminated that issue. So now we get one receipt per year for all of our giving. So that was just, you know, kind of an administrative advantage. We also love to give anonymously. We do have a pretty high percentage of our giving goes out anonymously and a donor advised fund is unique and that can let you do that. And we’ve also given a piece of real estate, piece of a commercial building that we owned. This was gosh, before I was in NCF, I think, and we gave it to NCF. They sold it and we took three or four years distributing out the proceeds to probably six or seven different organizations. So it’s a tool and it just really simplifies the giving process. And as far as where they are today and where they’re headed, donor advised funds continue to be used in more and more creative ways to help simplify giving. To help collaborative giving. Lots of giving clubs are coming around because of donor advised funds, and also donor advised funds are under the umbrella of a public charity, not a private charity. And so the flexibility is much greater to do investing inside the donor advised fund we’re on. I know we’re going to talk about that in a minute.

John Coleman: So why don’t we pick up on that last topic. David, you know you mentioned that donor advised funds have obviously revolutionized giving. They truly have. They’ve made the personal family foundation available to anyone effectively. An NCF was a leader in that, particularly in innovating the way that that could happen. But as you touched on towards the end of your answer there donor advised funds, whether NCF or the Impact Foundation are innovating also the way that people invest. Talk to us a little bit more about those blurred lines now between investing and charitable giving and how that plays out within the context of the donor advised fund marketplace.

David Wills: Hmm. They use a little bit of a pejorative word, blur the line. I’m not sure exactly what you mean by that. But, you know, any time you have a donor advised fund and any time anybody’s ever had a donor advised fund and there were excess funds sitting in there, they were invested in some way somehow. It’s just that the sophistication is growing in what you can invest inside of a donor advised fund. But really, from my perspective, the divide between giving and investing is diminishing. So let me go back 30 years ago and maybe getting a little bit off on a tangent, but so 30 years ago, you know, you have your non charitable personal capital in one bucket and your charitable personal capital in another bucket. It used to be that your non charitable personal capital was either completely passive in its investment or if you were really sophisticated you screened out bad things and that’s just where it was. And then with your charitable capital, you put it in a money market fund until you gave it away, and that was about as sophisticated as it got. Well, those days are over on both sides of the coin. Giving and investing are now a very commingled, holistic endeavor. So actually when I hear you talk about the Faith Driven Investor, my mind goes to two buckets, not one bucket. So I don’t just think about the Faith Driven Investor investing their personal non charitable capital. I see it as one big thing. It’s just a matter of whether it’s this return your tax exempt or whether they’re not. And so it’s opened up a lot of doors that I think are really, really exciting.

John Coleman: That’s awesome, David. And we we obviously agree with this idea that, you know, if you’re going to keep a pool of capital for giving, you might as well use that entire pool of capital for impact rather than just waiting for impact until the time you can give it away. You mentioned that people are moving beyond where it started with negative screening into other types of investing. Could you say a little bit more about that and what that looks like within the context of the organizations that you’ve worked with in the DAF marketplace?

David Wills: Well, I’m going to broaden your questions if you’ll let me a little bit here. So let’s go back to that left hand bucket. That’s your personal non charitable capital that used to be passive that’s going away. So both giving and investing. The concept of social change is now melded into all of it. And so no matter where you invest, whichever capital you’re talking about, you are affecting social change. And if you’re faith driven, you’re also the social change has a spiritual aspect to it as well. But I would think if you went to the CEO of Apple and said, okay, if you have to give up one or the other, which one are you going to pick? The valuation of your company and the returns to your shareholders or the social impact that your company is generating. I believe he would say I’m unwilling to give up either one of them and they are both completely interlinked with each other. That’s exactly what’s happening on the giving side as well. So when we give our charitable capital, we are very intentionally now becoming investors. We used to kind of call it donors, but we don’t use that language anymore because donors are they? How do I describe it? They give away their resources and they move on. Requires very little effort. It’s actually the most common identity that I even have as a giver, is a donor. But that is diminishing. And so people are becoming what I would describe as Faith Driven Investor. And the reason they turn into investors is because they care, they’re accountable for the results of their giving and they’re investing. And so that requires a great deal of effort. But people are embracing that. But keep in mind, this isn’t new. This is not a new thing. This goes back to the time of Jesus, where in the parables of the Matthew 25, Luke 19, the parable of the talents, the terrible, the mind is, it’s exactly the same thing. So I think the day of kind of bifurcating these worlds is starting to go away, which is really exciting. NCF has been kind of processing and dealing with that for over 20 years. And one aspect that we can talk about if you’d like, but hope that answers your question.

Luke Roush: So when you talk about just kind of this shift and you described it well, we often describe one on the spectrum. We find donors trying to become more sustainable in the way they give or the way they invest. To use your language, which I like. And then also on the investing side, people are trying to become more thoughtful about the impact that their capital is having beyond just purely kind of dollars and cents. As you think about the shift in mentality that’s going on, on the giving side, becoming more investment, sustainable, focused. What’s driving that? Is that an intergenerational thing that sort of as millennials or kind of second gen, third gen folks are starting to act as allocators of capital. Are they driving that? Is it actually an awakening of the original donor advised fund account holders? What are the core drivers of why that shift is occurring?

David Wills: Yeah, I would say it’s a spiritual shift and in the past 20 years, at least in the world that we work in, which is not, you know, the massive amount of folks out there is more on the upper end of the scale. Frankly, we’re seeing a I don’t know if you would call it a revival of generosity or just an outpouring of generosity, but people are dramatically increasing what they give. And because it’s becoming a more intertwined part of their life, it’s now becoming a more important aspect of their life. And they’re not willing to do things the way they used to. This is double down with the younger generation, though it’s even more so. But it’s not just the younger generation. There are old people like me in their sixties that are caring as much about this. I mean, we now even have terms that we use on the generosity side called giving champions and giving evangelists who are using, you know, their influence, their spiritual giftedness of giving to influence their peers. And that’s another factor that’s really causing this to change because it makes sense. It’s actually biblical generosity is what’s happening here. Another factor, I’ll give you one more and there’s others. But I think that probably the biggest one is the issue of ownership, and it’s on both sides. So, you know, ownership that’s kind of like control. It’s an illusion. We think that we own things and we think we have control of things, but neither are true. And so as people understand more and more that they’re an owner that has the steward mindset, several things start to click. Scarcity becomes abundance. Caring about and being accountable for what happens with your giving starts to happen because you’re a manager, you’re responsible to manage. And so that ownership and manager role clarity is also another big reason that this is happening. So you’re kind of get me on a soapbox here, so I’ll step off.

Luke Roush: That’s great. I like the soapbox. Keep rolling. John, over to you.

John Coleman: Yeah, just a couple of topics I want to dig in before we leave this area of donor advised funds, David. One is, you know, if you look at the average age of a donor for donor adviced funds in the US is 65 years old and this is common across anywhere that you have pools of assets that it’s critical to get young people involved in these movements. And you touched on that a bit. How do you think donor advised funds can start to get young people involved? And what’s the purpose of a donor advised fund or what’s the use of a donor advised fund for a younger person with a lower account balance?

David Wills: Well, I’ll start with the second question first. As I mentioned, my wife and I started using donor investments 30 years ago and I was 30 years old. So I think I was a young person at that point and we had a little balance. So all of the reasons that I gave earlier perfectly, in fact, they actually primarily fit with people that are younger. The only exception might be the gift of the real estate, but even that’s not an exception anymore, because these younger folks are now either creating wealth much earlier than my generation did and or they’re receiving wealth much earlier than my generation did. And so I think that the younger and smaller is really just not as big of a deal as it once was. I think that those folks I also think that they’re more conscientious and they’re more holistic. The younger people are. So it’s the older folks that are more likely to bifurcate their lives. Younger folks are far less likely to do that. Everything. So they may be more interested in the social impact of Apple than they are the returns of Apple. Now, my generation couldn’t give a rip about the social impact of Apple. I wanted a higher return on my investment, and thank goodness I invested Apple a long time ago, but it’s a very different mindset. On the donor advised fund side. You know, these demographics are real and it’s the young people. I think they’re going to be giving more. I don’t think they’re going to be getting less and they’re going to be giving more conscientiously. And so these kinds of tools are actually going to become even more valuable for them than they were for my generation.

John Coleman: David Switching topics a bit. One of the one of the things I’ve noted is just the diversity of things that people give to you through donor advised funds. And I have a question about whether you think a donor buys one platform and the nature of a donor advised fund really matters depending on your values. For example, I noticed that one of the top five donor advised fund out there of their top three charities that they support. One was a major church organization and one was the country’s largest abortion charity. How should Christians think about that? And does the nature of the platform actually matter?

David Wills: Well, I’ll give you two points on that. The first one is the pressure on the secular donor advised funds, and that’s who you’re giving an example of, obviously is becoming very significant on their role in supporting religious organizations. And so we’re even seeing people move over to NCF from secular donor advised funds because they’re getting wind of this pressure, which is totally understandable and I think it makes a really big difference. So in the world of a foundation, I know that it feels like when you have a donor advise fund, that’s your fund, but you actually don’t own that fund. It is a part of a much bigger body of funds and you are under the auspices, under the fiduciary responsibility of a group of people. But even more so than that, I encourage people to, you know, there are many faith driven options out there for a donor advised funds. They should pick one because inside of the donor advised fund, most people on the outside that use them say that there’s fees, but there really aren’t fees at a donor advised fund. They’re actually grants to the operating fund of the charity. And I don’t want one penny of my grant making to go to the operating fund of a charity who’s going to make grants to the largest abortion provider in the country, not one penny. And so there are plenty of options now where you don’t have to do that. And so I encourage people to pick one of those options and dive all the way in.

Luke Roush: I love that. It’s a great remit. And to your point, there’s a number of good options that are available to folks. Let’s all pick one and I want to come back to something that you and I have talked about before. David.

David Wills: Hey, Luke. Before you. Should we make a disclaimer of your wife’s prior employment at the National Christian Foundation? You’re starting to talk.

Luke Roush: Yeah her first boss. It’s her favorite boss. I think she’d most certainly rather work for you than work for me. That’s. That’s for sure. But, yes, Brooke, once upon a time was the first marketing employee at National Christian Foundation who worked under the tutelage of David Wills. We would have attribute much of our marital success to David in his bride.

David Wills: Okay. Just wanted to make sure that that disclaimer was out there. So.

Luke Roush: Well, I’ll tell you, David Wills and Ted Day are two of her all time favorite people, and I am grateful for them.

David Wills: That’s wonderful.

John Coleman: Where do you rank in those all time favorite people Luke among those.

Luke Roush: I’m somewhere way down the list. It depends on the day. Depends on the day.

David Wills: Oh, come on. Top ten for sure.

Luke Roush: Top ten? Yeah, that’s good. Okay.

John Coleman: You have thrown off David. We managed to throw Luke off. This is a legendary day in the Faith Driven Investor podcast. We should mark this for posterity.

Luke Roush: Oh, so. Okay, I got it. I want to come back. David, something that you and I have talked about before is this idea of some significant or insignificant stroke of pen risk that exists around Christians ability to donate to Christian charities or to invest into to use your words Christian charities in a tax advantaged manner. And there’s been a fair amount of speculation, particularly in the last ten years, that that may or may not continue into perpetuity. Any thoughts from you on where we stand now regarding that issue?

David Wills: The issue of whether or not people that are using daughter bodies, funds are going to be able to invest?

Luke Roush: Going to be able to give to Christian charities. Is a Christian charitable exemption at risk? Oh, you come out of D.C. This is your old world. Your old stop. Yes.

David Wills: Okay. Yeah. That’s a very fair question. One of the great things I mean, it’s from my perspective, having spent a lot of time doing advocacy work in Washington, which is kind of like beating your head against a wall, but you have to do it. Is that the biggest fans of charity in Washington? Are they very conservative and very liberal members of the House and the Senate? And so, in fact, some of the biggest champions of charitable giving and who would never want anything like that done are on the other side of the political spectrum than you would expect. Now, there are some exceptions to that rule, and I’ve had the privilege of speaking with many of them. But by and large, the risk to the non religious sector is so great if they were to start carving off and picking winners and losers, I can’t really imagine that ever happening. But there are some that would like for it to happen. Of course, there are some conservatives that don’t think Greenpeace should be a tax exempt organization or Planned Parenthood. I disagree fully with that, and I believe that churches also churches are even at less risk because they actually are outside the cap. But anyway, I think that answers your question.

Luke Roush: It does. Thank you.

John Coleman: Maybe to pivot a little bit, David, to move to a new topic, obviously, you’re very experienced with both investments and giving. Given the nature of your history and experience in investments, we have a ton of metrics around the success of those investments return on investment, etc. Many of our listeners, I think, struggle with how to measure success in the charitable world or how to determine whether their gifts are having an impact. Could you talk to us a little bit just how you think about metrics for giving and how those who give can think about the return on their investments in charities?

David Wills: Sure. Yeah. Some of the metrics that exist in investing in any corporate environment apply to tax exempt corporate environments. So there are definitely some ratios that you can use to help you understand that. And it’s just like in the socially responsible investing world, there are social ways to do metrics on social change. It’s a little trickier when you get into spiritual change, but even that is something that can be measured to some degree. In some cases, sometimes it can’t. But, you know, one of the great things about the metrics from a spiritual standpoint is, is that the metrics on a spiritual side, though often more difficult to distinguish clearly, are so much greater return than any earthly return could possibly be. But there are a couple of things that when I’m talking with somebody and they’re asking, is this a good investment? Is this a good charity? There are some things that I would tell them to look for. I would tell them to look for, you know, tested leadership, good tested leadership. I would tell them to look for a crystal clear vision and demonstrated momentum. But that’s the same thing you would tell somebody to look for if they were looking at a for profit investment. You get all three of those and you’re now you’re digging. To the details to make sure that it’s a sound investment. And digging into the details is a little bit different. But the starting point, by and large, is very similar.

Luke Roush: So thank you for that. I want to dove into a topic that I’ve heard you speak before about in terms of asylum being on the move, and that is the concept of God sized projects. So particularly as it relates to the Great Commission, maybe just an example or two of organizations that have successfully embarked on a God sized mission.

David Wills: Okay. So I’m glad that you use that phrase God sized mission projects. So I’m going to rewind just for a second because I want to make sure that when we’re talking about metrics on the spiritual side, that most of it’s unseen. And so the angels in heaven rejoice when one soul comes to faith. Now, that is a God sized celebration right there, buddy. And so when you think God size, I want you not to just think quantity. I want you to think quality. So that’s a little caveat, but some examples. One of the things that’s happening in the I would say what it starts to feel more like an investment are extraordinary collective and collaborative efforts that are going on. And I’ll mention those the examples that you asked for as opposed to mentioning like specific organizations, though I definitely could get into that. So I’ll give you three quick ones. One of them is the Illuminations Foundation. And every tribe, every nation, this is a collective effort. And the goal is that every one, every language, every person will have their native language in at least some meaningful portion of scripture. Their goal is to see that happen by 2033. That’s a tough goal and resources are needed to make that happen. The next one is what I call the finishing fund. It’s actually a mutual fund that’s been started by giver a guy named Doug Cobb and their goal in Fund One. They’re actually getting ready to start fund two. And their objective is to see that all unengaged people groups are engaged with the gospel. And that sounds like that’s crazy. But to give you an idea of where we are on that, because that’s something we’ve been working on now for over 15 years. Collectively, in 2005, there were 3500 unengaged people groups in the world, 2005. Now there’s 12,000 total. Okay. So 3500 of them were unengaged today, less than 250. So if you want to invest and I consider it an eternal investment in this deal, you better get on it because this is about to close. I think it could happen in the next two years that there will be no such thing as an unengaged people group on Earth anymore. And I promise you, if you invest in that, you’re going to reap the returns when you get on the other side. Fund two is very interesting because as we have engaged those 3500 groups, there’s now a groundswell of what I would call marginally engaged groups, just slightly engaged. And we need to turn those into sustainably engaged groups and then see that they become reached, which is 2% of the population. There are almost 4000 of the 12,000 people groups that I would describe as marginally engaged with the gospel. There’s some presence, but we need to go deeper and we need to do it quickly. It’s like taking a hill in a battle. We’ve taken the hill, but our troops are thin, so we need to move in reinforcement so that we can hold the land. The last one that I would mention quickly is the Strategic Resource Group. It’s another collective group and its focus is simply in what I would call investment grade options in the Middle East and North Africa for getting the gospel in the Middle East, in North Africa, which is also a very difficult place. So those are some examples that are just there crushing it. All three of those are just crushing it.

John Coleman: David I love that and I love that you guys are taking big swings for the gospel, that you’re really trying to do things that have a kingdom impact and that have an extraordinary impact. One more question before we dive into our lightning round, which should be fine. You know, recently Hulu released a documentary about the rise and fall of We Work and We Work is just one example among many of big, big start up projects. You know, these big enterprise that people invested in but went astray with the ego of the people involved with deception, with people misleading one another, etc.. Certainly this has happened in ministries as well or in charitable enterprises as well. Have you ever had experience with that and what advice would you give to people to make sure that their capital isn’t flowing into ventures that end up going astray like that?

John Coleman: Unfortunately, I have worked with folks that have dealt with that. I will say that to some degree, some of what we’re involved in where I meaning all of the investing, but there are some angel investing opportunities that are out there across the spectrum of charitable and non charitable that are risky and we shouldn’t shy away from those. However, what you’re talking about is deception. And that’s a different animal. So I want to make sure that people aren’t hearing your example of we work and saying, Well, I should not be an angel investor. And these startup deals, people go into these crazy places that nobody else has ever been willing to go to. Absolutely not. We should be significantly supporting those kind of angel investment opportunities. But I would tell you have a herd mentality if you want to avoid that kind of stuff. Don’t go it alone. Those three examples that I gave you of the illuminations, the other two that I mentioned, it’s a way to not go it alone. So invest and give in herds. Don’t go it alone. It’s one of the powerful things about Sovereign’s Capital. You’re not going it alone. You can of course, anybody can go invest in we work if they want. But this is the kind of thing that happens when you go it alone. And also, I would encourage people to have very good faith aligned, faith driven. That’s probably the catch your term. But advisors have faith aligned advisors. So leverage your peers. Leverage your advisors, be faith aligned. And not only will you improve your game, you will help avoid some of these unfortunate situations. And it’s just more fun. And so that’s how I answered that question.

Luke Roush: That’s great, David. I want to transition as to kind of the last section here, which is affectionately called The Lightning Round. So these are a series of short questions, one at a time that we’re going to throw to you. And some of them are fun. Some of them are actually most of them are fun midsummer. Some of them are also serious. So I’m going to kick us off. We’re going to go back and forth. And your answers need to be 15 seconds or less or you call those terms.

David Wills: Let’s go. I’m ready to play.

Luke Roush: All right, let’s roll. So here’s the first one. What was the bigger deal for you personally? Baylor winning the Sugar Bowl or dancing it? March Madness.

David Wills: Oh, March Madness. Easy. Next question.

John Coleman: All right. I’m going to ask this is a native of the great state of Georgia. David, when you move back to Texas, is it true that you kissed the ground upon your return?

David Wills: Absolutely. In fact, I kissed the ground, Texas. Every time I came back to Texas, but especially when we moved back here.

John Coleman: Oh, it hurts. It hurts.

Luke Roush: Okay. Okay. So you can start one super niche charity. What is it?

David Wills: Yeah, I would support any of the three that I mentioned, which I believe are super niche charities. But the finishing fund resourcing, the completion of the Great Commission, engaging all the unengaged would be that I would knock out that 200. That’s not the right term. I would see that the gospel penetrates those 200 plus remaining unengaged people group and get it done.

Luke Roush: That’s great.

John Coleman: That’s awesome. So, David, more specific question. Who is the most interesting person with whom you’ve consumed a pie near Crawford, Texas?

David Wills: Oh, well, what you’re actually talking about is Georgian and Laura Bush. And that’s actually it’s the Coffee Shop Cafe in McGregor, Texas, which is just down the road from Crawford, Texas. And they sell the best pies. I mean, their peach pies are better than the ones in Georgia.

John Coleman: Oh, David. Oh, my gosh. This interview is over. Luke, I have to excuse myself now.

Luke Roush: Okay. Okay, next up, what is your favorite Bible story about giving?

David Wills: Oh, that’s easy. The widow in the temple who out gives all of the rich religious people by putting in two small coins. Is that not just fantastic? Everybody in the world knows about her. Everybody. It’s incredible.

John Coleman: All right, David, we’re going to tee you up for this last question to bring us home. How do you think the world would change if every Christian regularly gave to charity and other purpose first entities?

David Wills: Oh, yeah. Yes, that’s easy. You can answer that with a Bible verse, Matthew 24:14 and it says And the gospel will be proclaimed throughout the world as a testimony to all nations, and then the end will come.

Luke Roush: Hallelujah.

David Wills: But what happened? That’s what would happen.

Luke Roush: Maybe some last thing and then we’ll wrap where has gone taking you recently in his word. And how do you find God’s word speaking to you?

David Wills: Well, I kind of think I just answered that question, but I’ll I’ll do a bonus round. So, you know, Luke, we have our daily Bible texting group and today is Psalm 45. So we do a chapter every day. There’s a group of us that text each other about one thing we now know, one thing we know ought to be, and one thing we ought to do. In light of that chapter, the heading of this chapter says, What should I fear in times of trouble? What a great title for where we are today. And basically, it asks a rhetorical question. It says, Should I trust in wealth and boast in the abundance of riches? And the answer to that question is no. And the reason the answer to that question is no is because that won’t sustain you and it won’t last.

John Coleman: Awesome. David Wills I think I speak for both Luke and I. It’s always a pleasure to have you on, to listen to you, to learn from you. And we’re really grateful to you for sharing with the Faith Driven Investor podcast today and with our audience. Thanks so much for joining us.

David Wills: Honor to be with you. Thank you.

Rusty Rueff: Hi everyone thinks once again for finding us here at the Faith Driven Investor podcast. It’s great to have you. So what is a family office? Well, some of the confusion may stem from the fact that the original family offices manage the financial affairs of a single, extremely wealthy family, such as the Rockefellers or the Vanderbilts or the DuPonts. Such single family offices still exist, but the wealth management industry has evolved so that multifamily offices can bring a higher level of expertize than most single families can attract a family office as well. It’s not for everyone, but for those with significant assets, complicated financial lives and a desire to make the mundane as well as the complex flow just a bit smoother. A family office could be an ideal solution. Ronald Blue Trust advisors go a step further by applying biblical wisdom and technical expertize to help the clients they serve make wise financial decisions when it comes to money, family and generations. On this episode of the Faith Driven Investor podcast, we talk with Scott Calhoun, Skip Perkins and Kyle Kutz about the benefits of a family office and the importance of finding balance in life, investing in the next generation, and most importantly, leaving a godly legacy. Let’s listen in.

John Coleman: Welcome back to another episode of the Faith Driven Investor podcast today. We’re very fortunate to have three guests with us to talk about family offices, single family offices, multifamily offices, how they’re structured and how they invest. All of our guests are from Ronald Blue Trust in Alpharetta, Georgia. And we’re privileged to have with us Scott Calhoun, Skip Perkins and Kyle Kutz today. Welcome, gentlemen. How are you all?

Scott Calhoun: All right, John. Thank you.

Speaker 6: Thanks for having me.

John Coleman: Well, look, it’s going to be a fun discussion today. I know you’re all experts in this field and you’ve got a lot of great stories. But maybe I’ll start with you, Scott, just a little of your background. Why did you get into the family office space and why are you passionate about it and what gets you up in the morning?

Scott Calhoun: Yeah, certainly, John, thanks again for having us. I got to admit, is really by accident. I started my career in public accounting as a tax consultant with KPMG here in Atlanta. And my wife and I, we’re actually from south Georgia and we decided to go back home to raise a family. And one thing led to another. And I went to work for a bank that had a trust company that had a multifamily office embedded inside. And so I was kind of brought on board to be kind of the estate planning. Financial planning consultant for this multifamily office had worked with some family offices during my KPMG days, but that was my first kind of venture into the family office world. And so I started in the multifamily office world, kind of did a quick detour of my career into the investment consulting arena, and then really just kind of a Lord put it on my heart, kind of want to come back to the family office world coming back to be that global problem solver, as we like to say, but really intentionally looking to how can I do that, incorporate my faith and bring honor and glory to the Lord’s kingdom in doing so.

John Coleman: That’s an awesome story, Scott. And tell us. You had mentioned as we were catching up in advance of the call that each of the three of you have kind of different backgrounds that are complementary given the family office. Skip and Kyle, I was wondering if, just as a complement to what Scott articulated, if you just give us a few seconds on your backgrounds and how you came to this as well.

Skip Perkins: Yeah, so I’ll go first. I was practicing law and actually recommitted my life to Christ about five years into my career and really felt called in a different direction. And I wasn’t sure what direction that was going to be, but I wound up talking to a friend of mine from law school and he had gone to work for a family office. As it turns out, the same one Scott was working for at the time, and he kind of explained a little bit about what they were doing and able to help families and serve families. And so I made the change from the private practice to the family office world. And then after about 15 years of working there, Scott called me up because he had just gone to work at Ron Blue and just shared this vision of being able to serve families from a biblical perspective and bring, you know, biblical wisdom into the picture of serving these families. And I just was like I told Scott, I’m really not looking to leave, but wow, how do I not do that? So that’s a little background on how I got here.

Kyle Kutz: Yeah, and similar story. I think we all have different God stories of what has led us to where we are now. But when my wife and I moved to Atlanta in 2015, before that, I had done some public accounting CPA track, sort of the tax world. So I’m a recovering tax accountant now, a little bit out of that, but still, that might happen every now and then. But when I came to Atlanta, joined a large multifamily office in Buckhead in the Atlanta area and thought I’d be there probably forever. Great team, really great experience serving some great families. But really through that interaction with some folks at my church, I had heard about Ronald Blue Trust and had heard that they had a family office division and thought, Well, maybe someday God will lead me there. But never thought it would be earlier in my career. And the story I like to tell folks that when I was at my previous multifamily office firm, you know, again, great families, but some of them I remember going through some of the exercises on retirement planning and there was a gentleman there who was an inheritor in his forties, Harvard guys, super smart guy. I mean, he can make a buck, but for every buck he made, he spent $2. And I remember just doing retirement planning for him thinking this guy’s inheriting a $300 million fortune and he’s finally making $1,000,000 a year, at least, if not more. But he had gotten to the point where he was spending upwards and some month of $1,000,000 a month personally. And we were worried that he wouldn’t have enough to retire. I remember sitting there thinking, Scratch my head. Is this normal to most people who are inheriting $300 million after worry about having enough at the end of their life? But I think that was part of just God’s story in my interaction with some of those situations and thinking maybe someday God will lead me to a spot where we can have a multifamily office environment and serve individuals who are looking more out into the future. From eternal perspective and using their capital in ways that influence lives here on Earth. And that’s what led me to Ronald Blue trust. So tax background, estate and trust background, a little bit of an investment background, but that’s what led me here to this time working with Scott and Skip.

John Coleman: That’s great. And Scott, just this set the table for us. You know, most of us don’t have a family office or aren’t a part of a family office, and there are some out there who are considering it. Would you just explain to us what is a family office and how does a family think about choosing between a single family office and a multifamily office like the one you all run?

Scott Calhoun: Yeah, good question, John. I mean, I think there’s actually a great saying in our industry and it’s if you’ve seen a family office, you’ve seen a family office because each and every one of them are so, so different. So a multifamily office, by definition, is a group of professionals that serve multiple, unrelated families. For instance, Ronald Blue, we serve a little over 30 different distinct families across the United States, single family offices where a family’s situation is so complex and so large that it really kind of commands, Hey, we’re going to create our own single family office that serves us, our family and our family only. Sometimes that single family office actually might be embedded in their business. Sometimes it might be external. There’s actually another one that’s kind of in between. It’s actually called a private family office. A private family office is a dedicated team of professionals that serves one family and one family only when it’s actually embedded inside a multifamily office. And we actually have that here at Ronald Blue, where we’ve got advisors that serve multiple families. I serve about ten or 12 different families, but we also have advisors and teams that serve one family and one family only. I think the key, the determining factor is it’s really complexity. It’s hey, has the family situation gets so complex on the private business front, the investment front, the estate planning foundation front, all of those various things that kind of add to complexity as the family’s wealth grows. Has that complexity gotten so great that we need some form of a family office?

Skip Perkins: Yeah. And John is going to add to that a little bit. Just to say, you know, a lot of times when we go around the country, people have different ideas as to what family office means. So we didn’t found that geographical and a little bit like a lot of times when we’re in Texas, they think it’s oil and gas. It’s bookkeepers keeping up with oil and gas rights. And if you’re in New England, it’s the office where they go to get their tickets, to go to, you know, go out of town or to go to the, you know, the ballgame or whatever else. And, you know, different people have different ideas. And a lot of times people won’t, like, create a it’s almost like a business. So they’ve had a liquidity event or they’ve had a, you know, something that has happened. And they say, you know, we want to pool our assets and, you know, we can do things better together. So we may have a portfolio of operating companies or we may have a portfolio of marketable securities and some private investments or whatever else. Every family kind of sees it differently, and that’s sort of what we think. Our goal, our job is really is to sort of help families identify, you know, what is the goal, you know, what are we trying to do here and how do we bring you know, we’ve got that sort of joke when we add up. The years we’ve been doing this together, we bring, you know, almost 60 years of experience, which still makes me kind of shudder. But it is true, I think. But, you know, how do we bring that experience to say, what is it you’re looking to do and how can we help you do it? And how can we build your office to fit that.

John Coleman: Well and that’s fascinating, Skip, because you’re picking up on a topic, I think when a lot of folks think single family office or multifamily office, they’re thinking investments, right? Somebody construct the investment portfolio. And that’s obviously a very important part of a family office that we’ll circle back to. But I think fewer people are aware of just the complexity of family offices and the different services that are offered maybe to pick up on that thread. And Kyle, you could start us off. What are the major functions within a family office is Skip was beginning to articulate and what can those look like for families as they participate?

Kyle Kutz: Yeah, great question. I mean, a lot of times we start serving new families. We’ll spend a lot of time with them just really understanding their needs, their goals, really where they’re at, whether they’re first gen wealth creators, second or third gen wealth inheritors. And the more generations that there might be within a family, there’s more complexity. I just typically comes with both family enterprises, whether it’s the family business, whether it’s family inherited wealth. So let’s discuss a little bit. Sometimes it’s a regional difference, but some of the key tenets that are out there in the secular space, you know, would sort of be that wealth management side. Okay, investment management, asset management, tax planning, estate planning. Then what we call is support services, maybe family office support services, which might be a little bit more execution on a day to day basis, could be bill paying, could be reporting, could be a, you know, accounting of the activity, could be concierge services like helping folks on their travel expenditures or going to buy a car, getting a house insured, those kind of items. But we like to distinguish ourselves a little bit differently, especially it’s done in their previous multifamily office experience, where they just noticed as the generations got more and more complex and larger and maybe they spread out more, there was a mission services aspect that was ignored. A lot of times the focus might just be on the dollars and cents and every decision to maybe push through what’s the most tax efficient way, what’s the best way to gain a dollar in every decision that’s made? But the personal relationship side is often ignored. So what we like to do is also focus on those family mission services, family governance, how to families come together and maintain the mission of the family. As their situation gets more complex and grows in value, how do they ensure that their philanthropic goals are accomplished? How do they make sure if they’re coming from a position of faith that each generation doesn’t forget about God, the Creator of everything that is provided to them that well? So there’s a couple of different pillars that we like to look at with families, the family wealth management side, the family support services side, and then the family mission services side. Scott and Skip feel free to jump in and maybe add anything that I missed.

Scott Calhoun: John I’ll add there too I think, you know, even in the secular family office world, a number of different surveys, surveys are taken every year from family office exchange, family wealth alliance. And when they interview families of substantial wealth and they ask, you know, what’s the thing that keeps you up at night? It’s generally not the taxes, it’s not the estate plan, it’s not the investment returns. Although all those are important, it almost always tends to be focused on the next generation of the family. How are we going to prepare and equip the next generation of the family? A lot of it, I think, may be more fear based in terms of, hey, are we going to destroy the work ethic in the next generation? You know, back to that situation that Kyle alluded to, if they’re going inherit 300 million to the year and even do not have to work. So, you know, how do we continue to perpetuate that idea regarding stewardship and work ethic and understanding, you know, your giftedness and all that? And so that’s why we probably put so much focus on kind of that family mission services bucket, because that pretty much dictates the conversation everywhere you’ve got to start there before you even think about diving into the estate plan or the investment plan and that foundational focus of the family and the next generation, you know, how do we prepare and equip the next generation as opposed to protecting and insulating them from their own mistakes? You know, how do we teach this understanding of you’ve been blessed to be a blessing and actually you’ve been blessed even beyond just your financial wealth. You’ve got individual giftedness that you’re really kind of commanded to understand and take that giftedness and take it into the world, you know, really kind of changing the vernacular. So it’s not about what you’re going to get, it’s about what you’ve been entrusted with. Again, the financial wealth, individual giftedness, the relationships that you steward, all of that. And so that’s why we put so much focus on the family mission component before we even try to, you know, tackle the things and the wealth management side.

John Coleman: Yeah, I know. We interacted recently with a family that was very thoughtful about this. They were in their fifth generation, although the third generation was currently leading the company and they had approached really diligently the idea of kind of biannual whole family meetings, board meetings, where they get training and things like that, how they’d select leaders for the company, how they would steward wealth across the family and what values they had. And I was just so impressed at how complicated that was and how important the governance and generational transition was. Skip I’m really fascinated by this idea of a family mission as well as just the idea of governance. And maybe if we could pause on that for a moment, you know, we as a family also have a mission statement for our kids, like how do we want our kids to grow up and what do we want the in state to look like? What does the family mission look like for a family and how do you, as one of their advisors, help them to structure a process where they can engage together on that mission and try and decide what this looks like across generations?

Skip Perkins: Yeah. So in a way, we start with, you know, you may start at the senior level or you start with whoever is kind of engaged immediately with the family to just understand, you know, a lot of times we start with their values, you know, what are those values that the family shares? What are the values that they hold like really, really deeply and they anchor into? And, you know, the difference between really where I was before and being at Ronald Blue is it’s funny when you start with a blank slate and you kind of get to make up your values or, you know, kind of make up what’s important. But for us, you know, our families, we really try to anchor them and root them in values that are eternal values that, you know, come from the Bible, come from scriptures and but really understand what’s important to the family and then build on that. And really, you know, I think what you said or Scott said was really important. It’s being intentional about it. It’s because, you know, especially when you get to future generations, you have to think about and be intentional about how you’re going to instill into them values that motivate them or get them to work. I mean, to instill purpose, frankly. That’s really what your you know, they have to have purpose. I think God makes us to have purpose. And we have to figure out how the family can encourage and instill that sense of purpose in each family member. You know, I give you an example of one way we do it and it’s kind of fun, I think, you know, I do this with a couple of families, but one stands out because they’re a lot more intentional, a lot more dramatic about it. But we have like initiation. So like we actually go through it. We’ve identified the values of the family. We’ve created a mission statement for the family. And that’s just an exercise we go through and we try to engage everybody because we want everybody in the family to feel bought into it. You know, very often if you have somebody who says, all right, this is our family mission, and then you go out and tell everybody what it is, you don’t have the same buying as you do when they’re part of kind of building that. But in this case, what we do is we actually have an initiation when kids turn 13. And so there are eight gen threes in this family and four of them so far have gone through this initiation. And we’ve got a kind of a timeline of early you learn about very bare bones about the family business. You learn about the family mission, the values. They really spend time talking about the family story. These are immigrants. So there’s a powerful, powerful story of them coming to the United States and building this and having a history of even being homeless at one point. I mean, it’s amazing story. And then you build on that story, but you share that with the kids. And as they get older, you provide them various opportunities for development, for education, for learning about the family, about investments, about how to give, how to do all these things. And you give them opportunities to join in mission trips and things like that that you help develop them. And it’s really hard to give kids grit. Like when you grow up and you don’t have anything. It’s really hard to give kids grit, but you can instill a sense of purpose and values in them that can help get them that kind of that meaningful purpose and grit that they need to where they’re not looking at this, I think Scott said it earlier, they’re not looking at what’s going to come down the line is what am I going to get? You’re really empowering them to contribute to the kingdom purpose that the family is doing and the family is trying to accomplish with what they’ve been entrusted with.

Scott Calhoun: And John, I think I’ll just add there, especially as the family goes forward and new generations are born and new generations are born into wealth, and there’s this disconnect between the sacrifices of the senior generation. It gets really hard. It gets harder for them to understand and truly comprehend. I had a family in Arkansas we were working with and we had three generations for a family meeting. Family business been around for about 100 years. The patriarch at the time got up to kind of tell his story of kind of stewarding this family company for the last 40 years. And we we really asked them to be very open, transparent and vulnerable, which is very unlike him. But he followed our direction and. Basically told his children and grandchildren the four times over 40 years that he had to leverage his personal balance sheet in order to keep the business afloat. And I tell this story a lot, and he had two grandsons came up to him afterwards, and the responses were priceless. And the first one said, Granddaddy, thank you so much for telling us that story, because we weren’t quite sure what you did on a day to day basis. But the second one was priceless when he said, Granddaddy, thank you so much for telling us that story. We never knew our family ever experienced hard times. I mean, these were kids that grew up traveling on a private jet, going to exotic locations, going to private schools, understanding that they lived in a very different economic environment than a lot of their friends, but never really had that direct connection with the sacrifices and the stewardship that kind of came along with that. And so that becomes a very intentional part of our process. How do we create an environment where we can continue to perpetuate that understanding into the fourth, the fifth, the sixth generation that understands the stories, the values and the connections, even if they weren’t part of the original sacrifice.

John Coleman: Man, I love that. And you know, even in my own personal family, which isn’t quite as well off as you’re describing, you know, I grew up with nothing. And we worry about the kids not having that grit, as you mentioned, Skip. And how do we instill that in a kid while also you want to provide for them, right? You want to give them good educational options. You want them to be able to travel to see new things. And yet you also want them to learn what it means to be hungry, to have to succeed on their own, to be independent. And that’s a real tension. You know, one of the things I think is important in Christian family offices in particular that I haven’t heard you touch on just yet is giving. Before we circle back to the investment portfolios, would you guys mind picking up this topic of giving and what role that plays in your advice or counsel to to families?

Scott Calhoun: Yeah, I think I’ll start. I mean, I think fortunately, although not all of the families we serve are Christians, a lot of families have actually intentionally engaged us because we come from this value perspective. But fortunately, most of our clients are Christians, and so the giving conversation is easier. So we’re all kind of starting at that basic starting point, and that is God owns it all. And if God does own it all, how are we supposed to effectively steward the assets that he’s been blessed us with, including giving back? And so giving back and really kind of fostering that idea of giving back has never really been a challenge. And I think especially for our clients who have the financial wherewithal to give exceedingly and to give exponentially, that is there. I think the biggest thing, though, for our families is how do we instead of just writing the check, because the stewardship doesn’t end after we write that check. It goes on. So how do we bring the family into the family giving story so the family understands. Okay, here’s where my passion of giving comes from. Here’s where I’ve given. But really kind of inviting the family into the story because guess what? At some point, time, gen two, gen three or gen four beyond, they’re going to be making the decisions of where these resources go. And so, again, I think creating a conversation where we can honor, you know, multiple perspectives on how we can share these resources and how we can give exponentially, but also understanding that the stewardship component doesn’t stop after we write the check. In fact, if anything, for large givers, your stewardship responsibility is actually even greater if you’re giving a check, if you’re writing a check for 100,000, 500,000, etcetera, to one particular charity, you’ve got to understand, are there negative implications, potential negative implications for writing such a big check? Are we creating a a sense of dependency? Are they expecting that same check year after year and are not taking kind of the actions they need in order to be able to attract other donors? And so, again, I think the family story, the culture is very important, but also understanding that stewardship doesn’t end after we write that check.

John Coleman: Yeah, I love that. And, you know, one of the things that’s been most impressive to me as I’ve entered the Faith Driven Investor in community is just how generous people are. I mean, I’ve been blown away, Kyle and Skip, any stories that stand out of generosity before we move on or things that you’ve seen that have just impressed you that some of your families have done?

Skip Perkins: Well, I’ll go. Although I feel like we’re not giving Kyle as much time as we could. But I’ll jump in real quick, okay?

Kyle Kutz: I’m a good listener.

Skip Perkins: Yeah, there’s so many. I mean, you know, that’s one of the things about working, you know, with a bunch of generous families is that it’s so amazing to have seen. So, like, I’ve got this sort of slew of things running through my mind to choose from. But a couple that come to mind is, you know, as we’ve been working with the next generation in multiple families, but, you know, one that I’m kind of thinking of in particular, they as they give the children these opportunities to kind of learn about what giving is and that God owns it all and that the whole they see the picture of the family being generous and helping folks. It’s neat when you see the next generation start to step up and find things that they’re passionate about. One client who their a 17 year old son is just he was passionate about homelessness. And so he went and just really came up with his own ideas that he brought back to the family and was like, I really want to do this and I really want to do that. And to see the family, it was almost like create an entrepreneurial spirit in his giving as he was trying to go make a difference and help. And, you know, the family kind of encouraging him and supporting him to understand that, you know, this is God’s heart for people, that this is God’s heart and this is where this comes from. And this doesn’t just feel good because it feels good. It feels good because God is wired us that way. And again, that’s part of that. When you think about the next generation learning that same family, actually, they go on a vacation every year that we actually facilitate where they go, somewhere where they’ve given to something. And it’s not to get any credit. Like they don’t have like a big crowd that follows them. It’s for the kids to see. We have a company. This is the kind of stuff that can happen when you’re using your money for the right things. And we’ve had some powerful, powerful trips where the kids have really been able to see some incredible stuff and you see them beginning to learn. You know, that’s just what it’s about. Like that’s normal is that we’re going to give and we’re going to make an impact. We’re going to be intentional and we’re going be careful about it.

Kyle Kutz: Yeah. And just to follow up on what Skip said, it’s neat to see how God leads the hearts of different individuals to give to different causes. And we’ve got some clients who are a couple different families who are very focused on education. Some of them write $500,000 checks, some of them write $10 million checks. And God blesses both of those. Right. I mean, it’s impressive to see it in their communities, how they can sort of impact those around them in a loving way. We’ve got another client who loves giving towards retired pastors and realizes that those in the ministry usually have taken some kind of financial sacrifice through life. And at the end, when they get to that retirement age or they move on from being a minister, that there’s usually a shortage of cash and ability to live off of. So we’ve got one client who just really tries to help lift up those who’ve maybe retired from different ministries. I leave you with maybe just five different reasons. I mean, some listeners might think, why should we give from a heart of a Christian? Why should I give? And just to keep it real quick and simple, the first reason it’s sort of been mentioned a few times that giving is a tangible way to acknowledge the ultimate ownership of God and how a sovereign God rules over our lives. So sometimes if you’re like me, you can have some of this best approach. We don’t want to let go of things that supposedly open our hands. That’s just a tangible way to say, God, I understand that you own it. So I need to give to recognize that the second reason we can find some of these sort of scriptural references in Proverbs chapter three, but we show honor and obedience to God when we give, and the God even gives us commandments to give throughout Scripture. It’s it’s pretty hard to miss those commandments look, because he knows that money and Mammon and the attractions of this world are going to keep us from him, and if we don’t decide to let go and follow after him. So the second reason be to honor and obey. The third reason is that charitable giving is done in order to help prioritize issues in life. I know that when my wife and I give, a lot of times it’s easier to realize what’s the most important thing. So giving breaks, the power of money. And then the fourth and fifth reason. The fourth reason would be that charitable giving is done to meet the needs of others. You see this all throughout Scripture. You see in second Chorinthians chapter nine, Paul commands, and it says, Hey, open your eyes for those around you to essentially realize where a need is. And then the final reason, and this isn’t really the main reason, but there’s also promises in Scripture that there’s rewards, eternal rewards from giving and following Christ. And we get to understand that we can lay up our treasures in heaven instead of laying them up here on Earth. And there’s a promise that God gives us to give. So we love to help people along their giving strategy. And when you think through what makes maybe that philanthropy plan successful, especially when you’re dealing with family office clients and multi generations, we like to define that success by determining the appropriate vision for the family and then the structure and the training that goes along with that to ensure that future generations experience that joy of giving.

John Coleman: Man Kyle coming in with the five points framework. The former McKinsey consultant and.

Kyle Kutz: I got to keep

Kyle Kutz: It simple.

John Coleman: if you could come with a two by two chart. Kyle next time I think.

Kyle Kutz: Next time I finished out.

Kyle Kutz: Bullet point excel.

Scott Calhoun: Hey John. I’m sorry I can’t help but add to Kyle’s last point in terms of the joy of giving. I mean, clearly, you know, one component of giving is the tax advantage for the last couple of years, when they expanded the deductibility under the CARES Act so that you basically our clients could donate 100% of their income as cash gifts directly to public charities. In the first year it came out, we had a number of clients that took full advantage of that. I mean, clients that gave literally 20, 30, 5000 dollars Million or more in 2020. And we came back to them when they extended it into 2021. It is interesting because, you know, if you’re in the secular world, some clients might respond by saying, oh my gosh, I wish I had waited. And, you know, said doing a 20, 20, I wish I’d waited, done in 2021. Our clients were different almost uniformly. They came back and they’re like, Wait, I get to do it all over again. Wow. So that was the first component. That it was just really kind of giving beyond all expectations. The other was this is some of those same clients have come under audit by the United States Treasury because the IRS comes in and says nobody gives away this kind of money and these are just cash gifts to public charities. So it’s not like there’s anything surreptitious going on here like. No, there actually are people that give away this kind of money. And so it’s almost like this badge of honor that, hey, if the IRS is questioning because I gave away so much, I must be doing something right. And I’ve never seen this before in my 30 years career. I literally have clients who are looking forward to that next IRS letter. I’m just waiting for them to send me a letter on 2021 saying nobody gives this kind of money away.

John Coleman: Scott Calhoun, witnessing to IRS agents.

Kyle Kutz: And telling them.

John Coleman: I like him sharing the gospel.

Kyle Kutz: Yeah, the IRS agents. It’s like, who does this? Well, let me tell you about this person named Jesus. I mean, they had no idea what they were signing up for to audit that return, but.

John Coleman: It’s right. Well, I want to shift focus just a bit, guys, before we end here and do deep dive on the investment part of this. Because, you know, obviously, as your wealth grows, the complexity of your investment portfolio grows and you guys have a great window into some really interesting asset allocation into the types of assets that you try and get access to. Maybe, Scott, just to start with you and then we can feed off of that. Talk to us about what your family office portfolios look like in terms of the assets that you guys are trying to allocate to and how families think about that mixture of personal assets. Like you said, they own real estate. They own a family business versus the portfolios that they have.

Scott Calhoun: Yeah, yeah. I think this is probably one of the areas that we’re most excited about, John, because I think we’re seeing so many evolutions and we’re just loving the participation with Faith Driven Investor because again, I think especially over the last ten years, we’ve seen this dramatic shift and new opportunities and new understanding that I think clients are understanding new ways of how they can incorporate their faith into their finances, whether it’s their investment portfolio, their business, etc.. But also the options are ever increasing and I think the understanding is ever increasing. Clients are starting to understand I don’t have to sacrifice investment return in order to make an impact. And so I think in direct answer your question, we’re seeing it, everything’s all across the board because clients are in different levels of understanding in terms of that spectrum of the different ways you can incorporate faith into your portfolio and that how they personally, through prayerful discernment, are led to incorporate their faith into their portfolio. So it’s really all over the board. We may have some that still have what I’ll call a more traditional secular asset allocation between, you know, public equities, public credit, as well as private assets. But others are starting to understand, hey, I can incorporate faith here, maybe through screening out certain industries that are, you know, I’m just going to personally have issue with others might be more on a factor basis of really kind of intentionally investing in things that are productive conduits of how I can incorporate my faith. And so I think it’s a great conversation. Clients are really being challenged on. If God owns at all, then the next question is how am I prayerfully discerning how I should be investing or stewarding these assets? And it looks different for every client. I think that’s the beauty of it from our standpoint is it’s not a one size fits all, it’s a multitude and the client can kind of grow and understand what those new investment solutions look like.

John Coleman: Yeah, that’s fantastic. And I think the faith driven component of it is a really interesting one where it’s a supply and a demand problem. We discuss that here at FDI a lot, which is a asset managers have to come up with a lot more innovative ways in which to express faith through a portfolio, particularly positive ways in addition to negative screening. And then clients or limited partners or family office clients have to demand that right. They have to be on the lookout for that, wanting to allocate it to it. And there’s a little bit of a fax machine problem there and that the products don’t exist without a market and the market doesn’t exist without a product. And so it’s kind of growing slowly as we’ve seen. One of the more interesting things about a family office portfolio, especially as they grow, is that they can begin to incorporate different types of assets beyond public equities and fixed income, which you talked about. Scott, is there a threshold at which families begin to think about that? And how do you advise a family on which of their assets to tie up in longer term strategies and just how they think about those timelines? Because it’s you know, it’s scary for a lot of folks to look and think, I’m tying up assets for ten years or five years or 12 years. At what point do you begin to broach that with families and how do they think about that longer term horizon?

Scott Calhoun: Yeah, no, I think it’s a great question, John. And I think we kind of go back to the fact that Ronald Blue as a firm, was started as a Christian financial planning firm. And so everything we do from a financial advisory standpoint comes we start with the financial plan. So whether you’re worth $1,000,000 or you’re worth $1,000,000,000 from an investment allocation. Standpoint, we start with, okay, what’s your financial plan look like? What are your sources of income? What are your expenses? How does that change over the next ten, 20, 30, 40, 50 years? And then really kind of start the asset allocation process based on those investment time horizons. So, you know, that two year bucket, that 5 to 7 year bucket, that ten, 15, 20 plus year bucket. And so making sure that they understand that trade off between need for liquidity and potential volatility in asset classes. And so really trying to target the portfolio from an asset allocation standpoint based on those time horizons is first. The second is, again, when we get into those longer term investment buckets, for those that have the wherewithal to tie it up into illiquid structures that may be illiquid for eight, ten, 12 years, making sure that we’ve got that properly allocated. So even if it is in the 20 plus year bucket, we’ve got an allocation balance between, okay, what is liquid and what is kind of long term. But I think in answer to your first question is what’s the threshold? I think the beauty is because of the new introduction of new solutions, both public as well as private, literally every single client has a way of incorporating their faith into their portfolio in some shape or form. Now, granted, as you go up the spectrum, the options become more and more, especially as we enter the private market, the alternative market. But even if you’ve got a client that’s solely focused on public exposure, there are tremendous ways of incorporating faith in their portfolio.

John Coleman: Skip and Kyle any thoughts on how you’ve seen clients navigate either faith driven investing as a topic or just their asset allocation in their portfolios?

Kyle Kutz: Sure. Yeah. This is Kyle. I think Scott hit the nail on the head there. Just talking through when we help clients think through how God leads them. Right. Just prayerfully discerning and sort of seeing where their hearts are when it comes to how they want to integrate faith into their portfolio. What we do with every client is sort of go through that time based analysis of you know helping them meet their goals, but then also make sure that there’s enough liquidity in the short term where they can meet capital calls, meet maybe just different investing opportunities that might come up, meet different giving opportunities that might come up within the family. So we’re always sort of looking at the whole portfolio from a global OCIO type perspective to make sure that there’s tactical decisions all along the way. But what’s been fun on the faith integration side is just, again, to see more and more options, whether it’s private or public, that are coming to the table, that we can add to the menu, items to offer the clients that then even when it comes down to the nitty gritty, you know, investment policy statements, right? I mean, there’s probably some listeners on this call who’ve drafted investment policy statements to make sure, you know, the IPS is your map, your guardrails, to ensure that there’s a fiduciary mindset and a proper allocation mindset that they don’t get over concentrated in a position that may hurt the overall portfolio. But then what we’ve seen a lot of families of faith do is start integrating their values in that investment policy statement, which takes it from a more of a nerdy process to a spirit led process of saying, Hey, how do I want to make sure that as I maybe there’s a trust that’s set up for my kid, there’s a large pool of capital there that I want them to be able to access someday. But I also, in the meantime, want that capital to be put to work in a more impact type way. And I want my kids and my grandkids and my great grandkids, if that pool is still around at that point, to understand what my values were here at this point in time. And I maybe funded that trust. So we’ve even seen IPS construction changed drastically over the last ten years when it comes to Faith Driven Investing.

Skip Perkins: Yeah. And I would say it’s interesting, you know, and I may be restating things that have been said different ways before, a couple of ways, but one is the walls breaking down between thinking of giving versus investing for a purpose. I mean, the walls are just coming down to where they’re saying, this is all God’s money and I’ll give over here where that’s going to be helpful. But even as I invest, I want to understand how I can invest and it make a difference. And then, like you said, John, really, you know, what’s happening now is I think as that’s becoming more and more common and, you know, you’re starting to be able to give them better tools to do that, you know, how can you help them? You know, like Scott meant, you know, in the public realm, you think about, well, I don’t want to be part of this. Well, guess what? If you are invested in that, then you might have a voice at the shareholder meeting, or you may have a voice to the CEO. You may, you know, actually, by engaging, you may be able to actually go have some influence on those places. And then, of course, with private opportunities of going investing in companies that are going to be value driven or faith driven or whatever else, I mean, it’s just it’s really finding opportunities to let your money go, have a kingdom impact and breaking down that wall of whether that’s going to a five or 1c3 or whether that’s going to a company that’s going to go, you know, create a profit that will, again, you know, allow even more giving and allow even more kingdom work.

John Coleman: One, you know, one of the interesting things we touch on is the typical foundation or even DAF structure is such that obviously Scott, on one hand, there are those who just give away in the current year, which is amazing. Many people. Put money in a DAF or in foundation, and then they really focus on that 5% or 7% that they’re giving away each year, but don’t really focus on the 93% or 95% that they’re investing in the impact that that can have. And really thinking of that portfolio as one as a way to make a positive impact, I think is one of the more exciting ways in which we can start to view the future.

Scott Calhoun: Yeah, and I’ll tell you a story, and this also is a great story of how, you know, the walls are coming down between the philanthropic story in conversation and the investment story. But it’s also an incredible story in terms of kind of this generational linkage we were talking about. So there was a family that basically was taking a vision trip to Africa. The next generation, Gen three, was really passionate about a charity in southern Ethiopia, and they brought kind of genuine the patriarch along and he came along a little bit begrudgingly. He was excited that his grandkids were passionate about this, and so he wanted to be there and supportive. Well, during the course of their vision trip, they came to understand. They toured the orphanage, but then they came across an investment opportunity there, basically trying to build a water treatment plant. And they’re trying to raise $4 million of capital, you know, to create a water treatment plant that would basically benefit the entire region, not just the orphanage. And it’s going to be a for profit capital investment. Well, the patriarch, he basically cut his teeth for the last 50 years, building industrial power plants, so literally producing billion dollar power plants. Now, he didn’t necessarily get water treatment, but he knew industrial power. And so he brought his expertize and his knowledge, not just from an industrial power plant, but from a private investor standpoint and understanding kind of the nature of this private investment. And all of a sudden there was this link between the families. So now Gen one was able to impart their wisdom, their value prop, their giftedness so that the next generation could see the value component. At the same time, the younger generation was kind of sharing their passion for these orphans in southern Ethiopia. And so it was really just kind of this beautiful connection, but also this great understanding for the family that God truly does own it all. Not just the assets that were looking to invest in a power plant in Ethiopia, but also, you know, the money that’s going to support God’s children in the orphanage.

John Coleman: You know one what Henry and Luke and I often talk about is there are some things that are done better through charity. There are some things that are done better through private capital or through capitalism. We believe capitalism has helped to destroy poverty in many parts of the world. It unleashes a lot of really positive influences, although there are some negative influences, the materialism, etc. and there are things that capitalism can’t do, like properly fund children’s health care, maybe in certain areas or other topics, for there’s just not a private market solution. But where you can actually stand up a business that can then operate for a long time, you can create meaningful, lasting change.

Scott Calhoun: Yeah. And I think, John, just one last point is I think we’re fortunate given that, look, most of our families, the wealth originated in a family run business. In fact, a lot of our families, the wealth is still heavily concentrated in operating companies, but virtually bar on almost every one of those situations are situations where the family were actually trying to incorporate their faith into that privately owned business. And so even after they sometimes monetize and sell that business, they still have that understanding, that deep understanding of what it look like to incorporate your faith into your business. And so it’s a really kind of just a natural extension of that to say, well, how do we incorporate our faith into philanthropy, into our investment portfolio? It’s just kind of part of their DNA.

John Coleman: Well, I want to end with a 60 seconds question for each of you that we try and ask everyone we have on. And that’s one thing that God is teaching you in your life today. And so what I might do is start with our friend Kyle and then you Skip and then you Scott. So, Kyle, what’s one thing that you feel like God is teaching you today?

Skip Perkins: Okay, I don’t always want to be a rule breaker, but I’m going to give you two things. I would say there’s been two things that have been been providing really comfort to me in the last year or two. I know we’ve all probably had a rough couple of years in different ways with COVID and just dislocation of family and different items. That just happened personally in a nice life with our extended family. And there’s been two sort of promises from Scripture, I guess one promise and one command, one of them being, you know, in Luke Chapter 12, where we’re told that Jesus and God, they know the very hairs on our head that they’re all numbered. And there’s no reason to be afraid or to be worried about the future because of his eyes on the sparrow. Surely he’s looking after his children. So that’s one thing that it’s been very comforting to me over just the last couple of months. And then the other command from Scripture that has really caught my attention lately is just Jesus saying, seek first the kingdom. So all that you do throughout each day, seek first the Kingdom of God, and just let that be your inspiration. Let that be your reason to wake up each day. And that’s what it is for me to get excited, to go to work and serve our families and just continue to do what God has for me in my life.

John Coleman: Skip No pressure, but Kyle had two verses locked and loaded there. Man. What’s on your. Yeah.

Skip Perkins: That’s great. Hard to follow that a no. You know for me, I mean. Matthew seven just really has always been a verse that has resonated with me, you know? You know, seek and you shall found ask and you shall receive and knock and door will be open. And to me and I don’t even know how. For me, it’s somehow that God uses that to translate almost everything. It’s like, you know, before I do something, let me ask him, you know, seek him first. You know, Scott, Kyle and I each have technical backgrounds and technical understanding, and so often we sort of jump into it and we just want to seek him first and then ask, you know, ask. We don’t always have the in fact, we rarely really have the true answer, you know, so we need to ask the one who does and then, you know, just sort of that, knock, and I even think of that as just as consistent, keep on knockin and keep on knocking because the door will be open. And, you know, that helps us as advisors to know how we approach our clients and it helps us as we advise our clients for them to understand that there’s all these things before them, especially in the family office, there’s a almost endless set of opportunities in front of them. And, you know, we try to help them seek God’s guidance, ask him and then knock if there’s something that’s preventing it, you know, just be persistent and continue to knock and the door will be open.

John Coleman: It’s a good word. Scott, wrap us up.

Scott Calhoun: Yeah, I think, you know, and Skip and Kyle, I’ve heard this ad nauseum, so I apologize, guys, but Acts1:8. Acts1:8 keeps coming back to me day in and day out. And it’s, you know, the Holy Spirit will come upon you and you’ll be my witnesses in Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria and to the ends of the Earth. And we understand kind of the geographic component that of city, state, nation and the globe. But what we’re finding is we’re incredibly blessed. People come alongside some very intentional families, and we’re finding ways of, in addition to serve that family, how can we connect families with each other? Because guess what? Each family has their own Jerusalem. It could be a family here in Atlanta. Atlanta is their Jerusalem. That’s where their business is. It might be where a lot of their philanthropic focus is. But we’ve got clients in Charlotte and Baltimore and Boston and Miami and all points around the globe, and those are their own respective Jerusalem’s. And so how can we connect these families to create opportunities for collaboration that they can understand their passion for building schools in Charlotte, they can understand their passion for serving the underprivileged in South Florida. And so really kind of that opportunity to come alongside and serve families, but also bring those families together for the benefit and the glory of the kingdom.

John Coleman: Guys, this has been a fascinating discussion. Thank you all for the work that you’re doing, enabling others to steward their resources. Well, and I hope we get to have you back on some time. This is a great discussion. Thank you for coming.

Skip Perkins: Right. Thanks for having us.

Scott Calhoun: Thanks, John.

Luke Roush: Hey, everyone. All opinions expressed on this podcast, including the team and guests, are solely their opinions. Hosted guests may maintain positions in the companies of securities. Discussed in this podcast is for informational purposes only and should not be relied upon as specific investment advice for any individual or organization. Thanks for listening. We are grateful for the opportunity to serve this community and see listeners come in from more than 100 countries. Faith Driven Investor It can be a lonely journey, but it doesn’t have to be. The best way to stay connected is to join a group study with other investors looking to get the same answers to questions you have and find great community as they do. So there’s no cost, no catch. In person or online, you can meet an hour a week with other peers from your backyard or the other side of the world. You can also stay connected by signing up for a monthly newsletter and faith driven investing dot org. This podcast won’t be possible without the help of many of our friends. Executive Producer Justin Foreman. Intro Mixed and arranged by Summer Dregs Audio and Editing by Richard Barley. Our theme song is Sweet Ever After by Ellie Holcomb.

(Coming Soon)

Henry Kaestner: Welcome back to the Faith Driven Investor podcast. I’m here with my great friend and co-host, John Coleman. John, good morning.

John Coleman: Hey, Henry. Good morning. How are you?

Henry Kaestner: I’m doing awesome. Thank you. I’m doing awesome for lots and lots of different reasons. I shouldn’t time guard this, but we’re getting ready to go into the Sweet 16 of March Madness and a lot of us are fired up about the different teams that we were following. And I am absolutely one of them. But I’m also really excited about what we’re talking about today at Faith Driven Investor. We’ve talked a little bit about arts and culture and entertainment a little bit. We’ve had John Irwin on the show, and we’ve started to explore a little bit about how important it is that we think about making investments in this space, and yet we really haven’t gone into it that much. And part of that is because both you and I and Luke are the co-hosts have this background in private equity investing. We tend to invest in lower and middle market companies in venture investing. And and there’s a different type of investing that happens no less important, but yet it’s different when we think about making investments in culture. And so to help us to get back on track with where we should be in focusing on this very important topic, we’ve got Craig Detweiler and Ben Howard with us on the show. Craig, Ben, welcome.

Ben Howard: Thank you. Good to be with you guys.

Craig Deitweller: Thanks, Henry.

Henry Kaestner: So we like to give an autobiographical flyover for every one of the guests that we’ve got on the show. And on occasion, we’ve got two of them on the show. And so what I’m going to do is I’m going to actually ask Ben for you to get started and talk about your background and autobiographical fly over. And then, Craig, if you could just pick up on that, give us a glimpse of that and then bring us into Wedgwood circle, please.

Ben Howard: Great. So excited to join you guys today. I am somebody who’s had the privilege of being involved in faith connected entertainment for over 30 years, starting in Christian music long ago, then a step where Bob the Tomato was my boss as I worked with Phil this year at Big Idea and I got to be part of what is Provident Films and be part of what the Kindred Brothers did with Fireproof and War Room and things like that. The Erwin brothers, we hired them to do their first music video, went all the way through. I can only imagine with them and now have my own entertainment company. God has continually given me the opportunity to help creative people do what they do. I have an MBA in an accounting degree, and my goal is if I can help creative people make a living out of what they do and at the same time have impact on culture, I’m very fortunate to get to do that.

Henry Kaestner: And by the way, I should mention when you talking about. Bob The tomato, Larry the cucumber. Phil Vischer has played such a big role in the Faith Driven Entrepreneur ministry that we have. I can’t think of any better overview of the identity of an entrepreneur than the way that he is talked to at our conferences. But then I think maybe it’s podcast number 20 or so, way back in the early days of Faith Driven Entrepreneur from minute 16:32 to minute 20:30, if our audience goes back and listens to it, it’s the best 4 minutes I’ve ever heard on the most important topic that a Faith Driven Entrepreneur or investor will encounter. And that’s the identity that we have. And he did a great job. Maybe we’ll link to it in the show notes, but thanks for having mentioned that, Craig. Who are you and where you come from?

Craig Deitweller: Well, Henry, I come from basketball country, but I am not cheering for the Tarheels or the Blue Devils. I actually went to Davidson College.

Henry Kaestner: Oh yes, Steph Curry. Yeah. And you guys almost pulled it out last weekend.

Craig Deitweller: You know what? I’m impressed with what we do with a small school. We are giant slayers is how we approach live. So my background is I came to faith through young life and that kind of wild, crazy, relational approach to understanding Jesus. But I also was rooted in my faith via film and seeing films like Raging Bull, which was this violent, profane R-rated film that it became this cautionary tale. And when I saw that as a kid, it like woke me up and I said, Something’s going on here that’s deeper and it’s getting to my soul. At the end of the film, it says, Once I was blind, but now I can see says it on screen. I was like, What does that mean and what does that look like? And so my life has been a process of coming to see Jesus through these other means and understanding the power of culture to lead people to faith, even in my own journey.

Henry Kaestner: You know, it’s really interesting. You mentioned Raging Bull. We had Dallas Jenkins on the podcast a couple of months ago and his dad got his start in the Left Behind series, and he’s talking about this background, very faith driven. And his father, despite being in the film industry, said, I don’t want my children to watch any movie until they’re 13. And then I’m like, wow. So that’s maybe austere, but, you know, tell us more about that. And what was the movie that you saw when you turned 13 is like, my dad had us watched The Godfather.

Henry Kaestner: That’s not. Not what I was expecting, but he says, you know, it was such a powerful movie and my father wanted to be able to help us to understand the power of cinema, the power of storytelling. And that was. What makes me think I don’t know that Raging Bull has the same thing. They both have Robert De Niro, but maybe there’s more there.

Craig Deitweller: Indeed. Well, now, since then, I’ve been both a filmmaker, a screenwriter, as well as an educator. And so I’ve taught, you know, hundreds of film students over the years, including Destin, Daniel Cretton, who directed Shang-Chi. And now I’m a professor dean of the College of the Arts and Media at Grand Canyon University, as well as president of the Wedgwood Circle, which invests in the good, true and beautiful for the common good.

John Coleman: When Craig, you definitely have the college professor background right now, there are at least a thousand books that we can see on video in the background. Talk to us a little bit more about Wedgwood Circle. It’s such an interesting organization with a great mission.

Craig Deitweller: Well, we’re actually named after a great entrepreneur, Josiah Wedgwood, who basically figured out how to turn his business, which was Wedgwood China and his art, which is, you know, telling stories through, you know, cameos and dishes. He funded the abolition movement, the abolition of slavery in England through his faith and his business put together. And so the Wedgwood circle is trying to do the same thing and try to help entrepreneurs and business people who want to impact culture. We’re like a concierge service to help people navigate these very complex industries that are sometimes hard to figure out. How do you make money in movies? Maybe people know how to lose money, but they don’t know how to make money. How would you invest in Broadway? What’s it like to invest in a music career? What do artists and musicians need? And so we have advisers, trusted advisers all over the country, people like Ben Howard, who have made money in entertainment in multiple different versions. And so that’s why Ben is here. He works alongside us at Wedgwood Circle, helping investors be good stewards of their money.

John Coleman: And Craig and Ben, I mean, that’s such a fascinating story. And one of the things that I love is that Wedgwood does have such a broad focus, you are covering different types of cultural institutions in media. Talk to us a little bit about why you think it’s so important that Christians invest in these different cultural artifacts and how it is that you came to invest in these, given your early interests?

Craig Deitweller: Well, honestly, it goes all the way back to the garden. You know, when Adam is called to tend the garden, to cultivate the garden. We might think of that as agricultural. But there’s also, I think at this point, a lot of us are no longer farmers. Maybe that is important in certain context to understand the importance of water and soil. I love the work that Faith Driven is doing in Africa with entrepreneurs. But most of us at this point are cultivating things like a culture of encouragement and goodness and truth. Maybe that’s in schools, maybe that’s in our churches, but can that also be in our entertainment? And so we take that cultural mandate and we apply it specifically to the arts where we might invest in someone like Jon Batiste, who you’ve seen on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert as the bandleader. Wedgwood gave him money maybe eight years ago when he needed some instruments before he was on Colbert. And since then, he’s won an Oscar for being on the score for Pixar for their movie Soul. And he’s up for 11 Grammys this year, more than any other artist, basically a faith driven jazz kid from New Orleans who just needed a little bit of encouragement and capital to launch his career.

John Coleman: It’s awesome. And one thing caught my attention, Craig I think a lot of folks associate investing in the arts with concessionary investing. The fact that you’re not likely to make money, you may even lose money in it. But you mentioned Ben has done so successfully. I mean, Ben, talk to us a little bit about what those investments look like from a financial perspective. And is it possible to actually make a return investing in the arts?

Ben Howard: Look, it’s definitely possible. And you guys spend your days in venture capital, private equity, etc.. In that sense, it’s really no different in that every film is a new business that’s starting a new business. And what often happens is somebody will invest in a single film, they’ll lose money and they’ll be out. And just like if they only did one venture capital private equity investment, it may or may not make money. And so the model has been flawed in that sense. People have not applied, generally accepted investing principles into their entertainment investing now, by no means is that guaranteed that they’re going to make money. It’s high risk. There’s got to be a double bottom line. It’s got to mean something else to you. But there are better ways to do it that improve your chances of making money and at the same time have impact on culture.

Henry Kaestner: So talk to us about some of those that’s intriguing to me. So there are some ways that you can invest that will increase your chances of doing well financially. What are some of those ways?

Ben Howard: So I don’t know your criteria for how you invest, but. I’d start off first of all with a better have a good management team. In other words, if you’re going to invest in a film and none of the producers none of the producers really are just shorthand for senior management team. If nobody on the senior management team has ever done this and succeeded, I’m guessing you don’t make a lot of investments into businesses that have nobody that’s done it before successfully. And so we look for teams for management teams that have at least done it at one point and succeeded at some level, not all of them. There’s got to be room for first timers or we’ll never build up young producers, young filmmakers. But somebody in the mix needs to have done it before. Another thing I greatly advise is don’t ever be 100% of the investment. Sometimes somebody comes in and they fund a whole, you know, the entire film, an entire project, whatever medium we’re in. I’d say never be more than 50% and always put your money. Besides, other smart investors reap the benefit of their experience and what they’ve done before. If you can just do those two things and let’s make an assumption that we’ve decided we have some money and we’re spreading it over multiple projects. That would be another piece. But you’ve really enhanced your chance not only of getting some of your money back or all of it and or profit, but you’re also at the same time having incredible impact on culture. So we really do go for kind of double bottom line.

John Coleman: That’s excellent. You know, there are a lot of areas of investing that are like that, Ben. And you’re right, I think there is a portfolio approach to anything that comes with a great amount of risk, which strikes me very much like venture capital. What I find interesting is that this is so unfamiliar to people. They often do need someone to hold their hand or to guide them through entering this new area of cultural impact or investing in the arts. And Wedgwood and you all and people like you seem to play that role. How does Wedgwood serve investors in that way, and how can people get involved in the organization in order to get more familiar with how to enter this space?

Craig Deitweller: Well, this kind of education that Ben’s providing now is something that we do for everybody, right? You express to us what you’re interested. Maybe you’re interested in Broadway. And then we’re going to try to connect you with some Broadway producers who’ve made money, maybe producing a show like The Temptations Show on Broadway. So you have points of reference, trusted advisers who can explain to you how the business works. We do that at least once a month with situations like this where we’re doing calls and, you know, bringing our members together. But we also do it in person. You know, we’re going to have gatherings. We’re going to be in Nashville in November for our 15th anniversary around Veterans Day, November 9th, 10th and 11th, I believe. And that’s a chance to gather with like minded people, meeting like minded artists and filmmakers and storytellers and figuring out how to just almost in a matchmaking service. Right. Getting to know people that you can trust that you’re comfortable with who have just both your interests, as well as the interests of getting that story out there.

Henry Kaestner: Can you talk a little bit about some of these stories that you’ve seen? And it could be on Broadway. I mean, you mentioned The Temptations side, but our audiences can be familiar with some amount of the work that you’ve done. And obviously, way back to Bob, the tomato and Larry the cucumber. But walk us through maybe some of these movie projects that you’ve done recently and maybe not at liberty to talk about every aspect of how the deal was structured or what the waterfall was back to investors, but make it a little bit more tangible for us. Help us to understand how some of these productions that we might be familiar with got financed and how they did.

Ben Howard: Yeah, you know what a great example would be? Blue Miracle. Blue Miracle is a film that people can go today and watch on Netflix. That’s a project that we put together last year, actually three years ago. So it got put together, filmed a couple of years ago. Netflix debuted it last year. First of all, it had a producer team that had done this before. My producer partner on that, one of them was Darren Moormon. Darren has done a number of things in the faith world that a lot of folks would be familiar with. Same kind of different as me was one of his projects he and I worked on Indivisible together. But so first off, back to kind of my criteria. Here was a management team, a producing team that had done this before. Our next step was to find some fellow investors. Some investors in this Provident Films came in. They are like minded. Endeavor Content is a company that wanted to have a part in this world Fair Trade, media, Mercy ME’s record company. They came in. So here we had people that all of whom had had success in the entertainment business who are now investing their money through in a great story, inspiring stand up and cheer, a story set in an orphanage in Mexico about being on the ocean. It was a great script, a great story, and then add Dennis Quaid to the mix. So we know now people choose to see movies, often based on the talent. And so we knew that was a critical piece of the puzzle. That movie got greenlit largely because of the management team around it, the producer team around it, the story itself, and then the talent and talents key a lot of time. People in this faith world at times try to make movies with talent that nobody knows. You know, it’s okay. It can work. But generally, if you want to help, your chances of succeeding with an investment, have talent that causes people to want to tune in and or go to the theater. So those elements really came together, Henry, and got that movie greenlit, got it made. And then that is something that was sold to Netflix for a profit. So everybody made their money back, made a little bit more money, and we’re putting the next one together right now.

John Coleman: You know what I love about that example, Ben, is historically a lot of people’s perception of Christian entertainment is totally separate, right? There’s Christian music, there’s Christian movies, Christian television shows, and it’s almost like a bubble. And, you know, we’re commanded to be in the world, but not of the world. And with Blue Miracle and some of the other projects like American Underdog that we’ve referenced here, those were wide releases that really touched a lot of lives outside of the traditional Christian bubble. How do you think for artists, or investors about navigating being in but not of the world and trying to have a broader cultural impact?

Ben Howard: I personally and be real interested in what Craig says about this as well. I think when we view redemptive stories, let them be just that. Don’t make them all be the same thing. Don’t make them all be a conversion film. Don’t make. Don’t have a formula they all have to fit. Tell great redemptive stories. Be a story of forgiveness. Might be a story of inspiration, etc.. Lots of ways to go about it. Then make sure we give them in the film what audiences expect when they go to theaters and talking about theaters. But obviously some movies will go streaming television directly. Use people with credibility, use directors that are known to the audiences, talent that’s known to the audience. These things to me give it a relevance that allow us to have something that gets outside of just the immediate Christian audience in the people who we can open their eyes to things they may never have thought of before. But to do that, we do have to be relevant artistically.

Craig Deitweller: And I think even back to my own experience as a kid, I maybe didn’t have enough of those Christian influences that were coming into my life. I needed a young life leader to take the risk and walk into my world, into my high school. And I feel like it’s the same thing with our living rooms. It’s the same thing with our movie theaters. It’s the same thing with our cell phones. We need to be involved with technology and storytelling and do all different kinds. And so when I see a series like Sweet Magnolias on Netflix, it’s run by a woman named Cheryl Anderson, who comes from a deep Lutheran faith. She’s going to infuse those values in that series across maybe one, two, three, four or five seasons. And it’s not going to preach at you in an obvious way, but it’s going to model maybe some behaviors that your family can talk about and invite you into that screen family in a way that builds a bridge that maybe a traditional Christian film maybe can’t do, that it’s too strong for some people who are more in an exploratory stage.

John Coleman: So what are some of the other things that you’re excited about in the faith driven area right now?

Ben Howard: So one thing I definitely want to tell you about is the story of Auntie Anne’s pretzels we learned of Ann through your podcast. That’s where we first go away. We’ve got to know where we’ve pulled together a group of people and we already have funding to have a script written. And so, you know, you earlier talked about a project that might get its beginning here. Hey, there’s one that’s already had its beginning here.

Henry Kaestner: How encouraging is that? Wow. That’s awesome.

John Coleman: Henry, how long until we get a bandwidth and Henry Kaestner script? How do we get that going?

Henry Kaestner: Oh, man. Yeah. You’ve got to have an incredible heroine like Auntie Anne and so we’ve automatically disqualified ourselves. Ben That’s really encouraging. And Craig just that’s awesome. We endeavor to be about content and community on this podcast, understanding that stories are the way that God brings us in and weaves this into the bigger story of what He’s doing in this world. And for you to take up the story of what God has done through Anne’s life, and for us to have it just a small part of it for you to hear for that story. Gosh, yes. That’s an incredible encouragement. And I cannot wait to see how you all work with that. That’s awesome. I don’t know, John, if that gets us, does that get us an invite to the premiere?

John Coleman: What I really want is a year of free Auntie Anne’s pretzel, I feel like that would be the big reward.

Ben Howard: Yeah me too

Craig Deitweller: Yeah, they’re really good.

Craig Deitweller: So Craig, you’ve written some books on just culture. You’re also a theologian and you’ve studied the subject and you speak to the just the influence of technology. Tell us about what you’re seeing in culture over the last 15 or 20 years. So how you interacted with culture is different when you came to know about Christ in young life, and that’s continue to expand. Just give us a fly over. What are you seeing and what are you seeing for the next five or ten years? What do you think culture is going to be about? What’s a role?

Craig Deitweller: That’s a great question Henry. Huge question, really. I think Christians were awakened by the success of something like The Passion of the Christ, and then you see it being replicated in a different kind of way through crowdfunding and something like the Chosen Series. And so there is a broad appetite that is really in some ways international for I would call it timeless biblical storytelling. But I’m also excited about what I would call the new voices, both the new voices of Christianity that might be coming from the two thirds world and then also might be telling us these stories that we haven’t maybe seen before and giving us back a sense of the difference that faith can make. So there was a gentleman named Lee Isaac Chung, who is a Korean immigrant. He went to Yale to study to be a doctor and fell in love with filmmaking instead. And he told a story last year called Minari, which was nominated for six Academy Awards. Brad Pitt gave him the million bucks that he needed to make the film because it was so touching and so real and it dignifies faith. It talks about the complexities of what it means to be an immigrant in America. And so it’s almost giving us back that kind of Hollywood film of the thirties and forties, like a Frank Capra kind of film, but filtered through the 21st century of what that maybe outsider experience of faith and culture looks like.

John Coleman: You recall an essay by a wonderful writer who was a Christian, Flannery O’Connor, perhaps the greatest short story writer of the last century, where she effectively talks about how a great story shouldn’t be easy.To summarize that, you have to let the characters in the story drive themselves rather than just having a point. And that seems so relevant. One thing I’ve noticed with a lot of the redemptive films or TV shows recently is how they are so story and character driven. And it feels to me like a lot of Christian filmmakers and writers have actually embraced that, as you all are outlining the power of redemptive stories and of weaving themes rather than leading with a message. As you look around the landscape, you’ve mentioned Broadway. We’ve talked music, movies, TV. Where do you think there’s a gap right now? Where would you say that Christians investing in culture or entertainment is most needed right now where there isn’t.

Craig Deitweller: What do you think, Ben?

Ben Howard: I don’t know that I’d pick one because I think they’re all relevant medium and that people of faith are underrepresented in all of them. I would say I think probably the music business has benefited the most from investment of larger mainstream companies into it. But I’d say in all of them we have work to do to bring up new, young, creative folks with a worldview compatible with what we’re talking about, to have impact on culture.

Craig Deitweller: My answer would be, I think we need more Christians involved in tech. We need more people like Henry, because those are the folks who are defining kind of the screens and the content and how things are distributed. So I think we have enough schools, whether that’s, you know, Belmont in Nashville, whether that’s Grand Canyon in Arizona, there’s enough schools educating young people in how to tell transformative stories. I don’t think we have enough executives who can give those green lights, who are savvy, business minded folks who have that ability to say, I want to see this on the big screen or this on the small screen or this on my phone. This is what I want to listen to. It’s what my family wants to gather around. So we need more, I think. Faith driven entrepreneurs to get into those boardrooms and get into that decision making.

Henry Kaestner: All right. So you got me going. So building off the culture, the things that you’ve seen, hitting on technology. Let’s look at the metaverse. What is the future of Christian entertainment content? Is that something we get involved with, or is that just like just such an alternate reality? It takes us away from the way that God designed things. Give us a perspective.

Craig Deitweller: Yesterday I was looking at a 4D technology that was being used to train officers in simulations, high risk situations, and the technology they were using had come from video games. Right. So we need more Christians involved in technology, making video games, building out the metaverse to figure out how to create this online world that is good, true and beautiful, and that has the possibility of the common good. And so at Grand Canyon, I’m pushing the university as fast as possible to say, Hey, you’ve got this great online reach. You need to create online classrooms and you need to create virtual simulations in this technology. They could create a virtual version of me in 10 minutes, like a 3D model version of me. You can make me dancing, do whatever else you want in 10 minutes. That’s what’s possible in this new technology. And so we need more people who can understand how to control the box, if you will, with the power at their fingertips really is.

Henry Kaestner: If you could make me dance in 10 minutes, you get a buyer. My wife Kimberly will spend a lot of money on a product like that.

John Coleman: I think the next podcast is exactly that. Henry We need to meet in the metaverse here, and we’ll all have dancing avatars. We’ll have our Oculus.

Henry Kaestner: There will be a first.

John Coleman: You know, we’ve talked a little bit about this medium from the investor side. But if you are an artist with a great idea, if you’re someone with a great vision in tech, it can be difficult to meet those and connect with those who are going to finance those projects. You know, often those folks are not terribly commercial. It may be difficult to communicate your idea. Coming at it from the other perspective. What advice would you give to those who have a great artistic idea or even a great technologically enabled idea in order to connect with those with capital to make that idea reality?

Craig Deitweller: Well, isn’t that the core of what the faith driven network is trying to build? And that’s really what we’re building at Wedgwood Circle is an on ramp with people who can vet projects and say, this is viable, but have you thought of it this way? Or, you know, maybe retool it a little more with this in mind. Right. People who understand the marketplace matching up with these faith driven artists, that’s what we do best at Wedgwood is try to connect artists to capital. That’s what you’re saying, Wedgwood.That’s what we want to do as well. What do you think Ben?

Ben Howard: Yeah, I totally agree with you. And I’d say most film makers, most artists have their first project be something that they probably funded out of their own piggybank or with their own parents in that. Just go do it. You know, the Kendrick brothers are fond of saying their first movies were run, chase and shoot movies made with a camcorder in the woods. And I really think that’s important. And that’s not just for people of faith. It’s how we exercise our craft. We just start doing it. And if we do it in a great way, a lot of times that’s what starts to get attention. So that’s what I would say is go do it.

John Coleman: We’ve talked a little bit about some of the successful projects that you’ve worked on, Ben and Craig, but are there some new artists out there and new projects that you’re really excited about that you’d want to put the spotlight on now that you think could make a big difference?

Craig Deitweller: Should we talk about the Boylan’s and what we did it at Grand Canyon, Ben?

Ben Howard: Yeah, let’s talk about the Boylan Sisters. Why don’t you talk about it from your vantage point?

Craig Deitweller: Oh, well, you know, how many times have we seen, like, sort of the Christian football movie, right? There’s all kinds of versions of that. So it’s all these guys making movies like, Hey, guys, Christian guys will love this. Well, what if you had some women who were saying, what about the girls? Right. Who’s making films for young Christian women or for mothers and daughters to interact? And Ben Howard introduced me to these two amazing sisters.

Ben Howard: The Boylan sisters are Andrea and Alexandra. They’re originally from the Northeast. One of them currently lives in Wisconsin and one in L.A. And they’re gifted storytellers, and they have incredible hearts for God, incredible hearts for young girls. And I came upon them about a year and a half ago here in Nashville, where I am. And they had a script and a story. I found out they’d made five movies and their investors had gotten paid back on all of them. And look, as somebody who’s seeking to make business out of entertainment, that’s gold. And so we immediately started to work on that next project. Their admittedly low budget, their previous projects that I was aware of had been up to half a million dollars. That’s a low budget. So we up to that, we went out in the more million dollar range and put a plan together and I intersected with Craig about that time and he was just making the move to Grand Canyon University. We were looking for a college campus to make our film on. We ended up making a movie at Grand Canyon in January. And let me tell you, Phoenix in January is a great place to be. These sisters, in my opinion, are God’s answer. Not that he’s been requested to answer this, but to the Erwin brothers and the Kendrick brothers. We now have the Boylans sisters and as Craig said, it’s like they’ve got a story and a heart for women and for young girls. And it made an incredible, I think, what will turn out to be incredible comedy, family film, teen film called Identity Crisis that will hit the world later this summer.

Craig Deitweller: And it’s really designed to get women and their daughters talking. Right. It’s about a girl who has a personal identity crisis. As a freshman in college, she feels like she can’t keep up with her engineering major as well as her, you know, her social life. And how do you do that? Well, she figures out how to clone herself. And so you got two versions of herself running around. It’s a lot of fun. They ran all over the Grand Canyon campus, but it was fun for us because we got Wedgwood investors involved at work on the financing. We think they’re going to get their money back, which means they’re going to want to do more. And that’s how it works, right? Tell them good stories, making sound business decisions so people can continue to work on their craft and tell their stories.

Henry Kaestner: For people have listened to the podcast for a long time, you know that we always end the podcast with the same questions. I’m going to give the two of you a heads up as to where this is going. We’re going to ask you at the end of this. What are you hearing from God in his word? Maybe it’s this morning, maybe it’s this week, but sometime recently that has encouraged you. It could have something to do with what we’re talking about. It could have something completely different. Okay, that’s where we’re going. That’s not where we’re going to get started. We’re going to get started. We’re going to bring back a feature that Luke and I had brought in six or seven episodes ago, which is kind of this lightning round of questions. And so each of you is allowed to answer. You had to keep your answers to less than 15 seconds. And then we are, of course, will close off with what are you hearing from God and his word? Okay. Number one, what story in the Bible do you think needs to be told next? So many characters, so many stories. What one is ready for the big screen next?

Ben Howard: Craig.

Craig Deitweller: Ben.

Ben Howard: You know what I’ve loved? I’ve always loved the story of Gideon. Nobody’s ever made a movie about a guy up against long odds with very little resources, and God made him do it in a way he never imagined.

Henry Kaestner: Good answer.

Ben Howard: I love the story of Gideon.

Henry Kaestner: Craig. It’s going to be hard to top that.

Craig Deitweller: I agree. That’s why I’m going to say we should do Gideon.

Henry Kaestner: Not very original, but maybe it just maybe that’s where it all started to start out here on the Faith Driven Investor podcast. Tell us about the origin story of that blockbuster movie that’s called Gideon. Okay, number two, tell us about you have interacted with lots of famous people, lots of folks that we’ve seen on the silver screen, and many of them are motivated by their faith. Give us one story of somebody that most of our audience is likely going to be familiar with their name, at least. Whose faith has inspired you? Oh, I hope there’s somebody.

Craig Deitweller: Yeah, well, there’s actually. There’s so many.

Henry Kaestner: Oh, good.

Craig Deitweller: Which is kind of amazing, I would say. Patricia Heaton and her consistent witness in sitcoms over the decades. Really impressive.

Henry Kaestner: Okay. For those of us who may not be as familiar with Patricia Heaton’s work as there may be Robert De Niro’s, help us understand where she’s been.

Craig Deitweller: Everybody Loves Raymond.

Henry Kaestner: Oh, there you go.

Craig Deitweller: The middle. Right. She’s kind of America’s mom and has done that as a person of faith with grace and aplomb.

Henry Kaestner: Oh, it’s awesome. Great answer. Great answer. You’ve redeemed yourself from the last one, Ben.

Ben Howard: Great answer. Yeah. And then I would offer Dennis Quaid. He’s the guy who I’ve got to work with a good bit recently become friends with. Dennis continues to choose projects that fill a void in terms of what our culture is hearing. And I don’t just mean faith, but just projects. He plays Ronald Reagan in the upcoming Reagan movie that I think will hit the world next year. And he’s taking roles and upping the ante, if you will, into messaging and stories that our culture needs to hear.

John Coleman: All right. I’m going to hit you with two more self-interested questions. We’re all living in a world where after COVID, I streamed entirely too much in terms of TV and movies. What’s the best movie or TV series, Faith Driven or Not, you’ve seen over the last six months? And why?

Ben Howard: Yeah, I’m going to throw out the one that’s probably among people I know always talked about, but maybe you guys haven’t hit up on it yet. But it’s Ted Lasso and it’s Jason Sudeikis. It’s on Apple TV and it’s about kindness and goodness and doing good. And it’s not a faith per say, but it’s all the things that come from faith. And so I love that show and I love how I feel when it’s over and the way I want to live when it’s done. And if that doesn’t define faith driven content, regardless of who’s making it, I don’t know what does.

Craig Deitweller: And I’ll go for the flip side of that. On the same network on Apple Tv+ the morning show really deals with the complexities of sin and the long tale of how bad choices continue to maybe spin you out and have a ripple effect. And so I think for businesspeople interested in ethics, it really shows you how important it is to do the right thing, because when you do the wrong thing, it gets really bad in really devastating ways for all of those around you.

John Coleman: That’s good. I am also a lover of Ted Lasso, but now I’ve got a great recommendation for the morning show. I’m going to hit one last one, which I expect Henry Kaestner to answer as well, because I know Henry has a classic interest in this subject. Who’s your favorite musician of all time, and why should a person of faith love that musician as much as you do?

Henry Kaestner: That’s great.

Craig Deitweller: The Boss, Bruce Springsteen. I’m that guy. I’m that old guy. I saw him probably when I was, you know, 16, 17 for the first time and fell in love. And, I don’t know, working class songs meant something to me. I was a working class kid, and he gave me a sense of hope that you can maybe get in that car and get to the other side. And so going from North Carolina to Hollywood, that’s a big, big, long drive. But I think the Bruce Springsteen gave me a little bit of courage to hang out on that Thunder Road.

Henry Kaestner: Get a wife and kids in Baltimore. Jack, I grew up in Baltimore, so I always got me. But man, born to run, there’s no better pump up song for me ever.

John Coleman: Well, talk about a musician who’s a storyteller, right? Those songs really tell the story of working class America. You’re right. All right, Ben and Henry, what do you think?

Ben Howard: You know, I mean, I’m The Avett Brothers through and through who come from Henry’s territory. If you’re from North Carolina, these guys sing of truth and of love and of pain and vulnerability. And I love The Avett Brothers.

Henry Kaestner: All right. You’ve blessed us with that. I don’t know The Avett Brothers. I’ve heard it. Well, I’ve heard of them. I can’t tell you name of song, but I’m going to go to that. I’ve got two for our audience real quickly. One is U2. I actually sponsored the first ever academic conference on the Christianity of U2 lyrics. It happened at North Carolina Central University way back in the day and was fascinating just to hear about their spirituality, where the streets have no name, of course, is talking about heaven. Still haven’t found what I’m looking for. Just a great seeking type of song. There’s so much there and the Christianity of their lyrics and I love that. But one of the things I’ve done recently is I’ve gone back since. I like a lot of secular music too. I’ve started to borrow some of the greats from the 1970s, which is I’m a child of seventies and adopted them as my own, as praise and worship music, whether they are praise and worship or not. And an example of that, which I encourage our listeners to check out, is Ain’t Nobody by Chaka Khan, Ain’t Nobody Loves Me Better.

Craig Deitweller: Right.

Henry Kaestner: And I envision that is a praise and worship song. It may. Or may not have been designed that way, but that’s what I would leave our audience with. John. I want to turn the tables back to you. Give us one.

John Coleman: Oh, gosh. I didn’t know y’all were going to turn it on me. There are so many out there I’d almost have to go by genre, but for the same reasons you highlighted with Springsteen, I think guys like Johnny Cash are really interesting just telling the story of America and how you build from that. So I’ll stop with that one for now. But there are too many to name for me.

Henry Kaestner: Well, okay, so now we’re closing this off and I’m getting some great comments in from our producers here that and we could go on and on about some great music acts. We’re going to do that for the next segment. This has been awesome. I can’t wait to have you guys back on the program. We are going to close out as we do every one of our episodes and ask you what each of you are hearing through God in his word.

Ben Howard: Yeah, I’ll jump in. That one was immediately came to mind for me and I’m continually reminded that we’re not alone. And I don’t just think God’s presence, but we have a cloud of witnesses, we have a body, we have others around us, and we don’t have to do this by ourselves. And I am so thankful for that.

Henry Kaestner: Amen.

Craig Deitweller: I’ve been struck reading about the parable of the four soils, if you will, the seed. And I think about it for entrepreneurs. I think about it for pastors. The fact that Jesus basically said, hey, if you got a 250 batting average, that’s biblical. That’s like all time. Like one out of four is about as much as you can hope for. And so for investors, it’s like you might have been burned and for pastors, you might have said, why did those people walk away? But that’s just that’s the biblical average. And so we shouldn’t be surprised if 75% of our our efforts feel like they were wasted and got choked out and didn’t manifest in the way we hoped. But that 25% is can be pretty beautiful.

Henry Kaestner: I think you’re very, very right. I thought you were going to the parable of the sowers there too? And I’m going to just leave this as an encouragement to our audience on the Faith Driven Investor podcast and the parable of sowers. Of course, if you listen this podcast the odds you haven’t had your faith snatched away by being scorched or by birds coming in and get, so you’re likely have gone through that. But mine and John’s encouragement and along with Ben and Craig, I’ll presume, is that we might be able to soldier through the worries of this life and the deceitfulness of riches to get to that type of faith driven investment return of 160 or 30 fold. And that’s what this podcast is all about. So as you know of folks that you think might be encouraged by episodes like today, give us some feedback, too, and say, listen, if you ever do that whole thing where you ask people about their favorite music acts again, I’ll never listen again. Or if you think that was great and you’ve got some other suggestions on things, we might ask our guests, let us know. And please just take this to your communities. Whether it’s a Faith Driven Investor group, whether it’s a Faith Driven Entrepreneur, a group that you might launch with your church, there’s never any cost, there’s no catch, there’s no upsell. Here we are a ministry and we get fired up about telling stories like Ben and Craig’s. Thank you for listening in. Ben Craig, thank you very much for being with us.

Craig Deitweller: Thank you, Henry.