As an investment consultancy, Innovest’s role is to perform due diligence on the managers, products, and strategies that our clients use. Ultimately, our comprehensive qualitative and quantitative approach determines if past performance is luck or skill and if it is repeatable in the future.

Many of our faith-based clients also care about the make-up of their portfolio, wanting to ensure that exposure to abortion, pornography, child labor, and other objectionable investments are screened out from the portfolio.

Plenty of money management firms are willing to manage a religiously screened portfolio. However, many of these firms uphold values that are misaligned with those of these faith-based organization clients.

Key Questions to Ask Money Management Firms

In our due diligence process, we ask key questions to help us understand if money management firms have values that clash with the principles of the Church. We make the following requests:

• Describe your culture.
• Do you have a faith statement?
• Describe your firm’s philosophy on charitable donations. Please share a list of organizations receiving donations.
• Does your benefit plan pay for abortions and abortion transportation across state lines?
• Do you have a philosophy and statement on religious freedom?
• In the last five years, has your company sponsored organizations or events that may be in conflict with the Church or Christian values?
• Does your organization manage money for organizations that may be in conflict with the Church or Christian values?

The answers to these questions can be quite revealing. In fact, many money management organizations promote their “woke” practices publicly.

Most, if not all, investment consultants managing money for faith-based organizations fail to ask the questions that we have outlined. This is partly because investment consultants struggle themselves to provide answers that align with the values  of their faith-based clients. We highly recommend that these questions be asked of all your service providers.

The world is changing. There are noted instances where service providers have “cancelled” faith-based organizations. Money management and investment consultants happily collect fees and commissions from the religious space. Perhaps it is time to look closely at the values of these firms.

About the Author

Richard Todd is CEO and co-founder of Innovest Portfolio Solutions, which provides investment consulting services to faith-based organizations. He has almost 40 years of experience in investment consulting and currently provides consulting services to institutions and families. Innovest has over 300 clients with assets under advisement of $45 billion and 60 employees. Rich has been a frequent author on fiduciary and investment related matters. He has been a columnist for the Denver Business Journal and his thoughts have been published in Financial Advisor Magazine, US Christian Chamber of Commerce Blog, Legatus Magazine, Family Office Magazine, Chief Executive, Accounting Today, Catholic News Agency, Journal of Compensation and Benefits, Pensions & Investments, PLANSPONSOR, and Christian Leadership Alliance Blog, among others. Rich has been a guest lecturer at conferences across the nation and can be contacted at rtodd@innovestinc.com. More information on Innovest can be found at www.Innovestinc.com.