I grew up with a father who was a successful mutual fund manager. I’m realizing now that many people don't even know what that means. To me, growing up, it meant my dad made “investments” that made other people money…end of knowledge. Throughout my life he included me in financial conversations and set up strategies to educate me on financial terms and investing habits. I resisted ALL of it. I was headed for the greener acres of science and I saw no urgency to endure this education. Plus, those suit-wearing men in those meetings made me uncomfortable. Especially when dad would say “Suzanne, do you have any questions?” Now as an adult married 25 years, I find I still struggle with feeling intimidated by financial conversations with professionals.
I’m going to say this for the ladies in the back…growing up with the jargon always around me, my own married experience with investments, running a charitable foundation for 20 years, I still feel that way. I bet you do too.
I say all this because there’s an important new movement in front of us as Christ-following philanthropists called the Faith Driven Impact Investing movement. I don't want you to miss this! As the Executive Director of our family foundation I spent 100% of my time focused on grant making…for about 20 years. For many of those years my father and the trust company holding the Foundation made all the investing decisions as the endowment grew. I would occasionally suggest investing in things that “made the world better” (at least my definition of better) and my dad would gently respond, “if we do that we won't get the returns we want so we can keep giving money away.” Oh. End of conversation. I just didn't have the know-how and jargony words to keep talking. But in my heart I felt like we could do better, especially in the investment of our charitable portfolio (portfolio: “a range of investments held by a person or organization”).
Dad has now since retired from the foundation and I’m learning that this dreamscape DOES exist and is growing quickly. It’s full of teachers and folks like me who are NOT professional investment managers but foundation managers and family members running family offices. We all know charity is important and will always have a role in the world but business investment and growth is THE TICKET for people to escape poverty and our dollars can play a role, no matter our professional background. So I’m here to say…welcome to the table!