Values-Aligned Investing
What do you value most?
Use our online tool to identify the values that matter most to you and analyze your investments to see if they align. Start living aligned today!
Learn More About Values-Based Investing
Many people unknowingly invest in companies whose products or practices conflict with their personal values. Values-based investing allows us to simply identify what you value most and align your investments to match.
Investing has become commoditized and distant, divorced from its true purpose -supplying capital to great businesses. Most investors try to profit from “the market” rather than from the productive and intrinsic value of the underlying companies. When you invest, you become a shareholder or owner. As an owner, it is essential to know how the companies you’re invested in make money. There are some companies that you’d be proud to own because they fill a need and bless humanity. On the other hand, there are companies you would never want to invest in because they make money from products or services that do not align with your deepest core values.
What is Necessary For a Good Investment?
Filling a Need
The first requirement for a good investment is that the company should be filling a need in society or in the marketplace.
Sustainable Profit
Filling a need creates demand for the company’s products and services and ultimately allows the company an opportunity to achieve a sustainable profit.
Positive Return
Investors, of course, are looking for positive return. You want to get your money back and then some.
Bless Mankind
The final requirement: when the company is able to identify and meet a need, it should bless mankind.
The first requirement for a good investment is that the company should FILL A NEED in society or the marketplace. This creates demand for the company’s products and services and allows the company to achieve a SUSTAINABLE PROFIT. As an investor, you are looking for a POSITIVE RETURN. You want to get your money back and earn a return on your investment. The final requirement is that when the company can identify and meet a need, it should BLESS MANKIND. Think about all of the ways that you interact with businesses every day- the technology company that made your alarm clock, the farmers who provided ingredients for your breakfast, and the engineers who designed and built the car you drove today. The institution of business has a unique ability to meet needs, create value, and positively impact the world.
Unfortunately, some companies do not bless humanity and instead actually cause harm. How do we eliminate these companies from our investment?
If you’re like most people, your investments are probably in mutual funds or other pooled investment products where you might not know much about the companies benefitting from your investment. Mutual funds can sometimes feel like a mysterious black box. We put money in without knowing what’s inside, hoping that it kicks out a positive return.
Our technology enable you to look at each of the individual investments in a mutual fund. Take the S&P 500 Index, for example. Each square represents one of the five hundred largest companies in America. The red squares show the companies that make money from products or services that cause harm rather than blessing humanity. In this example, 38 companies in the S&P 500 Index are involved in abortion, pornography, tobacco, or gambling.
We start with a question that helps you identify what you value most:
What values do you have that you’d never want to violate just to make a profit?
Live Aligned
We can help you clarify what matters most to you and analyze your investments and see if they align. Then, we can recommend practical next steps to help you align your values and your investments.
Our unique onboarding process allows us to tailor a plan to your unique money style and values. Read more about how we begin client relationships with the end in mind.