Remember the days when “investing” meant putting money into well-known assets like stocks, bonds, cash, real estate or equity shares and expecting a reasonable appreciation of capital, dividends, or interest earnings? At the Stewardship Foundation, it still is — with the additional peace of mind that your money or assets are working for the common good.

If you keep up with financial news, you may have noticed a bothersome trend…the investment world is becoming woke.

There are a growing number of investment firms encouraging their clients to “act responsibly” and this commission has even taken on its own acronym: ESG. 

E refers to environmental, S is for social, and Gstands for governance. ESG then refers to the criteria for evaluating corporate behavior when screening potential investments. What they must have in common is that they offer investments that support social, political or environmental issues.

ESG looks at the company’s environmental impact on the world, the social impact it has on populations and politics, and then the governance required to produce a social benefit. 

We can recall that after God created the world—the sky, day and night, living creatures on the land and in the sea and in the air—He said “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness…male and female he created them.” (Genesis 1:26-27) “Not so fast” says the woke crowd, “who says God is a man, or that a man-God created another man first? What about the women? Maybe God is a she not a he, or maybe there’s no such thing as gender … just “parts” we are born with because God chose variety. That is, if there really is a God at all!

The Stewardship Foundation firmly believes that God exists, that he created man and woman for the purpose of procreation, that in the biblical story of the Parable of Talents (Matthew 25:14-30) we are taught that to those who are entrusted much, much is expected, and if you are a steward of man (we are) we must be good stewards with our donor’s money and increase our donor’s wealth for the good of all. If we create a better world at the same time, we give all the glory to God.

In short, ESG investing is aligning your investments with a set of world values. Morally responsible investing aligns your investments on biblical principles, which The Stewardship Foundation always has and continues to do.