Beyond Screening: Faith-Based Investing Gets Intentional

For decades, faith-based investing has been reduced to simple screening—excluding sin stocks like tobacco, alcohol, and adult entertainment. Steven Libman, founder of Investing With Purpose, calls this a lazy definition that fails investors seeking genuine alignment. After 15 years in the industry, Libman built a multifamily real estate platform explicitly structured around faith-driven principles, arguing that screening is just the floor, while intentional building is the ceiling. The core premise is that every dollar is a vote: capital goes somewhere and signals what you believe in. Libman challenges investors to consider whether their grandchildren would know their values from their portfolio. He rejects the conventional wisdom of separating returns from values, then donating philanthropically, calling it an unnecessary bifurcation inherited from a product-sales-focused financial industry.

The cautionary tale is the ESG sector, which Libman says put a dagger in the heart of values-aligned investing by promising impact but delivering weak returns and little genuine change. He notes that funds using impact as a marketing hook rather than an operational framework tend to fail on both fronts. Investing With Purpose embeds an on-site ministry program in its multifamily properties, providing free apartments to staff who run tenant engagement like movie nights, farmers markets, and hospital visits. The business logic is strong: tenants with six or seven friends in the complex are 45% less likely to move out, reducing vacancy and costs. Libman calls ministry the moat around the investment, asserting that caring is a durable business advantage, not a disadvantage. The faith dimension is service-first, not imposed on residents.

Transparency is key: Libman's firm sends investors not only financial KPIs but also a ministry impact report tracking community connections, pastoral support, and acts of care. Investors are invited on-site quarterly for serve days to see and participate in the impact. For those new to values-aligned investing, real estate offers an intuitive entry point—most understand rental property and housing as a fundamental need. Libman frames faith-based investing not as a constraint on returns but as a signal of operational philosophy and long-term community building. In an era where investors ask harder questions about where their money goes, this approach is less niche than a decade ago.