Faith-Driven Serve Day Transforms Investor-Resident Relations

In a powerful demonstration of faith-driven investing, Steven Libman, co-founder of Integrity Holdings Group (IHG) and founder of Investing With Purpose™, led a quarterly Serve Day at Rise Avalon, an IHG-owned community in Charlotte, NC, on June 20. The event brought together investors, operating partners, and leadership for a full day of resident engagement, including prayer walks, a community barbecue, bounce houses, and family programming. Rise 48 Equity, a co-investor on the property, also participated. This Serve Day model, developed by Libman across IHG’s portfolio, is now being carried forward into Investing With Purpose as the firm builds its own residential communities, focusing on giving back to the residents at the heart of the investment.

The event transformed the property into a Family Fun Day with bounce houses, obstacle courses, pool games, BBQ, raffles, photo booths, and live entertainment. Local small businesses, food trucks, fire departments, and community vendors joined the investor team, creating a day of free meals, entertainment, heartfelt conversations, and prayer. For investors, it was the most tangible expression of the firm’s philosophy that “capital meets calling.” Steven Libman emphasized the dual focus on temporal and eternal returns, stating, “Every resident who pays rent here is contributing to investor returns. But can we also show them the eternal return – the people, the names, the faces on site.” Nick Stromwall of Rise 48 Equity added, “When you genuinely care about people and serve them, the returns come back and help the investors as well.”

Investor Matt Emerson, attending his first Serve Day, noted the shift in understanding: “To put faces to all of it, to come and pray with the community – that is the biggest thing. It does actually make a difference where you live and how you get cared for.” The Purposed Care Initiative model, central to Libman’s investment thesis, posits that profit and purpose are causally connected. Investing With Purpose, a faith-driven multifamily real estate firm based in Bluffton, SC, invests nationally in multifamily assets, combining institutional-caliber management with a values framework. Learn more at investingwithpurpose.org.