Stewardship for Faith Based Clients

Managing God’s Money is where Faith and Finance intersect.

At Calyx, our faith and heritage defines who we are as people, and what we are as a firm. Our mission is to enable faith-based institutions to realize their mission, using our financial expertise to manage resources and invest effectively.

• An Endowment Trustee told us, “The endowment’s role is to provide the best return possible, within a long-term, risk-averse framework… because we need to know that we will have the funds necessary to support the church’s work!”
• The Interfaith Center for Corporate Responsibility tells us, “The tradition of faith-based investing is centuries old. Religious investors from Jewish, Christian and Islamic faiths, as well as indigenous cultures, have always carefully considered the impact of their financial decisions on others.”

Our approach to Stewardship focuses on strict risk management to avoid losses while growing the endowment. We need to insure that funds will be available for many years to come, supporting the important work of our clients.

We do this in a framework of full transparency,

• Segregated accounts to insure Fiduciary Integrity
• Low fees to avoid layered costs
• Avoidance of commission-based products
• Active risk management attuned to current economic conditions.  

Unlike large institutional managers, we avoid high-cost institutional funds, hedge funds and complex synthetic offerings… investments that have caused many endowments over the past decade to fall behind market returns and even suffer losses.

Socially Responsible Investing

Many Faith Based Endowments have developed guidelines for socially responsible investing and avoidance of certain products and industries. Adhering to these standards is the responsibility of the Investment Committee and their financial advisors.

Some Financial Advisors claim to have tools and special investment vehicles to implement socially responsible policies, using proprietary measures of “responsibility”. However many of the investment funds developed to implement socially responsible goals have rigid strategies that fail to deliver competitive returns. They focus on excluding objectionable sectors without a clear investment plan.
At Calyx, we work with board members to learn their priorities and concerns. We then help our clients draft an effective investment policy, forming an investment bias that is unique and responsive.

Our clients remind us that an Endowment’s Investments should grow and support the Church’s Mission, and ask us to guard against the Endowment becoming a Mission of its Own.