FaithInvest: Growing the scale & impact of faith-consistent investing |
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This is not the newsletter we had planned to send out: the global coronavirus crisis has, understandably, pushed almost everything off the agenda. But we do want to share the good news of what we are doing and to look ahead beyond the current crisis. |
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We may remember 2020 as the year in which conversations about responsible capitalism, treating people fairly and the collective good took on added urgency as a result of the crisis over Covid-19. What is certain is that the world in which we emerge post-coronavirus will be different to the world pre-coronavirus. There's a saying (often attributed to Churchill): 'Never let a crisis go to waste.' Challenging times provide an opportunity for us to consider more deeply what kind of society and economy we wish to create for our world. We at FaithInvest will be playing our part in these global conversations and in growing the movement of faith-consistent and impact investing worldwide. As many of you will know, the Alliance of Religions and Conservation, of which I was Secretary General, ceased operations in June 2019. But for the last two years, we have been working on establishing FaithInvest as a new international charity founded to assist faiths to invest in line with their values for people and planet. FaithInvest formally launched as a charity |
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last year. We are a non-profit membership association for religious groups and faith-based investors worldwide and our mission is to expand the scale and impact of faith-consistent investing globally. We are the result of the unanimous conclusion of ARC's landmark 2017 Zug meeting on faiths and investments that a new body was needed to help shift billions of dollars of faith-based investments into initiatives supporting sustainable development and the environment. However, our roots go further back to 2001, when ARC first began engaging the faiths on how they invest their money. And it very much complements the work of bodies such as ICCR, ECCR, JLens and others, which we are proud to count as partners. I am FaithInvest's Acting Chief Executive and I am delighted that several former ARC colleagues have joined me at FaithInvest. I look forward to renewing old friendships and partnerships – and to making new ones –- as we go forward as a powerful new voice for this growing movement. We invite you to join us! Martin |
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You are receiving this email because you have expressed an interest in receiving FaithInvest or ARC news, or have worked with ARC. This is effectively the last ARC newsletter. If you would like to continue receiving an occasional FaithInvest newsletter, please sign up here. You may unsubscribe at any time by emailing unsubscribe@faithinvest.org. |
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MEMBERSHIP AT FAITHINVEST |
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We welcome faith groups of all sizes to join us as members. Benefits include: - Curated investment-related services
- Working groups and networks within faith chapters and/or multi-faith cohorts
- Access to a pipeline of potentially investable opportunities
- Pionneering research and education
- Events focused on practical challenges of faith-consistent and impact investing
- Adding your voice to the growing movement of values-based investing
Membership fees have been waived until the end of March 2021. |
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Nana Francois is a financial services, investments and strategy expert who has worked in the UK and South Africa for over 15 years. As well as extensive experience with the likes of Barclays Africa Group, JP Morgan and Gartmore Investment Management, she has also supported start-ups with strategic business guidance. |
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Mike Even is an investment professional with over 35 years' industry experience. He was Chair of Man Numeric Investors in Boston and a member of the Man Group Executive Committee. Before Numeric he worked for Citigroup for nine years building a global asset management organisation. After Citi merged with Travelers, he became global CIO of the Private Bank, then global CIO for, and Co-Head of, Citigroup Asset Management, overseeing teams running over US$500B in client assets. |
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THE FINANCIAL THIRD SECTOR At the heart of FaithInvest's vision is the growth of what we are calling the Financial Third Sector. Third sector organisations are those which are neither public nor private sector but instead comprise not-for-profit, charity, community or voluntary groups. These organisations are typically values-driven and motivated primarily by the desire to achieve social or environmental goals. |
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The newly defined and emerging Financial Third Sector is made up of the faiths, philanthropies, foundations and other groups that invest primarily for communities rather than solely private gain. The shareholders of this Financial Third Sector include the communities and the planet. We are groups that want to achieve social or environmental impacts through our investments, rather than solely accummulate profits. |
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We believe faith groups investing in line with their values have a key role to play in the Financial Third Sector. FaithInvest is spearheading this new development and this is built upon our work with faiths, and now some philanthropies, in helping them create their own Faith-Consistent Investing Guidelines. Creation of these Guidelines is one of the criteria for joining FaithInvest. Interested? Check out our guide on how to do this. |
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We had a very busy year of events and activities planned, before coronavirus. We've had to postpone some of them, such as our Inaugural Launch Event and Founders Conference, set for June 2020 but now pushed back to the end of this year. But others, we hope, will go ahead as planned, such as our August Asia meeting in Japan and a major meeting of faith investment researchers in partnership with Oxford University's Saïd Business School in October. We are also looking to move some of our planned meetings online with the development of topic-specific webinars. Please check our events page regularly for details. |
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ACTIVITIES While our planned events have been impacted by the coronavirus, our activities have not. We are, in fact, extremely busy working on a number of projects aimed at building the skills of our members and generating investment opportunities. One area that has expanded dramatically in the last few months – and become very exciting – is the partnership with UNDP to create Green Entrepreneurship MOOCs. |
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WHAT ARE MOOCs? MOOCs stand for Massive Open Online Courses and, as the name suggests, are web-based courses available free to anyone. UNDP's Green Entrepreneurship MOOC is aimed at strengthening the skills of entrepreneurs while encouraging them to consider the environment in their work. This very much fitted with what Cardinal Peter Turkson, head of the Vatican’s Dicastery for Promoting Integral Human Development, had asked for at the 2017 Zug gathering: tools to help dioceses develop a more business-like approach to projects currently reliant on charity. Originally UNDP asked us to provide a 'faith lens' to its MOOC but, thanks to the enthusiasm of our faith partners, this swiftly transformed into a much bigger initiative |
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which recognises the faith perspective of the businessman/woman as being not just a sole entrepreneur but also having responsibilities to the wider community (including people and planet). LAUDATO SI' MOOC We are working with the Vatican to create the Catholic MOOC which will be known as the Laudato Si' Entrepreneurship Support Programme. We are also building a network of Catholic entrepreneur groups and business schools to provide support and mentoring to the new entrepreneurs taking the course. The other MOOCs in process include: Muslims (Indonesian); Chinese Traditions (Buddhist and Daoist) and Armenian Orthodox. |
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WHY BRIDGES? Finally, you may have noticed that the dominent theme of our website (and this newsletter) is bridges. Why? Because FaithInvest aims to build bridges: - Between faiths
- Within faiths, between religous and investment leaders
- To the wider community and the laity.
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