Faith-Based Investing Redefined: Moving Beyond Screening to Intentional Capital Allocation

For decades, faith-based investing has been defined primarily by what it excludes: tobacco, alcohol, adult entertainment. But according to Steven Libman, founder of Investing With Purpose, this approach represents a fundamental failure of the industry to truly align capital with values. “The definition that the industry has been operating under for the last 30 years is a lazy one,” Libman says. “Screening is the floor. Building intentionally would be the ceiling.”

Libman, who spent 15 years in the financial services industry before launching a faith-driven multifamily real estate investment platform, argues that the gap between surface-level compliance and genuine alignment is widening. Investors who cannot distinguish between the two, he contends, are effectively outsourcing their conscience to fund managers who may not share their priorities.

The core premise of intentional faith-based investing is simple: capital goes somewhere, and where it goes signals something. Libman poses a provocative question to prospective investors: “If your grandchildren inherited your portfolio tomorrow, what would they know about what you believed in?” He adds, “We have not been taught to think this way.”

The cautionary tale, Libman says, is the ESG sector. Environmental, social, and governance funds marketed themselves on impact but often delivered weak returns. “ESG put a dagger in the heart of values-aligned investing,” he says. “They were saying, you are going to get lower returns, but we will make an impact. In fact, they were not making an impact, and they were not making a return either.” For Libman, the lesson is that values and returns are not incompatible when alignment is operational, not just a label.

Investing With Purpose embeds faith-driven principles through an on-site asset ministry program in its multifamily properties. Free apartments are provided to ministry staff who run tenant engagement programming—movie nights, farmers markets, food truck events, and hospital visits. The business logic is clear: tenants with six or seven friends in the same complex are 45 percent less likely to move out, reducing turnover and costs. “Ministry is the moat around the investment,” Libman says. “Caring is a durable business advantage, not a disadvantage.”

Transparency is another key differentiator. Beyond standard financial KPIs, investors receive a ministry impact report tracking resident connections, pastoral support, and on-site acts of service. Investors are also invited on-site quarterly for serve days. “Unlike your Wall Street investments, you can drive by it, touch it, feel it, actually see the impact that we are making,” Libman says.

For investors new to values-aligned investing, Libman’s entry point is real estate—an asset class most people understand. “Every dollar that you invest is a vote for something,” he says. “So when you deploy your capital, it is either going to build something you are aligned with or something that might be in conflict with your own values.”

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