Licensed CPA Loran Graham demonstrates with grace and humility why honoring God with our investment choices matters, and how biblically responsible investing (BRI) fits into the bigger picture of biblical stewardship. He addresses the tension between our stewardship responsibility to aim for the best return and our responsibility to honor the Lord by steering clear of investments that run contrary to biblical values.
Discover why honoring God with our investments matters. With grace and humility, Loran Graham takes us on a journey to demonstrate how biblically responsible investing fits into the bigger picture of biblical stewardship, and how our investment choices can be an act of worship.
The New ROI In Return on Integrity: The New Definition of ROI and Why Leaders Need to Know It,author John G. Blumberg asks CEOs and top leadership to dig deep, to discover the most untapped strategic resource available to you as a leader. It is an intriguing invitation to truly discover the core values you live by and, in turn, to engage an impactful set of core values for the organization you lead. Core values have been featured in countless books over the last decade, but none has taken the search as deep or has focused on the intersection of leaders’ personal values and those of your organization. At this intersection, Return on Integrity reveals the linchpin of leadership . . . and legacy. Through in-depth introspection and a continual renewal, you can lead your organization beyond profit to a more truthful and fulfilling bottom line. Core values are not just a guide; they should be the basis of every decision and action in your organization. The new ROI is the value built between personal and organizational core values—a stronger organization built on a stronger base. The new ROI is also the return CEOs and your leadership team experience by living and leading with integrity. Blumberg clearly demonstrates his commitment to personal and professional integrity and to helping CEOs achieve it. Sample worksheets and agendas guide your progress, as do links to numerous support resources on the author’s website. Return on Integrity will inspire you to pick up your shovel and start digging deep.
This text shows that citizens can change the globalized world in the direction of many common values by being a socially conscious investor. The authors argue that in fact globalization is helping create a shared concern for many issues around the planet.
These pages show you how to infuse integrity into your business and why it is so essential to success. You will learn not only the responsibilities you have to your employees, to your customers, and to society in general, but also why you must fulfill these responsibilities to remain competitive. In short, you’ll learn how to do the right thing in business, and how to do it the right way. From Force for Good you’ll learn: The one principal concern of business (Hint: it’s not profit)The particular virtues you must have to run a good businessWhat natural law is and how it applies to businessThe 3 elements of business integrityThe 4 core principles of Catholic social doctrine that render even very competitive businesses humaneThe 6 things you must consider when making ethical decisionsThe 10 steps you must take now to develop integrity in your business These helpful pages include, as well: Scriptural support for Catholic Social Doctrines related to businessDozens of quotes from papal encyclicals about businessMany real-life examples from real businesses, successful and notPlus, much more to make you a better person and your business a better business!
Moving Beyond Modern Portfolio Theory: Investing That Matters tells the story of how Modern Portfolio Theory (MPT) revolutionized the investing world and the real economy, but is now showing its age. MPT has no mechanism to understand its impacts on the environmental, social and financial systems, nor any tools for investors to mitigate the havoc that systemic risks can wreck on their portfolios. It’s time for MPT to evolve. The authors propose a new imperative to improve finance’s ability to fulfil its twin main purposes: providing adequate returns to individuals and directing capital to where it is needed in the economy. They show how some of the largest investors in the world focus not on picking stocks, but on mitigating systemic risks, such as climate change and a lack of gender diversity, so as to improve the risk/return of the market as a whole, despite current theory saying that should be impossible. "Moving beyond MPT" recognizes the complex relations between investing and the systems on which capital markets rely, "Investing that matters" embraces MPT’s focus on diversification and risk adjusted return, but understands them in the context of the real economy and the total return needs of investors. Whether an investor, an MBA student, a Finance Professor or a sustainability professional, Moving Beyond Modern Portfolio Theory: Investing That Matters is thought-provoking and relevant. Its bold critique shows how the real world already is moving beyond investing orthodoxy.
The OECD Public Integrity Handbook provides guidance to government, business and civil society on implementing the OECD Recommendation on Public Integrity. The Handbook clarifies what the Recommendation’s thirteen principles mean in practice and identifies challenges in implementing them.
How institutions and individuals can address complex social, financial, and environmental problems on a systemic level—and invest in a more secure future. Investment today has evolved from the basic, conventional approach of the past. Investors have come to recognize the importance of sustainable investment and are more frequently considering environmental and social factors in their decisions. Yet the complexity of the times forces us to recognize and transition to a third stage of investment practice: system-level investing. In this paradigm-shifting book, William Burckart and Steve Lydenberg show how system-level investors support and enhance the health and stability of the social, financial, and environmental systems on which they depend for long-term returns. They preserve and strengthen these fundamental systems while still generating competitive or otherwise acceptable performance. This book is for those investors who believe in that transition. They may be institutions, large or small, concerned about the long-term stability of the environment and society. They may be individual investors who want their children and grandchildren to inherit a just and sustainable world. Whoever they may be, Burckart and Lydenberg show them the what, why, and how of system-level investment in this book: what it means to manage system-level risks and rewards, why it is imperative to do so now, and how to integrate this new way of thinking into their current practice. “Burckart and Lydenberg are the Wayne Gretzkys of investing: Showing us not where investing is, but where it’s going.” —Jon Lukomnik, Managing Partner, Sinclair Capital; Senior Fellow, High Meadows Institute
“To say Charles Schwab is an entrepreneur is actually an understatement. He really is a revolutionary.”—Phil Knight, co-founder of Nike, author of Shoe Dog The founder of The Charles Schwab Corporation recounts his ups and downs as he made stock investing, once the expensive and clubby reserve of the few, accessible to ordinary Americans. In this deeply personal memoir, Schwab describes his passion to have Main Street participate in the growing economy as investors and owners, not only earners. Schwab opens up about his dyslexia and how he worked around and ultimately embraced it, and about the challenges he faced while starting his fledgling company in the 1970s. A year into his grand experiment in discounted stock trading, living in a small apartment in Sausalito with his wife, Helen, and new baby, he carried a six-figure debt and a pocketful of personal loans. As it turned out, customers flocked to Schwab, leaving his small team scrambling with scarce resources and no road map to manage the company’s growth. He recounts the company’s game-changing sale to Bank of America—and how, in the end, the merger almost doomed his organization. We learn about the clever and timely leveraged buyout he crafted to regain independence; the crushing stock market collapse of 1987, just weeks after the company had gone public; the dot-com meltdown of 2000 and its reverberating aftermath of economic stagnation, layoffs, and the company’s eventual reinvention; and how the company’s focus on managing risk protected it and its clients during the financial crisis in 2008, propelling its growth. A remarkable story of a company succeeding by challenging norms and conventions through decades of change, Invested also offers unique insights and lifelong principles for readers—the values that Schwab has lived and worked by that have made him one of the most successful entrepreneurs of our time. Today, his eponymous company is one of the leading financial services firms in the world. Advance praise for Invested “I’ve admired Chuck Schwab for a long time. When you read this book, you’ll understand why.”—Warren E. Buffett “This is a fascinating story that teaches you about the never-ending evolution of an entrepreneurial company, but even more about personal learning from that experience. So read, learn how to learn from experience, and enjoy.”—George P. Shultz, former secretary of Labor, Treasury, and State
Today, early-stage investors and entrepreneurs find themselves in a dilemma in which they must choose between profit and impact; between traditional, for-profit-only models on the one hand, and multiple-bottom-line structures with a positive social or environmental impact on the other. At a time in which climate change, exponentially growing technologies, social polarization, and looming pandemics are calling into question humanity’s priorities, this Report to the Club of Rome and the World Academy of Art and Science dissolves this dilemma by proposing a new investment paradigm, namely Integral Investing. Integral Investing incorporates and transcends the best practices of both traditional venture capital and impact investing. It provides a seamless integration and shows how technological progress need not be our rival, but can instead be our ally in ensuring the prosperous society we all want. Drawing on her own investments and stellar track record since 1995, the author reveals the mechanism of Integral Investing. At the heart of it is a powerful, 360-degree de-risking tool called the Theta Model, which reveals how to make smart investment decisions based on the comprehensive integration of traditional due-diligence criteria, sustainability metrics, and assessments of the founders’ and team culture. But it doesn’t stop there. In turn, this handbook demonstrates how to use human-centered AI to scale and digitalize the investment process. The goal here is to accelerate the use of exponential tech, capital, and consciousness leadership to transition to a sustainable global society: a process the author refers to as the Investment Turnaround. The 21 principles of Integral Investing, which she defines using Ken Wilber’s Integral Theory, lead to her manifesto on how to implement the UN Sustainable Development Goals within Planetary Boundaries by 2050 through early-stage investing and entrepreneurship. Similar to the 15th century, when the Medicis inspired the Renaissance, today humanity is once again at a crucial turning point where pioneering public and private financiers, investors, entrepreneurs, and other committed individuals have the opportunity to leave behind the legacy of a prosperous society. This handbook provides a source of inspiration, and shows how self-actualization, a positive mindset, and a consciousness that is backed by a world-centric desire can become the driving force for solving the global grand challenges.
