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 is a lazy industry failure. “Screening is the floor. Building intentionally would be the ceiling,” Libman says. With 15 years in the industry, he has built a multifamily real estate investment platform explicitly structured around faith-driven principles, challenging the conventional wisdom that values and returns are incompatible.
The core premise, Libman explains, is that every dollar invested is a vote for something. He asks investors a pointed question: if your grandchildren inherited your portfolio, what would they know about what you believed in? “A question I asked at an event recently was, if you turned your portfolio over to your pastor, is there anything in there you might feel embarrassed about?” he says. “It is not to convict anyone. It is to get people thinking in a different way, because we have not been taught to think this way.” This reframing challenges the traditional separation of investment returns from values, where investors fund misaligned activities to generate returns that are then donated to align with their beliefs.
The cautionary tale, according to Libman, is the ESG sector. ESG funds marketed impact but 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.” A recent study tracking ESG fund performance put total average returns well behind conventional benchmarks. For Libman, the lesson is that genuine values alignment must be an operational framework, not a marketing hook.
Libman’s firm, Investing With Purpose, implements faith-based principles through an on-site asset ministry program in its multifamily properties. Free apartments are provided to on-site ministry staff who run tenant engagement programming—movie nights, farmers markets, food truck events, and hospital visits for residents in need. 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 unit-refresh costs. “Ministry is the moat around the investment,” Libman says. “When people say impact is going to decrease returns, we think the opposite is true. Caring is a durable business advantage, not a disadvantage.”
Transparency is a key differentiator. Libman’s firm sends investors standard financial KPIs alongside a ministry impact report tracking resident engagement, pastoral support, and acts of care. 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, and actually be a part of that impact as well,” Libman says. This contrasts with the opacity of many ESG funds.
For investors new to values-aligned investing, Libman offers a non-threatening entry point: real estate. Most people understand rental property and that housing is a fundamental need. The question becomes not whether to invest, but what kind of operator reflects your principles. “We want to define it as, what are we building?” Libman says. “Every dollar that you invest is a vote for something. 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.” In an era of increased scrutiny on capital allocation, this framing is gaining relevance.
