CEO Martin Palmer featured in The Fletcher Forum of World Affairs
New FaithInvest Case Study: The English Sangha Trust
How much does AI know about faith-consistent investing?
FaithInvest's Annual Report 2022 published
Upcoming FCI Interest Group Forum: registration is now open!
FaithInvest article in The Fletcher Forum
FaithInvest CEO Martin Palmer has written an in-depth article on how the faith environmental movement led to the faith-consistent investing movement, which has been published by the Fletcher Forum of World Affairs, part of the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University in the US.
That shift is the growing movement of faith-consistent investing, which is resulting in increasing numbers of faith groups looking closely – in many cases for the first time – at how and where they place their funds, and asking whether their money truly reflects their beliefs and values.
New FaithInvest Case Study: The English Sangha Trust
FaithInvest has been working with trustees of the English Sangha Trust, a small Buddhist nonprofit serving two monasteries in England, to develop new investment policies and guidelines.
We have outlined our work together in a case study – including how it resulted in the EST reaching the highest possible score on our proprietary faith-investing analytical framework.
Importantly, the process allowed for the alignment of the EST's investments with core Buddhist teachings that shape Buddhist values, such as the Four Noble Truths, the Noble Eightfold Path, and the Five Precepts.
In describing the process, John Stevens, EST Chair, said 'We had to go on a journey and FaithInvest’s role in the journey was a really critical part, giving us perspective at all steps along the way’.
How much does artificial intelligence know about faith-consistent investing?
With guest commentator Michael Lustig
In a recent post, FaithInvest Director of Investment Solutions Mathew Jensen, with input from FaithInvest co-founder Mike Even, posed the question: How much does artificial intelligence (AI) know about faith-consistent investing?
To help us explore this question, we tried a number of differently worded instructions with ChatGPT for a selected religion, in this case Judaism – arriving at this instruction for the AI tool: Act as if you're a Jewish religious scholar and an experienced investment advisor and please detail for me the unique aspects of Judaism that could be translated into investment guidelines similar to ESG.
In its response, ChatGPT cited seven 'key principles' for Jewish investing, including Tikkun Olam (repairing the world), Social Justice, and Environmental Stewardship.
See the full post HERE for all the results, then read the guest commentary from Michael Lustig (pictured below), Adjunct Professor of Finance at NYU, Stern School of Business and an advocate for the adoption of Impact Investing in the Jewish community.
While Michael gave the AI a 'good grade,' he also commented on its 'lack of human judgment and creativity, with output that was essentially a list, with no context, no source-referencing, and no examples'.
We think you'll enjoy reading Michael's take on AI for FCI, which you can find by clicking below.
FaithInvest's quarterly FCI gathering: Thursday 7 September
10.00 EST, 15.00 BST, 16.00 CET, 17.00 EAT
At our upcoming FCI Forum on September 7, we will unveil research from our latest study on grant investment alternatives for faiths. This research looks at the use of non-aid financial instruments, sometimes called 'grant alternatives' as methods of investing in traditionally grant-funded activities and programmes. We'll also hear about a Development Impact Bond being developed to support education in Kenya.
We've published our Annual Report for 2022. It provides both a look back at the previous year, and a look forward with our Strategic Plan, which outlines four core aims over the next three years:
Play a central role in building a broad-based, well-coordinated Faith-Consistent Investing Movement
Serve faith asset owners and service providers through targeted support to achieve their defined FCI goals
Sustain and strengthen partnerships in the Faith-Consistent Investing Movement
Strengthen our governance, staffing and internal capacity to prepare for growth.
The Investment Solutions team posts each week on topics related to faith-consistent investing. The posts are a valuable source of comment, insights and research relevant to faith-based asset owners. To see them, click HERE.
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