Moral Investing

By Phil Fleischman

When it comes to investing money, there are a lot of factors to consider. If avoiding anti-Christian or immoral organizations is one of them, you should know that there are services available to help you.

Google the phrase “Biblically Responsible Investing” and you’ll get about eight-thousand hits. Many of them direct you to financial advisers and mutual fund managers who know the ins-and-outs of Biblically Responsible Investing (BRI). But there’s also a new website dedicated to BRI, called MoralMoney.com. It screens more than three-thousand publicly traded American companies for involvement in activities that Christian investors may find objectionable. And the site consists of a public side for consumers and a professional side for financial advisers.

According to Mark Minnella Jr., the founder of www.MoralMoney.com, “The public side of the site screens for alcohol, gambling, tobacco, abortion, embryonic stem cell research, immoral lifestyles, and adult entertainment. The professional side reaches far beyond that into human rights, arms manufacturing, environmental issues, nuclear power, and many other issues.”

Minnella, continued, “The purpose of the website is to reach out to the public, to let them know about Biblically Responsible Investing and give them as much free information as possible. We report on the activities of companies and post the information on the site to let people know what companies are participating in. The website also has a free screening service for the public. They can sign up for a free membership, and screen company stocks to find out what companies participate or promote immoral issues.”

It makes sense, says Economics Professor Mark Hendrickson, for the Christian investor to avail themselves of that kind of information. “I think that we need to act consistently with our beliefs. And I think by extension that would imply investing.”

But that can be a challenge sometimes, says Hendrickson who, in addition to teaching economics at Grove City College is also a fellow with the school’s Center for Vision and Values. “The trick is often we don’t know, especially with modern corporate conglomerate structures, and so on and so forth. We may not be aware that a certain firm even has any involvement in a particular area that we might find objectionable,” says Hendrickson.

That’s where a service like Moral Money-dot-com can be helpful: It provides information about where companies are sending their tax deductible donations. And information, says Hendrickson, is a key part of responsible investing; “The most valuable commodity out there is knowledge; it’s information. And I’ve been humbled many times in my own work as an economist with the constant reminder that, as a human being, I have access to incomplete [information]. You know we’re often flying partially blind.”

One of the ways that MoralMoney.com works to open the eyes of investors is by keeping up on what companies are the targets of pro-family boycotts says Minnella; “An organization called Life Decisions International publishes a boycott list every year. Now, they’re not the only source; when we screen, we do screen for any company that Life Decisions International is boycotting, as well as any company that Focus on the Family, the American Family Association, or Citizen Action Now is boycotting. So if a company is under a boycott by any one of those four organizations they cannot pass our screening service.”

But some of the companies that don’t pass that screening service are huge American corporations. I asked Mark if it’s possible for an investor to still enjoy healthy returns if they aren’t investing in some of those multi-billion dollar institutions; “Absolutely, and that’s the best part about it, there is software out there that can screen these companies out, and when you really look at the overall picture it’s not every company. It’s only about 30 to 50 percent of the companies that are screened out. Now, at Moral Money we screen over 34-hundred American stocks. So, if you take that and knock off 30 to 50 percent of that you’ve still got thousands of options to choose from.”

The question of just how many Christian investors are willing to take that risk, says Minnella, is one whose answer has yet to be determined; “We’re learning more and more every day. As people come into the office – and this isn’t just my office, this is Biblically Responsible Investors across the country – when they mention this to Christians, their eyes light up. And they think it’s amazing they can do this, they’ve never heard of it. Statistics are showing that 75 percent of all equity owners in America are Christians but only two to three percent are invested in any sort of values-based products. So, what we’re trying to do is reach them and let them know that this is an option now. And then we’ll find out how big the population is.”

Getting Christians to practice Biblically Responsible Investing for the stewardship of their own money isn’t the only goal of Moral Money-dot-com. Minnella says he and other Christian financial professionals also hope BRI will lead to the de-funding of anti-Christian organizations and activities; “There have been several fund managers who have said that by pulling money out of these companies could be an even greater aversion to moral decay than just boycotting them. Like I said, 75 percent of all equity owners are Christians, now imagine if 75 percent of investors out there refused to even look at stock in a company because of what that company did. The company has to respond to its bottom line.”

While just one shareholder’s actions may not convince a corporation to change policy, Mark Hendrickson says a block of conscientious shareholders can; “They’re not going to change their policy for one person. But, on the other hand, if thousands or tens-of-thousands of people organize and make their wishes known, you know, in unity there is strength. And if we unite to promote certain causes and speak out on them… I think this will require greater organization, because individually we’re not going to accomplish much. But we have the potential through joint effort to make our voice heard.”

That voice, says Hendrickson, really can impact the decisions large corporations make about where they give their money; “As a shareholder in a large company you may be tempted to feel you’re totally impotent; it’s a little bit like your vote for president. I mean it’s just one-80-millionth, or one-hundred-millionth, or however many of us go to the polls; I mean one vote doesn’t seem like much in the total, and yet if everyone with a conscience refused to vote then the elections would be dominated by those who have no conscience. You know Edmund Burke’s old saying about all that’s needed for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing.”

Phil Fleischman is the founder and President of Rip-N-Read News & Information, a broadcast newswire for Christian radio stations. A veteran of Christian broadcast journalism, Phil served for many years as Bureau Chief and Managing Editor of SRN News in Washington, DC. He has also worked as the East Coast Correspondent for Focus on the Family’s Family News in Focus program, as news director for a local Christian radio station in Pennsylvania, and as a reporter for the USA Radio Network. Phil’s current reporting work is regularly heard on the Moody Broadcasting Network’s nationally syndicated Prime Time America news magazine.