Different Faiths Come Together to Serve Others

Editor's note: Spring is a season of significance for the three major monotheistic religions of the world: Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. In a three-part series of articles, members of Calvert Foundation's Jubilee Assembly explore how impact investing embodies elements of their faith traditions.

The Jubilee Assembly of Calvert Foundation is a group of folk from diverse interfaith traditions who have come together to support, promote and enhance the work of Calvert Foundation and other impact investing institutions.

When people talk about these great religious traditions today, often the conversations drift to differences and disagreements among them in a number of areas. But the Jubilee Assembly has come together because we strongly feel a great commonality with each other: a special concern for the poor, the oppressed, the marginalized. In the 21st Century that includes refugees, immigrants, women, minorities of all kinds, homeless folk, the global masses that live on less than a dollar a day and many more.

That great concern of the Jubilee teaching tradition is probably most clearly seen in the prophetic tradition of the Hebrew Bible (Old Testament to Christians) which is considered holy scripture by Jews, Muslims, and Christians. This tradition is not a peripheral theme but a major, consistent and prominent theme in their scriptures and in the practices of their adherents. The “Jubilee” was a part of that tradition that declared cancellation of debts, freedom for debt slaves, and return of certain land lost through foreclosure to former owners. The modern Jubilee 2000 movement in the late 1990s resulted in significant cancellation of debt of developing countries in the years around 2000.

So it should not be surprising that people from these three great faiths are choosing to join forces with Calvert Foundation, who has been working on behalf of the underserved since 1995. Calvert Foundation provides investors an opportunity to invest to support loans made to hundreds of non-profits and social enterprises who are working to support and grow underserved communities and causes in the US and around the world. The values alignment of faith-based folks who join the Jubilee Assembly to add their personal and institutional capital with the capital and expertise of the Calvert Foundation is clear and unambiguous.

Examples of the values alignment of the Jubilee Assembly and the Calvert Foundation might include economic empowerment, financial and asset redistribution, and community focus. While charity is needed in many cases, empowering people to gain the skills, capital and tools necessary to provide for themselves and their families, enables them to live with pride and confidence. Realizing this demands impact investment at scale.

Redistribution in a world of inequality is needed so that all may grow to have what they need to attain full human development as God’s children. In a world that so often focuses on individual attainment and consumption, focusing on the health and prosperity of the communities that we live in is to acknowledge our responsibility to care for the health and prosperity of others. These are just a few of the values that Calvert Foundation and the Jubilee Assembly share.

Andy R. Loving, CFP® is an ordained Baptist minister and a financial advisor. Along with his wife, Susan Taylor, Andy owns Just Money Advisors, a financial advisory firm, in Louisville, KY with clients in 25 states. Andy is an investment advisory representative of Natural Investments, LLC. who acts as his regulatory supervisory firm with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Andy can be reached at aloving@justmoneyadvisors.