Religious Investors Put Their Faith in Impact Funds

credit: USACE on Flickr

The Church of England's $10 billion endowment will soon be putting its money where its mouth is.

The church announced in January that it would set aside $100 million to compensate for its role in slavery, the Financial Times reports.

The church's chief investment officer, Tom Joy, says some of that money will be invested in impact investment funds, which aim to achieve social impact rather than maximizing financial returns.

"When I'm talking about the impact-first investments we've made already, what we're really focusing on with that is how we can be catalytic, providing the sort of vital seed capital to impact-focused managers," Joy says.

The Church of England's investment in impact investment funds will be part of a $5 billion global pool of "faith-aligned" impact investment capital, according to a report by the Oxford Faith-Aligned Impact Finance (Oxfaif) project.

The majority of that $5 billion is held by sovereign-backed Islamic finance funds, while another $1 billion is held by private funds devoted to Islamic capital, as well as $300 billion is held by Hinduism, Sikhism, and other Dharmic faiths.

Christian faith-based impact investors hold $260 billion, while their Jewish counterparts hold $16 billion.

Joy says the Church Read the Entire Article

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