S2E2: WHAT IS GOD’S MONEY FOR? Part 2
WITH GUEST MARK ELSDON
In the Season 2 Episode 2, hosts Elizabeth Coffee and Ramiro Gonzales sit down with guest Mark Elsdon to talk about his book, We Aren’t Broke: Uncovering Hidden Resources for Mission and Ministry. Their conversation dives deep into how faith-based organizations can move from traditional investment to transformative investment, by putting money into mission-driven projects.
Order We Aren’t Broke — Available Now!
SHOW NOTES
KEY TAKEAWAYS
38:59 “[The Synod of Lakes and Prairies] put money in us, we use that money to serve students, we generate revenue, we pay some of that revenue back to them, they use that money to do their programming. And I just started thinking a few years ago – why are we not doing this all over the place?”
39:19 Transformative Investment
“There is $400 billion of assets under management in the Interfaith Center for Corporate Responsibility members, so through the religious organizations that are members of the ICCR… That money can be used in ways that are transformative, like it was at Pres House.”
41:29 Barriers
“We’re sort of caught in this cycle. We need some viable social enterprise projects to put money into, but if there’s no money to begin with, who’s going to start anything?”
42:36 What is God’s money for?
“Is it to generate the highest financial return we can get at the lowest risk?… To me that money, those assets are there to be used for something good in the world. Sometimes that means putting them into riskier, or different sorts of projects.”
49:04 Investing for Impact
“Even the term impact investing is a misnomer, because all investing has an impact. The issue is what is that impact going to be, and does it matter to you what’s happening to it.”
54:25 “Imagine a church with an endowment or an institution with an endowment… starting with 10% of that endowment and earmarking that to be impact investing in Black-owned social entrepreneurs or Black-owned entrepreneurs, as a form of reparations, as a form of really moving and shifting things in a community.”
CONTACT
Ramiro Gonzales | Westside Development Corporation
Elizabeth Coffee | Mission City Renewal
READ MORE
We Aren’t Broke: Uncovering Hidden Resources for Mission and Ministry by Mark Elsdon
The Synod of Lakes and Prairies
Money & Mission Alignment Tool (RootedGood)
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THANK YOU TO OUR SPONSORS
“Let’s put our money to work and do something that we care about, that’s actually going to have the positive impact that we want to have in a community.” — Mark Elsdon
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