September 29, 2026
For many investors, the goal seems straightforward:save more, invest more, and continue growing wealth. But what happens when youhave enough? There may come a point when your financial plan indicates that youhave sufficient resources to provide for yourself and your spouse for the restof your lives. You may have also determined an appropriate amount to leave tochildren, grandchildren, or other beneficiaries.
At that point, the question changes from “How muchmore can I accumulate?” to “How should I steward what I no longer need?”
Show Notes
Defining Your Financial Finish Line
A financial finish line establishes what “enough” looks like. That could include a limit on annual spending, an amount needed to provide for your lifetime, and even an intentional limit on how much you plan to leave to your heirs.
Without a finish line, accumulating more can easily become the default. Scripture challenges us to think differently. Jesus’ parable of the rich fool warns against continually building bigger barns simply to store more for ourselves.
A finish line can help reframe our thinking from “How much should I give?” to “How much should I keep?” Once you have enough, surplus wealth creates new opportunities for generosity and stewardship.
Going Beyond Traditional Giving
Giving resources directly to churches, ministries, and charitable organizations can be a wonderful use of surplus wealth. But charitable giving is not the only way Christians can think about deploying capital for Kingdom purposes. Private impact investments offer another possibility.
Unlike traditional investments, where financial return may be the primary objective, impact investments can pursue multiple goals. Investors may still seek a financial return while also using their capital to create jobs, strengthen communities, address social problems, or support businesses operating in ways consistent with their Christian values.
Examples can include:
The potential impact can be significant. A single investment may help provide capital to hundreds of entrepreneurs or enable an established business to expand and employ significantly more people.
Understanding the Tradeoffs
Private impact investing is not simply charitable giving with an investment return attached. These investments can carry significant risks. Private investments are generally less liquid than publicly traded stocks and bonds. Your money may be unavailable for years. Portfolios can also be highly concentrated in a particular industry, geographic region, or relatively small number of companies. That concentration can create considerably more risk.
Investment minimums can also be substantial, potentially ranging from tens of thousands of dollars through a donor-advised fund to $100,000, $250,000, $500,000, or more when investing directly. These differences make it especially important to understand what you are investing in, how long your capital will be committed, and how much risk you can reasonably accept.
Financial Return Is Not the Only Return
Impact investing can also require investors to think differently about the meaning of return. Some investments may seek market-rate returns. Others may use what could be described as “patient capital,” accepting a lower expected financial return in exchange for the opportunity to pursue meaningful social or spiritual impact.
The goal isn't necessarily to disregard financial performance. A business that cannot generate sufficient cash flow will eventually struggle to produce any lasting impact. Instead, the investor recognizes that financial return may be only one measure of success.
For a Christian investor who has already crossed a financial finish line, that distinction can be particularly important. If additional wealth is no longer necessary to accomplish your financial goals, maximizing every potential dollar of return may not need to be the sole objective.
A Different Question About Wealth
Ultimately, private impact investing brings us back to stewardship. We believe God owns everything entrusted to us. Our responsibility is to faithfully manage those resources.
For someone who has not yet reached financial independence, taking substantial risks with money needed for retirement or everyday living may not be wise. But for someone with significant surplus wealth, the calculation can look very different.
The question becomes:
What could these resources accomplish if maximizing my personal wealth were no longer the primary goal?
Private impact investments will not be appropriate for everyone. They require careful due diligence, an understanding of substantial risks and tradeoffs, and consideration within the context of a comprehensive financial plan.
But for some investors who have reached their financial finish line, they may provide an opportunity to align capital more closely with their values while supporting businesses and organizations doing meaningful, redemptive work around the world.
Questions to Consider
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Episode Transcript
Austin
There comes a moment in the life of a faithful saver when the math quietly changes. When your assets exceed what you and your spouse will ever likely need. Most investors never name that moment, so they keep optimizing for more long after more stopped serving its intended purpose. Today, we're going to talk about what happens when you cross that finish line and why.
Surplus wealth may be the most strategic capital you ever deploy if you have the courage to put it somewhere that can genuinely change the world.
So, Spencer, today we're going to talk about investing in private companies. But before we do that, we really need to come back to this idea of finish lines. And we've talked about this a lot, but the finish line is essentially a place where we say, enough is enough. I don't need any more. The financial projections are good enough to show that in most situations, most of the time, I will have enough resources for my lifetime and any goals that I have.
What else do we think about when we consider this concept of finish lines?
Spencer
Well, the finish line really can be three different particular pieces. One would be a finish line on an annual basis where we basically say, hey, the Lord has given me abundantly. Rather than continuing to keep more use more take, take a, you know, more lavish vacation or whatever it might be, I'm going to set a limit on the amount that I spend.
Anything above and beyond that I want to give back to God because I'm just a steward. So this helps us to reframe the question of instead of how much do I give? It's how much do I keep? And when we say, okay, well, the Lord has, you know, given me clear direction to keep or to deploy resources.
Maybe for my own, you know, food and gas and, you know, taking care of kids and whatever it might be at a certain level. Then resources above and beyond that, they are deployed annually towards gifts and and other purposes. You know, we think about it secondarily. When we think about, do I have the amount that I need likely for the rest of my life if I saved, you know what I need?
When I move towards retirement now, we understand retirement is a loaded word, and there's a lot of different ways that people look at that. But there will come a point, in all likelihood, when we need to slow down our output and focus on other types of things in life that we might not be able to provide fully for ourselves based on our own labor from that week or year or whatever it might be.
So we're looking for the future. We're planning for the future. This is why we save. But there comes a point, as we talked about earlier, where we've saved enough for the scenarios that we can see for the future. Now, is is any amount ever completely enough? Do we ever have enough that we can say for sure, you know, in ten years I will have resources.
No, I mean, there there can be all kinds of different things that can come up. But we look at this from a likelihood of success. And once we've gotten to a certain point, we say it just doesn't make sense to continue to save in this direction if I'm looking at having enough resources for my own life. We start to build the second or the third barn.
You know, as as, Jesus does not commend, the man who's building that second barn, and laying up more for himself. He says, you fool, your life will be demanded of you this night. And then whose will it be? So the question then is, well, you haven't done anything for anyone around you. You've just been saving towards your own ends.
So he clearly had reached the finish line, but he went far beyond that. There's a third one that we won't get into as much today. But really does bear on financial planning is having a finish line for your heirs, because saving more for your heirs does not necessarily help them in any way, and in fact, can be antithetical to helping them.
So that can also be factored into this finish line, you know, calculation where we say, okay, well, we get to enough where there's enough for us during our lifetimes. Maybe there's also enough for what we should be passing on to kids or grandkids or other loved ones, who are there, who are beneficiaries. So, more without a definition of why, you know, we're saving for more, really starts to become problematic because the weight of managing that more can be significant, and it can lead us down all kinds of different paths.
Or even if it's not us, it can lead our beneficiaries down all kinds of different paths that are not healthy. So that's where we come back. And and now as we get to this point where we've seen, okay, the finish line has been reached, what do we do with those funds? And I think there's several different options that we could jump into here that could be biblical.
One of those being saving towards kind of impact type of investments.
Austin
Absolutely. Well, I think especially, you know, as you were talking about, when clients have surplus wealth, it can often be a load to manage. And I just I always think about Proverbs chapter 30 verses seven through nine, and it's where the writer says, give me neither poverty nor riches. And it's because he says, on one hand, if I have riches, I may have too much and disown the Lord and say, Who is God?
And if I have too much poverty, I might become steal and dishonor. I might steal for my food and dishonor God. And so it's in neither of these places, because I think both of the the poles create an anxiety in us of oftentimes we see some of the people that have the least amount of resources are some of the ones that think about money the most.
And some of the people that have the most amount of money are the ones that think about money the most. Right. There's a sweet middle place where it's I still have to depend on the Lord, but I'm not being tempted to steal, nor am I being tempted to forget the Lord. And I think that's the place where we say, once you hit that finish line, we really need to be cognizant of how is that now affecting my soul?
Am I getting to a place where I have so much surplus wealth that I'm starting to think I can trust my wealth as my provider and not trust the Lord as my provider? And that's really where we start thinking, hey, what does it look like? What does it mean to deploy that surplus wealth in ways that honor the Lord?
And we see this all throughout Scripture. We look in acts two and acts four, where the believers were bringing resources into that common pot and it was being used by the community to meet the needs of the community. And today we're going to look at those private market investments, because oftentimes the one avenue that we've seen for wealthy individuals who have reached the finish line, the primary encouragement has been, well, it's time to give it all away.
And that's a wonderful, beautiful thing. We will never stop a client who comes to us and says, I want to give $1 million away, or I want to give $100,000 away this year. We might say, hey, let's figure out the most tax efficient way to do it. Let's figure out the best way to do it. But we're not going to say stop.
If this is what the Lord's calling you to do, don't do it. We need to be more prudent. If the if the resources are there and you are hearing the Lord say, do it. We want to be your biggest cheerleader. But there's a new avenue in these private markets to where you can invest in businesses that create jobs that actually are fruit promoting and encouraging the gospel forth in some of the areas of the world.
So let's go ahead and talk briefly about what is a private market investment. What is an impact investment and how in the world do we think about these within the framework of finish lines?
Spencer
Yeah. So private market investments are those where you're making an investment just as you would, and it is in public markets. But with private markets they're not as liquid. Typically you can't get to the, the resources oftentimes the same quarter or even the same year, maybe even the same decade. Those investments, they may be tied up for many, many years to come.
And of course, the, manager is going to, you know, help provide some guidance, you know, via prospectus, via other disclosures of kind of what that time frame is and what they're looking to do. But it tends to be a longer term investment. It tends to be much less liquid. Sometimes there are higher, fees that are associated with it.
You have, managers that are much more hands on. They're much they're oftentimes a much more concentrated portfolio. So they may invest in 8 or 10, you know, companies, they're if it's a venture capital or a private equity or private debt firm. Now, if you're thinking about this from an an impact investment side of things on the private equity side, it's a little different than what we see in the headlines, financial media headlines with private equity.
There still is an acquisition of ownership shares. But typically the goal is not to have maximum rates of return. Typically that's one of the goals is to have a solid rate of return. Yes. But when we look at those that are out there, that would be impact investments. Oftentimes that private equity would simply be a capital infusion to try to help them scale from one place to another place.
So it might be that they have $1 million in revenue, and they're trying to grow to 10 million. And there's an injection there that might be, you know, something significant that would buy a piece of ownership in the firm. But you're not looking at this as you know, the private equity managers in the United States might, just looking at, purchasing a firm, trying to dress it up, ultimately sell it within a couple of years and looking solely at the, return on investment from a financial framework, there.
So, those are those are some of those those key pieces. I think the thing that needs to be said as well, because there's a concentration risk and because it is usually in one sector and often in one geography, and often and not in the United States, you might be looking at East Africa, for instance, and the, the rule of law is not the same in East Africa as it is in the West.
The capital markets and structures there, they are very, very different and much more fragile, you know, there than they would be in other parts of the world. You know, you think about the, the legal system or the financial system in Burundi versus the United States. Vast difference. There. So you have to be prepared, if you make an investment in one of these impact, investments that there's a higher likelihood, then if you're investing in, you know, some publicly traded US stock, there's a higher likelihood that that, you know, one of those companies is going to go under.
Yeah. So that doesn't mean necessarily the entire value of a particular fund goes to zero, but it does mean it's going to impact performance. So we have to be prepared, for those things. But in, in that same line of thinking, sometimes we can much more closely align our resources with, priorities within, kind of the Christian framework of the gospel.
There and it might be job creation. It might be, the capacity to invest in firms very specifically that are that are targeting a problem, that's out there like, you know, human trafficking. You know, in an example that we'll talk about here in a minute. But, the level of focus is far higher here.
But the level of risk also far higher.
Austin
Thanks for walking us through kind of that high level overview of private markets. You know, there's a lot of these funds that are starting out now. When I say a lot, we mean like 30 not like 3000 US companies. And so when we think about concentration, we're really getting down to the nitty gritty of there's not as many players in this space.
Now, the other piece that we have to know is if you are making investments in these from either retirement accounts or non-qualified resources, that you have cash in the bank, the reality here is that you have to be an accredited investor for most of these types of investments, meaning you have $1 million or more of investable assets, not including your home, or you have to make a certain level of income over $250,000 or $500,000, oftentimes.
So. Or there's other limitations of being a qualified client, of having $2.2 million of investment or a qualified purchaser of $5 million. So those levels are higher if you're taking resources that are not donated resources, you can invest donated resources. So let's say you've got a donor advised fund and you want to invest those donor advised fund resources into these private market investments.
That is possible. But just know that on the donor advised fund side, there's not as many limitations in terms of annual income or total investment dollars. If you're going to invest your investment dollars, there are higher minimums of how do you actually access these funds. So we'll talk through three today that we're just going to give a high level overview.
You can go take a look at talent an Eagle Hope international there hope global investments. But we're just going to kind of give a framework for what types of things these investment companies will look at.
Spencer
So we'll think about this in three ways. There's there's all kinds of other different ways that you could think about this, but we'll think about microfinance. So, lending to, individuals, there. And you do this through, you would do this through an institution there are many institutions that you could invest in, in a private placement, in some kind of a private credit fund.
One of them that we're aware of is Hope Global Investments. So Hope Global Investments is the investment arm of Hope International. So nonprofit that's out there. But they basically are in dozens of different countries around the world. Some of those countries, have operations that are stable enough where when they invest or when they, I should say when they provide those loans, there's a high enough repayment rate such that they feel confident that they're going to be able to, pay out investors an interest rate and be able to, pay back their money, you know, over a few years.
So you're basically providing a, a loan. You're, you're placing an investment with Hope Global, and then they're going to turn around and they're going to loan that out. So, I mean, one of the beautiful things here is, you know, let's just say that you, invest $100,000 with them and you're going to be tied up for four years.
Let's just say that they recycle that capital every six months. And the that the average loan size in, in that particular, loan portfolio that you're putting in there is $1,000. Well, that would mean that, twice a year you would have 200 loans being made and paid off on average, through that $100,000 that you placed.
So over four years of the investment that you'd have there, you might have 800 loans that you've facilitated and $1,000 apiece helping, you know, these small, businesses kind of get, off the ground. So, you know, basically, solo entrepreneurs be able to in, an impoverished situation, be able to, get their economic footing, you know, so to speak, and build their own business, that they can not be dependent, you know, on others.
So that would be one a second would be, you know, one step up from there. We might look at private credit, you know, and that might be through an institution like a talented, there are plenty of others that are out there as well. But talent in has, the talent and impact fund. They're in a different part of the world.
They're six countries in East Africa, and they're basically looking at that middle market. So they're not, you know, lending to the microfinance institutions that are working with, you know, individuals trying to get them out of poverty, by starting their own firm or something. Instead, they're working with typically businesses that have, a good standing.
Maybe they have $1 million in revenue and they're thinking, okay, if we had a loan, we could expand our operations substantially. We could go from 1 million to $10 million, you know, of revenue. But they don't have anyone that will provide that loan because that's the middle market space. And in, countries, in East Africa, typically you're not going to have a loan in that space.
You need to have maybe 10 or $15 million of revenue before, the international banks or the larger banks will will provide those level of loans. So they step in and they say, okay, well, we're going to loan these, firms, money, you know, at it at an interest rate. That's the only capital that they can really get in that space.
Now, they could probably continue to grow organically, which is great. But if you could take a firm maybe that's employing 50 people, make a loan, and within 2 or 3 years, maybe now they're employing 200 people. That can be pretty exciting. So that's, what a private credit fund might do, kind of in that middle market.
There's also private equity there. So you might look at this in talent and has a private equity fund. There are plenty of other private equity funds that are out there, but they might even be more specific, you know, with the firms that they're engaging with and make an investment this time, instead of it just being a note, they're actually coming alongside and providing more consulting.
They might, try to open up different markets for them or connect them to different resources. But they actually have a small equity stake, you know, in that firm while supplying capital again. And that might be, again, accelerating, you know, that that growth. But all along the way here, we're looking they're looking to create jobs, but they're also looking at other ways that they might promote the gospel.
So it might be that they work with firms, that are led by, Christian management teams or by those that are really trying to invest in the community in terms of their education or, the opportunity set that, women might have, you know, in that community or health care in the community, all kinds of different things, you know, might be possible.
There. So that would be another example. A third example that's come to us, you know, into our view and that we, think is, is, one of those ways that you can think about, impact investing would be a firm like Eagle. So Eagle Venture Fund, is, a faith driven venture capital firm.
And what they're doing in their freedom funds are investing specifically in firms that are, trying to eliminate human trafficking. So there is a market for this because there are a lot of large firms in the United States that have had in Europe and other places, too, that have had judgments against them because they have, not protected people from, those that are, doing really nasty stuff.
So you think about I think J.P. Morgan, was liable for, a significant fine because of, you know, helping Epstein with his transactions. You know, Red Roof Inn has been fined, I think, significantly, for, not doing enough to protect, survivors of, human trafficking, there. So, Eagle goes and invests in firms that are trying to help provide technology so that this doesn't happen, you know, to those firms trying to help them, you know, scan their financial transactions or, their operations in terms of their hotel rooms or whatever it might be.
So, it's a really interesting idea. And again, this fund, along with the talent and funds, you're you're locked up for many, many years and you're going to be very, very concentrated in terms of the investment. And so there's a much higher risk of, seeing those funds, you know, not have that rate of return that you would hope for because they're so concentrated and they're also in only, you know, a, set of sectors, you know, in their or geography.
So you have to be really careful with this. But, the impact again, in not to pick so much on, any one firm or another. But, you know, you think about what Pepsi does, you know, if it's like snack food and, and soft drinks and other things. Am I going to be horrified by investing in them?
No. Am I going to wake up in the morning and think, oh, I'm really excited to invest in Pepsi? Also, probably not. When I think about investing in Eagle, and maybe some of the work that they're doing in preventing human trafficking, I'm like, okay, this is pretty exciting. You know, when I think about job creation, you know, via what talented might be up to or hope global might be up to maybe pretty exciting.
That's pretty different than what we'd see in the publicly traded markets oftentimes.
Austin
So, Spencer, I think the reality here with a lot of these private placements is the rates of return can really vary along those spectrums. We talked about with Hope international, if you're making microfinance loans, you're not expecting a 20 or a 30% rate of return. The reality is you're looking at more of a return where we think about patient capital.
And when I think about patient capital, it is there may be a rationale we think about with a lot of these private placements, they're looking for multiple bottom lines. That means they're looking for a financial rate of return. They're looking for how do we actually care for the people that we're investing in spiritual growth. They're looking at not just financial returns.
And so when I think patient capital, it's deploying resources to where there is a financial return. This is a bond like investment. It's a promissory note with Hope international or but the capital I might not see the full return on that investment until I actually enter the kingdom of God. And so these are the types of things when we think about another word that can be used for this is concessional return.
You think about if I'm going to place a lending note with a couple thousand micro entrepreneurs that are globally around the world, in areas where the the standard of living in the standard of income is far different than we have in the United States. I should maybe expect a higher rate of return, or with a private credit or private equity fund in sub-Saharan Africa.
Maybe those rates of return that would be market rate might be in those high teen percentages. But when we think about, okay, we might be willing to sacrifice a little bit of rate of return to make some more of those impact returns. There are other returns where we look at the Eagles of the world, the venture capitals that are really looking at that private equity venture capital rate of return in the high teens, low 20%.
The reality here is across the spectrum of impact investments, there is a lot of variance on what are those rates of returns to be expected. And so I think with any of that, we just have to go in with eyes wide open of where is that expected return, where have maybe been the historical returns if they've had prior funds and then as we look into the future, it's how much risk am I willing to take with certain assets.
And if I look at a fund, there are certain places where you can invest in the 1040 window and might not want to put resources that I need to live on in that fund, right. That might be something where I look and say, maybe this is something that I do as an investment in my donor advised fund. So we have to really look and say, okay, where is the where is the investment?
What are they doing? How do I actually think about this strategically so that I can be a wise steward of these resources? At the end of the day, again, we come back to the idea that God owns at all. He does not need me to make a return on investment on his resources. He is going to have them no matter what.
And so as we think about that, any other thoughts that you've got in terms of that, how do we think about return in these types of investments?
Spencer
But like you said, you go from a target of a market rate of return all the way to, just trying to get your money back. So that market rate of return, again, if you're looking at anything private equity or venture capital, you know, they're going to be targeting really, really high rates of return because your money is locked up.
Now, that doesn't mean they're going to achieve it. No. No venture capital firm. No private equity firm is is ever going to guarantee that they're going to achieve it. If they do guarantee then you're in trouble. And so just run the other way. But but there are some firms that embedded in how they're operating they're saying we're, we're going for a rate of return, that it's going to be very competitive.
And there are, you know, firms that are out there, the Sovereigns of the world, the, Eagles of the world, that's that's what they're going to tell you. There are other funds that are out there where we would slide over and we'd say it needs to be more patient. They're really probably not going for a full market rate of return.
It's probably going to be a little bit less. But that doesn't mean that they're not looking really hard at the business itself, because part of that impact investment, the firms are going to come back and say the cash flow is a critical part of the success, because nobody wins the impact, socially or spiritually, it there's no win there if they are not in business going forward and they're not expanding those operations going forward.
So that's always going to be that key consideration. But we we do look at it on a spectrum of what can the investor hope for there. And on the far side it may be very much, you know, emerging markets. It may be, a venture that everyone knows is, quite aggressive, quite risky, and they may just be hoping to, pay the investor back.
So we've got that whole gamut. And I think that last part of things, when it's when it's that aggressive, that risky, it's it's getting close to being just a gift. You know, there, that's that's the farthest along. And that would be very much appropriate as a donor advised fund, gift first you get the tax write off.
Yeah. You hope that it does really well. It'd be great, you know, if, if it doubled in value. And then you've got more that you can even support other charities with. But, those types of investments, they probably are the most likely to go under. Now, I think one of the things to remember in terms of implementation here is that we do have, you know, on fidelity or other platforms, there there are some of these impact investments that you can make through a Roth IRA or a traditional IRA or non-qualified account.
And logistically, that can be nice. It can be particularly nice, you know, if it's in one of those accounts and you get to avoid, say, the K-1 documents that come. So, that would be where particularly you might make an investment in our IRA, or a Roth IRA, you know, through one of these firms. And now you're not having to do that K-1 filing, you know, with your CPA, you know, including that because sometimes those K ones, oftentimes those K ones, they're going to come, you know, after April 15th.
But if you invest their, within a Roth IRA or a traditional IRA, then that's not going to typically be a problem.
Austin
Absolutely. And I think the last couple things to note is these do have higher investment minimums. So typically if you are doing this from a donor advised from the minimum, maybe 25 to $50,000, right. Whereas if you were going direct with that institution or direct with the institution via your IRA, the investment minimums might be $100,000, 250,000, half a million.
So there we do have to know coming into this, because these funds, they have a scope where they're wanting to invest. If they're looking to raise $50 million and they can only do so from 100 investors, well, they have to have minimums they set to try to reach that target. And so just know as you are exploring, do private impact investments make sense for me?
You need to know, okay. They're risky. There could be a great rate of return. There is a higher likelihood that there may not be as great of return because you're way more concentrated in these funds. And especially if you're investing in sub-Saharan Africa or across the Middle East. And just know the of are different, the minimums are different, the lockup periods are different.
And so we really say, but for clients who have that surplus wealth, who have more than enough, this can be a great way to invest in kingdom work and really redemptive work that that bears gospel witness across the world in a way that normal charitable capital can't do.
Spencer
Thanks for tying that up. Clients, we'd love to have a conversation with you. Recognize this is not a recommendation to go down this path. This needs to be incorporated within a financial plan. You need to really understand the risks, the trade offs. It can be fantastic. Can align your wealth with your core values. But it's different than investments that we would say that are publicly traded.
It's different in terms of logistics. It's different in terms of the fee structure of the companies. It's different in terms of the lock ups, all kinds of differences there. So make sure you understand and read all the documents. Before you take any step along any of these avenues and talk with your financial advisor, we'd love to have the conversation with you.
If you have questions. And for now, take care.
Austin
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Disclosure
This content was provided by Second Half Stewardship. We are in Knoxville, Tennessee and you can visit our website at www.SecondHalfStewardship.com. The information in this recording is intended for general, educational and informational purposes only, and should not be construed as investment advisory, financial planning, legal, tax, or other professional advice based on your specific situation. Please consult your professional advisor before taking any action based on its contents.
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