Investing With Integrity - Steve Nelson
Steve Nelson, Chairman of Faith Investor Services, discusses the concept of biblically responsible investing and the mission of Faith Investor Services. He emphasizes the importance of integrating faith and finance, and how investing with integrity can have a positive impact on society. Nelson also shares his passion for the St. John's Bible, a hand-illuminated Bible that celebrates the word of God through art. He envisions the faith-based investing industry growing and making a transformative impact in the coming years.
Information on the Saint Johns Bible can be found by clicking HERE:
Transcript
You're listening to the Investing with Integrity podcast. My name is Jeff Talarico. I am your host. We are honored today to have Steve Nelson with us. He is the chairman of Faith Investor Services. Based in Dallas, FIS manages global portfolios for individuals and businesses. The firm also provides financial planning and brings legacy wealth insights for attaining estate and charitable goals. Outside of the wealth management work, Faith Investor Services is also an advisor to the FIS Christian Stock Fund. Now this actively managed ETF trades on the New York Stock Exchange under one of the coolest ticker symbols there is, PRAI, P -R -A -Y. Now prior to entering the investment field, Steve spent four years in ministry. He holds the Chartered Financial Analyst designation, is a former trustee of the Phoenix Art Museum and served on the boards of the CFA Society of Minnesota, and the Catholic Community Foundation in Phoenix. He is a Knight of Malta. His undergraduate degree is from St. John's University, and he holds an MBA from the University of St. Thomas, both of which are in Minnesota. So without further ado, Steve, welcome to the show.
Steve Nelson, CFA (:Thanks, Jeff.
Jeff Talarico (:We're so glad you're here today. I think we started off the conversation and you're actually in Phoenix today in your Scottsdale office. And you said it was 110. That's crazy. So if you guys are listening to this podcast and it's middle of the winter and you're just back listening to it, it was 110 in June in Scottsdale. So Steve, I'm going to start off with you the same way I start off with everybody. I want to ask you if there's something that's interesting about you that most people don't know.
Steve Nelson, CFA (:Yes. Yes.
Steve Nelson, CFA (:right.
Steve Nelson, CFA (:Well, I think something that's interesting is that, you know, Chris and I bought Faith Investor Services a year ago, just over a year ago. And on the day that we acquired the company, it hit both of us independently that we were really just stewards of FIS. It didn't belong to us. And so what we're doing is we're putting capital into the business, growing the company. Someday we'll get that capital back, just dollar for dollar, no profit, no interest.
And the rest of it, whatever equity we can build, however big we all can build, Faith Investor Services, all that equity will ultimately go to endow the National Christian Foundation with half of the proceeds and half will endow the Order of Malta. So we're really just stewards of this company.
Jeff Talarico (:That's awesome. That's something really cool. I didn't know that. I've had one of your cohorts on the show as well already. Actually two of them, I guess, with Jay. And I didn't know that aspect of it. So thanks for sharing that with us. So tell us a little bit about how did you get started in the financial services industry?
Steve Nelson, CFA (:You bet.
Steve Nelson, CFA (:Well, I got married and that was a strong motivator for me. So I had been in ministry and it's wonderful work. It's truly deeply rewarding and joyful work. But as Christy and I decided to get married 35 years ago this year, actually, I decided to maybe get serious about providing more for her economically than I could. And I had an MBA by this time and I'd been always interested in finance.
h, the day after the crash in: Jeff Talarico (:That's pretty interesting stuff right there. And again, that's something not most people know about you. Let's go back and focus a little bit on the ministry. Because as you know, I'm a bi-vocational pastor. So I have this service company. I do this podcast, but I also pastor a church that we launched about three and a half years ago. So I didn't realize that you came out of ministry. Tell me a little bit about that.
Steve Nelson, CFA (:Right. So I went to a place called St. John's, as you mentioned, in Minnesota. I was trained by the Benedictine monks there. And coming out of St. John's got a job as a youth minister for two years. So I was a youth minister doing also the high school religious education. I was a director of high school religious education, and it was really fun. It was great work. And through the course of that, I got to meet a bishop. So we had an auxiliary bishop or an assistant bishop to the archbishop and we actually had three assistants in Minneapolis, St. Paul, and supporting Archbishop John Roach. Well, my bishop was 38 years old when the Pope elevated him from priest to bishop. So I joined him about a year after that as his right hand. And so I worked at what we call the Chancery or the diocesan offices, archdiocesan offices there in St. Paul, right, beautiful offices on the bluff overlooking the city of St. Paul and the river right next to the big cathedral that's so beautiful in St. Paul. And anyway, I was the bishop's right hand for two years. During that time, I got the MBA, met Chris, fell in love, and you know the rest of the story, then I entered the investment field. But it was just very rewarding and wonderful work. And particularly to have a young, dynamic bishop who later on, He was a bishop in South Dakota, then a bishop in Michigan, ended up as the archbishop of St. Louis and he retired a few years ago, but it was just really fun, fun work.
Jeff Talarico (:I bet it's days like this in Scottsdale though that you wished you stayed in Minnesota.
Steve Nelson, CFA (:Yeah, summers in Minnesota are hard to beat. I was born in Chicago and a beautiful summer day in Chicago is hard to beat as well.
Jeff Talarico (:It is. Chicago is a nice little town we enjoy visiting there. So, let's talk a little bit about, you know, Faith Investor Services and this ETF prey. It's something that I use in my portfolios and I'm really a staunch advocate of biblically responsible investing. That's, in fact, what this podcast is all about, educating people about what that means. So, if you had to stop and look at this, how would you explain biblically responsible investing to someone?
Steve Nelson, CFA (:Well, I believe it's integrity. I believe God wants a full commitment from us Christians. And so we can't just be Sunday Christians. We have to be Christians all the time in everything we do and everything we are. And so how we make a profit, I totally believe, and I'm very inspired and driven by the parable of the talents in Matthew, right? But...I believe it's okay to make a profit, but God does care how we make those profits. And so the whole point of faith investor services in our ETF prey is we seek performance in a faithful manner. Now, what does it mean to be faithful as a Christian investor? You know, different denominations attack that problem differently. We take a very stringent approach on the negative screens. So there are both negative screening aspects as well as affirmative engagement. We'll talk about both of those. But on the screens, of course, we're not going to participate in drug companies that are involved with abortion, embryonic stem cell research. You know, part of being a Christian is we want to uphold human dignity and uphold human beings and build strong communities and strong people. And so we're not going to be involved in things like pornography, right? Media companies are engaged in that. Gambling, tobacco. In our case, we're very stringent on those issues. Now other Christian groups, when they do their screening, won't necessarily rule out tobacco or alcohol, but we do. We're not going to be involved with indiscriminate weapons. Think of a landmine that is indiscriminate. We're just not going to invest in companies that manufacture those kind of weapons. And clearly, we've seen in America in recent years a real push, many would call it woke, but you know, a real push for maybe lifestyle, what are called lifestyle issues. And at Prey and at FIS, we're not going to participate in companies that are actively promoting what we find to be anti -biblical lifestyles, whether it relates to marriage or other aspects of human behavior. So those are sort of negative screens. Now, at the core,
Steve Nelson, CFA (:We seek performance in a faithful manner. So we've got to perform. And fortunately, you know, sitting here today in mid -June, the fund is up like 8 % year to date, almost 17%, I think, in the last 12 months. So you can perform, have investment performance, while still participating in these negative screens and taking them into account. And we think they're driven by biblical principles.
And then on the positive side, of course, you want to engage with companies that are doing good things. They care about their employees, their clients or customers. They care about their communities, the environment. So we try and engage through proxy votes. When we're talking to company managements at conferences or in individual meetings, we try and do all of that on the positive side, as well as consider the negative screens.
Jeff Talarico (:I'm glad you brought up proxy voting. We're going to talk about that in a little bit too. That's another question that I have a little bit later on. So, you know, doing biblically responsible investing and taking a stand is something that I, again, blew up my practice about seven or eight years ago and decided to go this way 100 % with my discretionary side of the practice. And you're right, honoring God and doing what we're supposed to do, holding it up to biblical...standards as we who are claiming to be Christians do this. It's just, it works. My clients seem to be very happy. I know that I sleep at night, not having to worry about, are they involved in something that they have shared with me that they don't want to be with? And that's the difference. I've taken my designations, I've taken the understanding of what God really wants me to do, as you said, the story of the talents to a different level. I left a firm that did not have the offerings that I could completely build a great portfolio for our clients. And that makes all the difference in the world. And I appreciate money managers like yourself and FIS for doing this, taking a stand and giving us as advisors something to offer our clients that works. I appreciate that. So thank you.
Steve Nelson, CFA (:Well, my pleasure. And Jeff, I think you hit the nail on the head. You talked about being happy in this new role. And I think what I find is that both as a portfolio manager, but also from a client perspective, there's just joy. There's just lasting joy when you have integrity in your life, when you're making a good faith effort through all of your life to be faithful to the Bible.
Jeff Talarico (:Exactly.
Jeff Talarico (:That's awesome. That's awesome. So, speaking of the Bible, I was at the Kingdom Advisors Conference this past February. We met up there when we had talked about being on the show. You had a copy of the St. John's Bible. And it was a beautiful thing. I mean, it's huge. And listeners, if you don't know anything about it, I'm gonna have Steve tell you where you can find out more about it. But let's talk a little bit about what that is and why you're such an advocate for it and a white glove guy. And you can explain what that means here in just a second.
Steve Nelson, CFA (:Well, thank you. The St. John's Bible is one of the extraordinary undertakings of our time. One of the extraordinary undertakings of our time. And those are the words of Smithsonian Magazine. Newsweek called it America's Book of Kells. And so what it is, as we got close to the new millennium, as we got close to the year 2000, Donald Jackson approached the monks at St. John's in Minnesota where I went to college. And he knew them because he had taught over the summers, he had taught Americans calligraphy there. Donald Jackson was Queen Elizabeth's calligrapher. He did all the official royal documents in beautiful calligraphy for the Queen and for the House of Lords over in England. And he always wanted to create a Bible to celebrate the word of God.
As an artist, he thought that would be the pinnacle of his career. I mean, doing the royal documents is fabulous, but doing a hand -illuminated Bible would just be the capstone. And no one has done this. Christians have not done this in 500 years. Now, the Jewish community still uses this technique when they create Torahs, but we Christians, we haven't done it since the invention of the printing press.
So Donald Jackson had the vision and of course the talent and he approached the monks and said, this is gonna take a team and a lot of years and a lot of money and would you be willing to help me raise the money? But moreover, he said, I'm an artist, I am not a theologian. So would you monks and nuns in Minnesota help guide me on the theology and help decide what parts of the Bible, what verses need to be turned into art, what we call an illumination. So the whole project, I believe, took about 12 years and more than $10 million, and it is just breathtaking. And that's why Smithsonian called it one of the extraordinary undertakings of our time. At the end of the day, it's two feet tall, three feet wide. All of the Bible was done by hand in calligraphy.
Steve Nelson, CFA (:And one of the challenges any artist would have in illuminating the Bible is how do you represent God? How do you represent the divine? And I think what Donald Jackson came up with is brilliant. He used 24 karat gold. Wherever God or the divine presence is illuminated, it's in 24 karat gold. And a quick aside on that.
One of the most breathtaking images, when I was a trustee at the Phoenix Art Museum, we literally had people in tears reading the Word of God. And one of the images that always stuck with me where that happened was at the start of one of the gospels, you see the image of Christ on the cross. And it's all in 24 karat gold. And so people were looking at this image of Christ on the cross. They remembered the price that he paid for us, for you, for me, for all of us and they saw their own reflection in that 24 karat gold. And it reminded us of what the Bible says, we are all made in the image and likeness of God. And so like all great artwork, Jeff, the deeper you go through the illuminations, the more layers you uncover and the more you come to know God through the art. And that was the whole point was to celebrate the word of God in this new millennium.
And that's why it's a physically tall book, but also in a beautiful striking work of art. But it was also to draw people into a greater understanding of God through this word of God that's illuminated so, so beautifully.
Jeff Talarico (:Well, you can see your passion as you talk about this book. So I know what you had there was a representative of the book, right? It wasn't the actual book itself.
Steve Nelson, CFA (:Yeah.
Steve Nelson, CFA (:Correct, it's a life -size reproduction. Of course, there's only one original. For those who find themselves in Minnesota, you can always go to St. John's. It's about an hour and 15 minutes outside of the Twin Cities, near the middle of Minnesota, fairly near a town called St. Cloud, Minnesota. But you can always go to St. John's and see parts of the Bible on display. And then other parts can be on rotation throughout the world, actually going to museums, going to churches, universities. It can be on display as a work of art, you know, at various times, part of the Bible. But they have not bound it yet. And that's why some of it can be at St. John's and some of it can be traveling. Also, I would send people to saintjohnsbible.org and spell out the word Saint, S -A -I -N -T, saintjohsansbible .org.
And there you can find this Heritage Edition is called. But you can find locations around the country where the same version that I had at KA, which is life -size reproduction, you can find those scattered throughout America now. People have them in their private collections, but it's also at many universities. In fact, Baylor University there in Texas. They now use the St. John's Bible to lead the graduation procession every year. They have a set permanently of all seven volumes, the same ones I had at the conference, and it's called the Heritage Edition. So at sainttjohnsbible .org, you can find locations where you can see the St. John's Bible on display. For example, in Phoenix, we have three or four copies. Arizona State has one. There's some...
Jeff Talarico (:Wow.
Steve Nelson, CFA (:There's private collections, but there's also the Franciscan Renewal Center. One of the Episcopal churches just got one here, All Saints Episcopal. So there are many places around the country where you can see this amazing Bible. the Museum of the Bible. The Museum of the Bible has one. Yeah.
Jeff Talarico (:That's incredible. I'm glad to know that.
Okay, okay. I'll put the website in the show notes so at least people will have it there for them to look at as well. So I mentioned about the white glove. You want to talk about that real quick and why you have to wear gloves when you turn these pages?
Steve Nelson, CFA (:Well, it's a real work of art, right? And so you just have to be very, very careful. The idea is that if, from an artistic sort of a museum curator standpoint, if you take good care of this work, at least the original Bible, they expect to last over a thousand years. And so that's just why you have to use good museum curatorial technique when you're handling the pages.
The original is in vellum, which is calf skin, and you don't want a lot of oils and things getting on the page, right? But humidity, lighting, all of those things matter to help preserve the Bible for the long term. And then even these reproductions are amazing works of art. They look very close to the original, even though they're printed. It's a special printing technique that was created for this Bible. So even those, you want to use great care.
Jeff Talarico (:So would a church be able to sponsor a Bible coming to a local museum or something like that?
Steve Nelson, CFA (:Absolutely, in fact, a church or a ministry can buy one of these heritage additions. They're roughly about $200 ,000 for all seven volumes, but many donors have bought them and gifted them to a church, to a ministry, to a parish, absolutely, to a university, even hospitals. Even some hospitals, think of what a gift the Word of God is in a hospital setting.
Jeff Talarico (:That's cool.
Jeff Talarico (:Wow, amazing work you're doing my friend. I'm so glad that you do that because it is it really is a work of art. So listeners, I'll put this again in the show notes. If there's someplace close to you, go check it out. It is a beautiful, beautiful piece. So, OK, the tagline for our show, Steve, is wisdom over worth, principles over profit, morals over money and integrity over it all. So when you hear that, how does that resonate with you?
Steve Nelson, CFA (:Well, it resonates, but I want profit and principles. I want principles first, but principles and profit. I think you can have it both. And part of your role, Jeff, and my role, and all of our role, is to say, seek performance in a faithful manner. But performance matters. Performance matters. And you can have it. You can have both. No, not every year, not every moment of every year. But over time, what we found,
Jeff Talarico (:I like the way you put that.
Steve Nelson, CFA (:When I say we the industry there are studies that show that over time you don't necessarily have to give up performance One advantage we have For example is we can go global right in prey in our ETF we can go anywhere in the world any size company and we can also go any market cap and we're a growth at a reasonable price manager. Now people have different investment styles and that's fine. There's lots of ways to make money, but our style is growth at a reasonable price, which means we can tilt the portfolio towards gross stocks or we can tilt it towards value. So you see how much flexibility we have. And in addition, we can also raise 20 % cash. So in bad times like 2022, we beat the S &P 500 and the cash help, and we beat the MSCI World Index, which is our benchmark. So no guarantee that'll continue, but you get the idea. A lot of different firms in the faith -based investing space have a wide array of solutions available for investors. And so you really can build compelling portfolios. But you asked, how did that resonate with me? I mean, everything you said, I agree with.
I just don't want it to be an or, I want it to be an and. Performance and faith. Yeah. Yeah.
Jeff Talarico (:Well, and it's not an or, it's an over, because I think principles should be over the prophets. Nothing wrong with prophets. And that's why we were saying that it's wisdom over worth. I would much rather be wise, just because that's, I mean, look at Solomon, he was the wisest man on earth ever. And he still messed up. At the end of the day, he did. So,
Steve Nelson, CFA (:Yeah. Yeah.
Steve Nelson, CFA (:Amen. Amen. Yeah. Yeah, I guess I'm always fighting that perception. I because so many people feel you have to give up performance to be faithful and you do not.
Jeff Talarico (:Correct. No, you don't. And that's again, that's a reason we're doing this podcast. It's education. I want people to hear that you do not have to give up performance when you invest the way that you feel led to invest. The issue that I run into more than anything, Steve, is that the general public has no idea that something like this is available. And if the general public doesn't know about it, that means there are Christians in the general public that don't even know about it awareness.
Steve Nelson, CFA (:Well, that's right, Jeff, and I'm so glad you brought that up. I just saw some work from Crossmark and Crossmark and Morningstar took a look and their estimation is, and this data is within the last month, I believe, their estimation is that the faith -based investing community in the United States represents about 0 .27 % of all investment activity in the United States. It's pathetic, and we call ourselves Christian.
Jeff Talarico (:I agree. I agree. And I think a lot of that stems back to fear and believers sometimes face the facts. They still get afraid. They're not afraid to trust God. They trust God. They say they do. Yet there are still things of this world that has a hold on them. And I think once the Holy Spirit gets a hold of you and truly changes your perspective and your thought process, things can change. You just partnered up with Mark Mannella and he's part of your firm now. And he has a goal that I spoke about with Jay when he was on the show about the Rescue 1T. And that's a minute percentage of what's in the investment world. But we're just trying to get to a trillion dollars in assets in faith -based, biblically responsible investing.
And that's how big the market is. I mean, we're nowhere near that yet. And let's start with a trillion. And once we get that trillion, we can go for two, or we can go for three, because I do think it has its place. It has its niche in the marketplace. And that brings up another point. There are advisors that have designations, again, like ones that I have, and they don't do this type of investing. And...
you know, I'm not judgmental towards them at all because I know how it affected me. And when the Holy Spirit got ahold of me and said, why aren't you doing it? I started doing it. And I don't know that they're there yet, but that's okay. That's with them. I bought into this understanding of what it meant, forgoing that even if the prophets weren't there, it's still the right way to invest. But at the end of the day, I think God is going to honor
Steve Nelson, CFA (:Yes.
Jeff Talarico (:what we do. And I want to be that one that says, yeah, I did what you asked. So just like you.
Steve Nelson, CFA (:Well, you're exactly right, Jeff. I mean, the moment Chris and I decided that this was God's company, just amazing things started happening for Faith Investor Services. We were meeting people and we're still meeting people throughout the country. In fact, I've even met people from overseas as part of this FIS journey. But the moment we said it's his company and we're just stewarding it, he will take care of us. He will provide. He will keep his word.
You know, I'm so glad you brought up Rescue 1T. Rescue $1 trillion. Why do we want to do that? There's a host of reasons, but we had talked about engagement earlier, and I think it's really important, particularly at this moment in our country's history, that Christians engage, that we engage with our dollars, because dollars do affect behavior. And there have been...great success stories from the industry. Forget me and us, the industry, other people have done some amazing things converting businesses who maybe were supporting abortion for their employees, and they engage with those businesses and got them to change. And other examples. One good thing that I really love is that I'm beginning to sense that through Kingdom advisors, through people like you, Jeff, it's becoming a real team effort where Christian advisors and Christian investors are starting to work together to make an impact on society. And that gives me hope. That gives me hope for the future of our country. But also I think it's part of our role in evangelization.
So that's part of rescue one T is if we can all as an industry and as investors rescue one trillion that's being invested secularly and start investing it with purpose. I think it'll really, really start to make a difference in transforming our society and allowing greater evangelization of why this matters and how we execute God's love through our investing.
Jeff Talarico (:how it all works.
Jeff Talarico (:Great point, Steve. Thank you for mentioning that. You talked about you and Chris dedicating this company to God and saying it's his company, you're stewarding it for him. That brings up another question about faith -based investing or biblically responsible investing. There's a concept out there about stewardship investing and how that plays into the role of what we all do. It's not our money.
So you as a company have already said what you're going to be doing with the profits, which is extremely admirable because that's taking your dollars and investing it the way it should be and supporting causes that are important to you. You had talked about these firms out there that have written letters, this shareholder advocacy that are letter writing to these companies. I mean, if anyone's listened to the first show, I talked about that. When Chevron was, you know, having Chevron being part of what they were in Africa, it ended apartheid. It was shareholder activism that ended apartheid. And that's how strong this is. And that was long before Art Alley even thought or had the concept of faith -based investing. And this is the way we're supposed to do it. So it works and companies do here, when you start talking about dollars and cents, we still see it today. Even with secular companies that do something that is just mind blowing and we speak with our wallets, all of a sudden they change their stance. And that should just go to prove to anybody that it happens. So very good, Steve. I appreciate you guys doing that. I really do. So impact investing is another way to do it. And there's a firm that is involved with.
Steve Nelson, CFA (:My pleasure.
Jeff Talarico (:what we do that is really good at impact investing. Do you see any of that ever happening with FIS, maybe another ETF down the road or some other funds or something in the pipeline?
Steve Nelson, CFA (:Well, we're open to where the Holy Spirit leads, so it certainly could. Impact investing certainly would fit very well with who we are and what we're trying to be, so it certainly could. FIS was started originally with the idea of being a platform where smart -driven people could bring their idea to fill a need in the ETF space. And they could just plug into our platform so they didn't have to go through the work and the brain damage and the expense of setting up an ETF structure. We just wanted to be a place where people could do that easily. And so right now we have two funds on our platform. The first one was actually launched by the Knights of Columbus and then the second fund is the FIS Christian Stock Fund or PREA. But...Yeah, absolutely. Wherever the Holy Spirit takes us is where we want to go. This is, again, his company. So, impact investing is a key part of, again, integrity, right? So, whether you're in the public markets or you're in the private markets, or you're on the continent of Africa, or you're wherever you are, or you're in an inner city in the United States, we think impact investing can have a lot of...role to play. Another thing kind of related that I'm very passionate about is endowing the church. I just think it is terrible that we Christians have not had the foresight to take just a little bit of money every year and put it into endowments. I think the impact that we could have, particularly when the economy struggles, so if you take a church or a ministry that's really social service focused, so maybe serving the poor, and what happens when the economy goes south and we have a recession or a depression, which could happen again, you know, unfortunately the donations dry up at the very time the nonprofit needs more money because the need has grown for the population they serve. And so the fact that we don't have the foresight to do a better job of endowing is really something I'm trying to change within my little sphere of the church.
Jeff Talarico (:It's amazing that, I mean, the whole purpose of the church is to take care of widows, orphans, others. And in our country, we have created this welfare system, which has taken place of the church. And that's where the rub is with me. I truly believe in ministries doing what God's work and God's work is loving people and taking care of others, whether they're believers or not, we are to love them, because God loves them. And this is the hardest part of actually being a pastor as well, it's trying to get people to understand, I don't care if you're a believer or not. You have a need, we're going to do everything we can to fulfill that need. We have a ministry that we've started at our church called Moby, -O -B -Y, my own backyard. Taking care of people that are here and the whole goal of what this ministry is going to be is when someone's in need, we'll have a warehouse and we're not there yet. We're not...anywhere close to it. But this is our vision, this is our goal. But to have this warehouse that when someone has a fire in their house and they're all of a sudden they're in need of a refrigerator and a washer and the dryer, we have some. Come take what you have, take it. No charge, just remember who we are. And when you have abundance and it's your turn to give back, give back. And that's, in my opinion, that's gonna be a beautiful thing. Because...there's really no one really doing it. There's a lot of places that sell stuff. There's a lot of places, ministries that, you know, for small amounts of money sell things, but this is, this is what God's placed on our hearts. Just take care of people. Doesn't matter who they are. And for no selfish reasons, it's just, we're required to do it. So that's, we're really looking forward to that growing and being what God wants it to be. So thanks for that. I appreciate that, Steve. So.
Jeff Talarico (:Let's wrap things up with a couple final questions. Are there any hurdles that you're facing that are a result of you coming out of the secular world, because you came out of the secular finance world, right? And into this faith -based world, how did others view that? How did some of your friends in the industry see that?
Steve Nelson, CFA (:Yes.
Steve Nelson, CFA (:Well, I've always been a pretty strong Christian and I wear my heart on my sleeve, I suppose. So I don't suppose it surprised anyone. I began in ministry, I've been in the investment world, but I've always been involved with the Catholic ministries. And my wife is Baptist, by the way, so she's a true saint for putting up with me for all these years. But I think for me, good news is, Jeff, no one is surprised by this. I think Faith Investor Services is very consistent with who I've always been. So I've been fortunate in that regard. I'm sure as time goes by, the more vocal and visible we are at Faith Investor Services, we may get some pushback from people, but so far it's been a real joy and a blessing.
Jeff Talarico (:Awesome. So where do you think the industry is headed in the next five to 10 years?
Steve Nelson, CFA (:Well, the good news is it's growing every year consistently. The bad news is we're at 0 .27 % of the industry. So we've got a lot of upside. As a portfolio manager, I see this as nothing but upside, right? I do believe when you look back five years from now and 10 years from now, you will see a much more dramatic impact. People are yearning for this. I think...things are kind of a dumpster fire right now in so many ways and people, I sense, are coming back to God. And I think that pendulum has swung so far away from God and now it's starting to swing back, thank goodness. And I think this industry is going to continue to have greater influence on corporate America because we're going to have more money that we're responsible for. I hope Mark Mannella succeeds wildly at his Rescue 1T. I really think that's a great industry initiative that will be transformative. So I'm very optimistic, I guess, to summarize it. Five years from now, 10 years from now, it should be fun to see what the Holy Spirit has done.
Jeff Talarico (:Great, I appreciate that. All right, so if you were to have a conversation with three different people, dead or alive, who would they be and why? And they can't be Jesus.
Steve Nelson, CFA (:Well, I live in Arizona and we have snakes. So the first question I'm going to ask God is why did you come up with snakes? I just don't like snakes. Yeah, who would it be and why? I think...
I think that's a fantastic question. There's a guy named Saint Benedict and I was trained by Benedictine monks. And he is known as the father of Western monasticism. He was in the sixth century. And to this day, Benedictine monks and nuns around the world are still going. So there's so many questions I would like to ask him because through the Benedictines that I've known, my life has been touched, my faith has been touched.
And so he certainly would be on that list.
I think, you know, I just lost my dad a month ago, a month ago today actually, and I would like to spend more time with him. So he is dead, but he's someone I would like to spend more time with. He was a really good and faithful man, and I would love to have more conversations about how, when he was raising me and my siblings, you know, what was his perspective on that whole experience.
Right? And you know, you think of someone like a, I'm gonna give you two here, but Billy Graham or John Paul II. I mean, those two guys, Martin Luther King, I would add to that group as well. Those three gentlemen were so powerful at sharing the faith and evangelizing. And I would really love to spend time with those three.
Jeff Talarico (:Great answers, I appreciate that. So last question then, what should I have asked you that I didn't ask that you're just dying to talk about?
Steve Nelson, CFA (:Well, if people want to learn more about pray they should go to pray ETF comm and I will say there's a short video on the upper right hand corner of the landing page and a fact sheet and a lot of information, but I think I Think what I would like people to ask is how can I best steward the assets that God has given me and You know, I mentioned National Christian Foundation People like you Jeff, myself, FIS, but also National Christian Foundation. There are so many smart people with great tools, by the way, great financial tools, but also that bring wisdom. I think, Jeff, you talked about wisdom earlier. I think wisdom is the most key thing, and I would just encourage people to reach out to you, to me, to National Christian Foundation, and discover what tools are available to leave a legacy. Because at the end of the day, none of us are gonna take anything with us, but we're gonna leave a legacy and we want it to be powerful.
Jeff Talarico (:Awesome. Awesome. Well, Steve, I greatly appreciate your time. I know it takes time out of your day from running this company to do this podcast. And we are so appreciative of you being here. I'm thankful that FIS is around and offers advisors like myself and others in this country an opportunity to invest with integrity, to invest in something that is doing well. And we really, really appreciate that. So Steve, thanks again for being on the show and we'll have someone else from FIS. I'm hoping sometime soon for their perspective on what it means to invest with integrity. Thanks.
Steve Nelson, CFA (:Great, thank you.
