CFA and Catholic Church

[smgardy]

Hello. I am studying for CFA level one. I have strong ties to the church and I think that I would like to use my investment skills that I am acquiring to give something back to the church. I am aware that there are "ethical" funds out there that invest among moral principles. I feel somewhat ambivalent about these funds. In abot 15 years or so, when i am older, i would like to be a lay person applying my investment skills to help out the Church directly. Anyone have any comments, thoughts, or suggestions about how I would get to this point ? Your comments would be very much appreciated. Thanks.S.G.

 

[theblueman]

This is going to be a good thread.

 

[c_hayhurst]

Should I be nice or be a dick about the catholic church? Hmmm....

I'll be nice. Must...be...nice...

Try speaking with the clergy in the church you attend about how best to go about it. You could always try and start with managing investments/income with your local church. Once you've helped your church profit, you can always use that as a resume-builder to solicit additional responsibility.

Also, you can go round-about and solicit managing the investments of laypersons in the church who have influence. Once you help them make money, you can ask them to exert influence on the clergy to allow you to manage the local/ state church's funds. Or, you could name dropwhen you solicit your services to the clergy. An example would be to solicit yourself to a clergyman who has close links with one of your clients, as in, "I helped Joe Blow and his family realize an 18% annual increase in their portfolio in each of the last X years."

Or, once you have demonstrated an ability to the influential layperson that you can provide good investment advice, ask them to pass along your name to the clergy so yo can help the church enrich itself further.

Also, involve yourself in organizations such as the Catholic Foundation, or whatever else is available locally and use that as a way to increase your contact and solicitations with clergy and influential laypersons.

Good luck!

 

[testami]

Another way would be to seek out a firm in which many of the partners / owners are Catholics.

I was turned on to the CFA program by accident....from a Christian business person. He is a CFP and works with a bunch of CFA charterholders. They are looking to expand and really want to find people that share their same core beliefs.

I know a hand full of professionals who specialize in serving Christians....they see it as a ministry and find it very rewarding.

 

[HakInc]

"turned on to the CFA program"

Always a first for everything.

 

[sydneybound]

its a niche market, some people 'may' exploit that....

true story:

there's a guy i know here in oz who has this client who told him what he had done in the past to make some cash. here's the business opportunity.

there was this preacher who was very charismatic, the people loved him, people would come from afar on sundays and other days of the week to hear him preach and spend the day there. this is in the outback (very far out of the way, but with several smaller communities situated in every direction)

anyway, the client approached the preacher and told him 'i will spend my own money, buy land, build you a church and allow you to preach to your own people. the only thing that i want out of this is that i am the only one allowed to sell food and drink to these people.' the preacher said ok, he got his church, the people loved coming to him and the client was able to make a fortune selling food and drink several times a week to a 'captive audience'.

how's that for a business plan??

'Frankly my dear, I don't give a damn.'

 

[OldSchool]

smgardy - if you're already involved in the church, it shouldn't be too hard to find out who is managing the money now. Most churches turn this function over to professional investment managers. Being Catholic, the real money is in the hands of the Diocese, not your local parish. Find out from your parish leadership who the finance director is for the diocese, and then give that person a call. Explain who you are and ask who manages their investable funds. Take it from there.

 

[L3 Buckaroo]

Though it's not directly stipulated in the ethics book, is "testami's" firm in any violation by choosing to serve only Christians? Seems pretty discriminatory, though I guess no firm is obligated to provide service to anyone. On the other side of the coin though, the best CFA's are from countries where Christianity isn't dominant anyways, so really, that firm is handicapping itself by limiting its talent pool.

Ah well, such are the pitfalls of not being a Christian in Americhurch, post-Sept 11th. (btw, I just came up w/ "Americhurch" and am pretty proud of myself for that, even if it's been done before.)