Mission-Aligned Investment is taking hold around the Anglican Communion as churches from Africa to Asia to the Americas are choosing to judge their investments against mission benefits, as well as financial returns.

Holy Trinity Wall Street is leading the charge for churches across the Communion to turn inherited assets into sites that generate both income and mission returns, especially as congregational giving struggles to sustain ministry in many parts of the Communion.

Missional investment returns can range from developing social housing on church land, to extending church facilities for mission outreach, to building permanent income streams that directly fund the church’s mission by bankrolling stipendiary ministry.

The Mission Aligned Investment Motion 11 report describes how the Church of England’s Church Commissioners – who hold £8.3bn in Trust Funds – have recently shifted a sizeable fund into the Church of England’s Archbishop’s Council portfolio that aims to reap missional, social and environmental bottom lines that match the Anglican Marks of Mission. 

While keeping their eye on competitive returns, the Church Commissioners now proactively seek missional investments across their portfolios, especially pivoting toward social enterprises that help people into homes, grow food, fund social supports for vulnerable groups, or foster green technologies and clean energy that counter climate change.

In Australia, the multi-church pension provider Christian Super invests in ecological and social enterprises that connect with its members’ mission values, but also goes a step further, backing projects that invest in people and activities that directly offer redress for historic injustices or inequities, known as “Redemptive Investment.”