Most investors keep two mental folders: one for investing, returns, and performance; another for values, faith, and giving. The assumption is that capital is morally neutral until it is used philanthropically. But Steven Libman, founder of Investing With Purpose, argues this separation costs investors more than they realize—not just financially, but in the alignment of their money with their beliefs.
Libman has spent 15 years building a multifamily real estate firm on a counter-premise: stewardship is not a category of finances; it is the whole thing. When investors accept that framing, the silos between tax strategy, portfolio allocation, and personal values collapse into one question: what is my money actually building?
The separation between investing and values was deliberately sold by a financial services industry focused on product distribution, not stewardship. Investors were told to chase returns, ignore the underlying activity of their capital, and express values through charitable giving from profits. The result is a generation of investors who give generously from after-tax returns while their portfolios fund things they have never examined. Tax strategy got siloed similarly; most people treat taxes as an annual reckoning, not a year-round planning tool. They discover what they owe in April, accept it as inevitable, and move on. The idea that tax strategy and values strategy could be part of one proactive framework, structured in January rather than reconciled in April, is rarely presented.
“Stewardship isn’t a category of finances,” Libman says. “It’s the whole thing. When we read the parable of the talents, the master doesn’t grade servants on one line item. He thinks about what they did with everything they were entrusted with. Your tax dollars are entrusted capital too.”
The dominant model in values-aligned investing has been the exclusion screen—a list of what not to own. Libman calls this the lowest form of values alignment and the least useful starting point for investors who want their capital to build something. His reframe: purpose-driven investing is not the screen you run at the end; it is the lens you build through from the beginning, covering every line item, including the tax line.
“What is your money building?” is the question Libman poses before any other—not what it is earning, but what it is going towards building. Practical steps follow: get clear on core values, write them down, audit what you own, measure each holding against those values, and ask whether your tax strategy serves the same mission or works against it. For investors who have never connected these dots, the entry point is an audit, not a liquidation. The goal is not to blow up an existing portfolio but to create an honest picture of where alignment exists and where it does not, then start making intentional moves.
“Purposed investing isn’t the screen you’re running at the end,” Libman says. “It’s the lens you’re building through from the beginning. And that lens should cover the tax line items too.”
The connection between tax strategy and values alignment is more direct than most investors appreciate. Capital retained through intelligent tax structuring—such as bonus depreciation, cost segregation, or K-1 carry-forwards—can be redeployed toward causes, communities, and investments that reflect the investor’s priorities. Capital handed to the government unnecessarily cannot. Libman draws on a biblical precision argument: the obligation is to give Caesar exactly what is due, no more, no less. Overpaying taxes out of ignorance is not humility; it is poor stewardship. Every dollar that leaves unnecessarily is a dollar that cannot be reinvested, donated, or deployed toward the investor’s mission.
“You can’t manage well what you refuse to understand,” Libman says. “And the moment this all gets pulled under one owner, which is you, there’s no silo anymore. You become the silo.”
The investors who will navigate this cycle most effectively are not those who separate these conversations cleanly, but those who stop separating them entirely. More information on the firm’s investment philosophy is available at investingwithpurpose.org.
