Knowledge Is Power - An Interview with Sarah Newman

In this episode, Andrew chats with Sarah Newman, vice president for Innovest, an investment consulting firm.  Andrew and Sarah discuss how Innovest helps nonprofits, especially faith-based nonprofits, make sure their investment portfolios are aligned with their mission and values.  Together, Andrew and Sarah discuss the importance of ongoing education for Catholic organizations about the potential for morally aligned investments and partnerships.

Listen to "132 - Knowledge Is Power (Financial Management, Investment Consulting, Morally Aligned Investing): Sarah Newman (Innovest)" on Spreaker.

Show Notes

Background

Sarah spent nearly two decades as a fundraiser for Catholic nonprofits before joining Innovest.  Her extensive nonprofit development experience proves essential to her work for Innovest.  With Innovest, Sarah helps nonprofits sustain what they’ve grown through morally aligned investment strategies.  

Innovest

Innovest is an investment consulting firm for individuals and nonprofits.  Founded by two Catholic professionals almost 30 years ago, Innovest’s primary mission is that of stewardship. While Innovest serves both secular and religious organizations, they are experts in building morally aligned portfolios, especially for Catholic organizations.    

The Importance of Education

Sarah and Andrew discuss the importance of education for faith-based organizations about how morally aligned investing can be a possibility, even a priority.  Innovest prides itself on being a thought leader in this space, and thus, Sarah and other Innovest leaders spend lots of time speaking at conferences, on webinars, and in other educational forums.  Current educational topics include USCCB investment guidelines, ideas about what Catholic portfolios can look like, the mismatch between Catholic investing and ESG (environmental, social, and governance) funds, and more.  

Investing for Catholic Organizations

Sarah shares about the services that Innovest can provide for Catholic organizations.  Innovest offers due diligence consulting services, in which they review current investments and fund managers to make sure they match an organization's needs and values.  Innovest also offers custom portfolio design and works with organizations to create investment policy statements.  They help organizations define investment goals, outline moral priorities, determine their risk tolerance, and learn about alternative investments. 

Creating a Catholic Ecosystem

Sarah and Andrew discuss Catholic organizations’ growing desire for values alignment in investing and, even further, in their vendor and professional relationships.  There is a desire for an entire faith-based business ecosystem that covers all business relationships - from fund managers, to bankers, to CRM software programs, and more.  Sarah explains how working with service providers who share your organization’s values can offer a positive impact on organizational culture and individual relationships.  

Lightning Round

1. If you could fundraise for any organization or cause at any time in history, what would it be?
• I would work in the Gutenberg printing press era.  In those days, the printing world did incredible things for evangelization.  It was at that point that the Bible could be printed in mass quantities.
2. If you could get a donor meeting with anyone living or dead, who would it be?
• For me, donor meetings are not about asking for money, they’re about building relationships.  I would love to meet with Mother Teresa and learn from her about relationship building.  I’d learn about how she approached relationships and about how she loved people, and I’d use her relationship building advice to raise money.  
3. Is there enough money out there for every organization that's doing good work?
• I definitely think so.  Organizations just need to be creative.  There are so many creative ways to fundraise - planned giving, events, different asks, etc.  Be creative!
4. What is one piece of advice that you would give your past self?
• Don’t worry!  I’d tell myself not to worry about money.  God always provides.  Development work has shown me this - you just have to stick to the process and have faith.  
5. Who are 3 people who have most influenced you professionally?
• Laurie Vieira:  She was the executive director at the first nonprofit where I worked in Denver.  I learned a lot from her about her care and concern for donors and the urgency with which she advocated for our students.  
• Rich Todd:  He’s one of the founders of Innovest, and the care and concern he has for those he encounters is inspirational.  He has faith in people and he shows it in a subtle way.  He’s a passionate Catholic who leads with character.  
• Jennifer Fulwiler:  Though I’ve never met Jennifer, I love her comedy.  Her podcast speaks to me as a working mom, and it keeps me sane and makes me laugh.  
6. What is one fact about you that most people don’t know?
• In my senior year of college, my parents had a baby.  I have a brother who is 22 years younger than I am.  
7. What is a book that you would recommend?
• The 6 Types of Working Genius by Patrick Lencioni.   

If you would like to learn more about Innovest and connect with Sarah, please check out the Innovest website at https://www.innovestinc.com/. 

Andrew's Takeaways

First, I again lead with a takeaway that’s about relationships.  I know I often have takeaways about relationships, but realistically, relationships are at the very core of fundraising.  Our relationships with donors, with program participants, and with our colleagues all impact our ability to do our jobs well.  When Sarah shared about how she moved into her role at Innovest, she wisely said, “life is all about who you know.”  In her example, she was referring to the way she was invited to work at Innovest, but her words ring true to all of us as development professionals.  Fundraising is all about who you know, who you choose to get to know, and how well you know the people you work with.  I can’t say it enough - never underestimate the power of relationships.  Sarah hit on the importance of relationships again in her lightning round answers.  In talking about who she’d most like to have a donor meeting with, Sarah mentioned Mother Teresa and her affinity for relationship building.  All good fundraisers know that relationships come first.  Get to know people well, and rely on those relationships as you do your job.  Without a real desire to know people and be known, you won’t be able to be a successful fundraiser.  

For my second takeaway, I refer to another comment that Sarah made early on in our discussion.  In speaking about how her development background affects her work at Innovest, she mentioned how she understands that the development director is often a great entry point into her work with an organization.  From there, we discussed how a development director can be and should be part of an organization’s executive team.  In the most successful organizations that I know, the organization’s leader (be it the executive director, the pastor, the campus minister - whoever is officially in charge of the organization) understands that the development director is also an essential team leader.  Organizations that place development directors out of the realm of major decision making are more likely to struggle with fundraising and programming.  In order for a development director to be effective, they need to be able to advocate for the organization’s mission and programs from a place of full understanding and buy-in.   On top of that, development directors provide fundraising metrics and unique insights from donors that can aid in decision making - to make major plans without them is a fool’s errand.  

Finally, I leave you with my thoughts on Sarah’s comment that “knowledge is power.”  So much of Sarah’s work at Innovest is based on education to organizations about how they can invest successfully while also insisting that their investments are well aligned with their organization’s values.  Sarah’s sharing of knowledge gives power to her listeners.  As fundraisers, we always have to maintain our curiosity and our openness to learning new things.  Certainly, long-term investments are not an area of expertise for most fundraisers, and often, our tendency as humans is to ignore what we don’t understand.  I challenge you to stop hiding from what you don’t know. Schedule time to continue professional learning on a regular basis.  In the case of morally aligned investing, you, as the fundraiser, don’t have to know everything, but you do need to know who to ask for help.  Make a running list of things you hear about related to development that have you curious but that you don’t know much about.  Take time each week to do an hour of research on one of the things on your list - learn the basics, bookmark potential resources, reach out to experts - you never know how your new knowledge will enhance your fundraising success.  

INTERVIEW TRASCRIPT

01:52.23 aggierobison: Well, howdy, everyone, and welcome back to another episode of the Petrus Development Show. I'm thrilled that you're with us. I'm Andrew Robinson, president-owner of Petrus Development and host of this podcast. One of my favorite things about doing this podcast is that I get to talk with people who I know and interact with regularly. I get to ask them all sorts of deep probing questions about their life, background, and work, and it's just a lot of fun. So today is one of those days. I've got Sarah Newman, vice president at Innovest, and Sarah has been to a number of the Petrus conferences and has become a good friend of Petrus and myself. I'm thrilled to be able to talk with her on the podcast. So, Sarah, thanks so much for being here. Great. Well, let's start like we always do and dive in. Tell us about your background. Why did you join Innovest?

02:31.69 Sarah: Hey, thanks for having me. It's pretty exciting.

02:43.42 aggierobison: How did you come to the role you're in as vice president?

02:44.65 Sarah: Yeah, I'm happy to give a little bit of background. I actually spent about 18 years in the nonprofit space, primarily in a development role, helping organizations fundraise. I started my career in fundraising at a local nonprofit in Denver. The Denver community has a vibrant Catholic community, and I began my fundraising experience there. We provided tuition assistance to inner-city kids to attend Catholic elementary schools. It was an amazing job.

03:10.78 aggierobison: Um, for sure.

03:23.77 Sarah: I loved it, and I was there for about almost four years. That's where I began. A little bit down the road, I also worked at a Catholic doctor's office here in Denver that provided free healthcare to women considering abortions. They needed someone to raise money to afford healthcare for these women, so they needed a development director. I stepped up to that role, becoming their first development director. It was an exciting time over the past few years. Then, I came to Innovest because I truly...

03:47.70 aggierobison: Um, I go.

04:00.25 aggierobison: Yes, definitely.

04:00.34 Sarah: Believe life is all about who you know. Do you agree with that? Yeah, when I was on the board of the very first organization in Denver, I sat on the board with one of the co-founders of Innovest, and I knew him well. He called me up one day and said, "Sarah, why don't you come work at Innovest?" I considered the opportunity. He said, "You've done so much good work for nonprofits. You understand how nonprofits work, and we need someone in the business development role to serve as vice president to help us build our nonprofit business." I was honored, and now I sit on the other side of the table, helping nonprofits sustain what they've grown over all these years through portfolio construction.

04:51.72 aggierobison: Awesome! Good. Well, we're going to talk a little bit about Innovest in a minute, but how has that transition been from going from the fundraising side of things to...

04:55.32 Sarah: You know.

05:04.14 aggierobison: Now the financial management and advising side of the table.

05:06.57 Sarah: Um, yeah, I love it. I think it is, I know, yeah, a good thing. That's just to confirm, I love it. You know, I was involved with fundraising for so long, and I think...

05:10.54 aggierobison: Good Ah who how's it close on. Ah.

05:23.14 Sarah: Sometimes as a development director, you get to a point where, depending on the type of fundraising that you're doing, and I was fundraising through events and donor asks, and you start to see like, okay, this is a constant cycle. We have to do these things every year to help us meet our budget needs. And you get to a point where you wonder, there's got to be more of a way for an organization to sustain its mission. What I learned when I kind of invested is that it's the portfolio, like the portfolio construction and having an endowment or a foundation or investing the operating reserves. That's...

05:47.64 aggierobison: Yeah.

06:02.13 Sarah: How an organization can sustain its mission for the long run. So. It's been really nice to come to the other side of the table because to help nonprofits realize that if they don't have a portfolio or let's say they do have a portfolio and they want to mission-align it, we can talk about that later. But it's been exciting to help organizations that way. Yeah, one of the missions of Innovest is stewardship, and yeah, we really believe that we are stewards to the community, to our clients, and to our employees here. And I think we live that in the way that we help Catholic organizations and all nonprofits. So. The other thing that comes to mind is because of my background and my development background, you know, in our role as an investment consultant typically. You know people that we want to talk to right away are the CEOs of the organization or the CFOs, and one of the things that we realized when I came to Innovest is that development directors actually, depending on their specific role in the organization. The development directors actually. Can be an inroad into an organization to help them with portfolio construction, and so we've seen that it's been nice.

07:23.86 aggierobison: Yeah, I mean one of the things that I experience as a development director, and I see it all the time, is especially in smaller and even middle to large Catholic nonprofits, the fundraiser really is a part of the executive team and they should be, right? In some organizations, that's not the case but um, in...

07:36.99 Sarah: Um, yeah, it's true.

07:43.53 aggierobison: In the organizations that are working really well because they interact daily with the donors who are supporting their organization. They understand the offerings of all the programs because they're out there sharing those with their donors to solicit more gifts. Um.

07:49.60 Sarah: You want.

08:02.69 aggierobison: And they have a pulse on just everything about it, so what you're saying is you're right? If you can develop a relationship from your standpoint with the fundraiser and understand his or her needs, yeah, through the organization, then that puts you in a better position to say, "Hey, I can. Hear what your problems are. I think we might have a solution for you in Innovest. So tell us a little bit about what Innovest is, how do they help Catholic organizations."

08:21.45 Sarah: The history. Yeah, so Innovest is an investment consulting firm. We manage money for nonprofits in the religious space. That's the best way to put it, but to dive a little bit deeper, give you a little bit of background about Innovest. We were co-founded twenty-seven years ago by two devout Catholics, Rich Todd and Wendy Dominguez; those are the co-founders' names, and they're still here at Innovest. We always say we were founded by two devout Catholics, but still today, we're guided by Catholic values, and I think that's a really important key differentiator within our competitive space. So today, twenty-seven years later...

09:05.93 aggierobison: Yeah.

09:19.24 Sarah: We're still an employee-owned investment consulting firm, and like I said, we help both religious clients and secular clients. In terms of how we manage money, if a foundation or a nonprofit has a foundation or an endowment, operating reserves, or a retirement plan, we can help them build out a portfolio. One thing that Innovest is fantastic at is that we're experts in building morally aligned portfolios in a Catholic way. We take a lot of pride in helping faith-based organizations hone in on their mission and then create a mission-aligned portfolio.

09:58.23 aggierobison: That's interesting, and I know you're going to share more about this. But that's so important because going back to that stewardship piece, Innovest Innovest's mission is to steward. If your donors are supporting your Catholic organization with their gifts, and that's going into an endowment or into a reserve or...

10:06.64 Sarah: Um, removed.

10:15.85 aggierobison: Into some sort of strategic fund, they want to know that that money is not just helping you grow your mission but it's also doing good elsewhere, and it's not creating harm in society or the world. Thinking about a morally aligned investment strategy is something that doesn't come to mind with most nonprofits. They're just like, "Hey, I have this money. I need to put it with an institution. They're going to invest it in a way that brings us a return." But that could be doing harm if those investments are supporting organizations' causes, purposes that are not in alignment with the Catholic Church. So tell us a little bit more about how you show up in the space to kind of, I assume education is a big part of what you have to do. How do you educate your Catholic partners so that they are open to a morally aligned investment strategy that Innovest does?

11:00.28 Sarah: Um, would.

11:12.25 aggierobison: Morally aligned investment strategy that Innovest does.

11:13.11 Sarah: Yeah, you're right. The education piece is key. Since I came on board at Innovest, we've really focused on getting into more opportunities at conferences or speaking opportunities, webinar opportunities. Because we see ourselves as thought leaders in this space, so we came to Petrus, we spoke at Petrus, we gave our presentation titled, "Why Development Directors Need to Understand the Stewardship of Their Organization's Portfolio." The main premise behind that talk was because...

11:36.72 aggierobison: Um, yeah, totally.

11:51.12 Sarah: Development directors can use their portfolio as a tool to help fundraise. So if you can speak to just a basic level of it, you can approach your donor and prove to them that the money they're giving you is going to be well spent, exactly what you just said.

12:08.40 aggierobison: Um, yeah.

12:10.30 Sarah: It's going to be put to use in a good way. It's going to sustain the organization. This year we spoke at the Napa conference, the Napa Institute conference, which was our second year, and that was great. Last year we gave a presentation on just the updated USCCB investment guidelines and what...

12:19.17 aggierobison: Um.

12:28.30 Sarah: Constructing a Catholic portfolio looks like with the updated guidelines. This year, our topic was, "Is ESG Catholic?" The short answer to that is no, and we dove into all of the reasons why ESG goes against.

12:36.76 aggierobison: Okay.

12:45.79 aggierobison: And what is ESG, okay.

12:46.32 Sarah: A morally aligned portfolio. ESG stands for Environmental, Social, and Governance. So it's along the same lines as DEI (Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion), but it dictates how an organization can be aware of investing in things for the environment or socially. We could probably have a whole another podcast, but we won't. So, we're really finding what's going on in the investment space and figuring out does this work for Catholics or does this not work for Catholics, and do we need to look at it in a different approach and in a different light. In September, there's a conference called the Diocesan Physical Management Conference, and I know you've had John Noll.

13:39.65 aggierobison: Um, yeah, John knows. Yeah, absolutely love that.

13:40.35 Sarah: On the podcast. Yeah, and he does a great job bringing together all of the CFOs and CEOs of dioceses. So we're speaking for the first time at the DFMC about creating a values-based portfolio and really beyond screening. You can screen out sin stocks. But once you've done that beyond screening, how do you also create a values-aligned portfolio? So I've got an interesting story to back up a little bit about what we're talking about.

14:13.86 aggierobison: Um, yeah, tell me. But.

14:19.49 Sarah: So, a couple of years ago, we were doing some due diligence on a fund. Just to make sure your listeners understand, as a consultant, we don't have any proprietary products, so we are going out and diligencing all of the portfolio managers that are the investment managers. So if they have a fund and it can be put into a portfolio to construct a portfolio, we're diligencing those funds. We are not.

14:51.30 aggierobison: Okay, so you're not selling stocks, bonds, index funds, all of that. What you're doing, though, is organizations, they are investing in those through their funds and reserves or their endowments, and then what you're doing is you're saying, "All right, what you're investing in means that this is what you're funding." So your due diligence is kind of unpacking what some of those underlying companies, causes, organizations are that their funds are supporting through investment, kind of okay.

15:20.86 Sarah: Kind of, yes. So, we're diligencing the funds, so we are creating a best-of-breed package to construct a portfolio for an organization. None of our portfolios that we construct for nonprofits or for religious organizations are the same. They're all customized based on what the client is looking for. So because of that, we do a lot of due diligence. Does this fund perform well? Are they kicking back sufficient returns? And in the religious space, is this fund values-aligned with the client that we're putting in their portfolio? Hopefully, that makes sense. So a few years ago, we were doing some due diligence on a fund manager for a client, and the fund manager had created.

16:04.92 aggierobison: There you go.

16:18.33 Sarah: A Catholic portfolio for the client. It was actually in our due diligence we found out. We were going through reading through their website, getting a better understanding of what they were doing for the organization and how they were helping them. What we found out was that this fund was taking money as a fee, right? The organization pays the fee, but then they were turning around and plastering all over their website that they were donating to organizations that were completely against what Catholics believe. So, as a consultant, we take the information we gather for our clients, and then we take it to them and say, "This is what we found, so you need to.

16:56.91 aggierobison: Ah, okay.

17:11.81 Sarah: Decide, as your investment committee or as your board, do you still want to be using this fund manager, or would you prefer that we go find a different fund manager for your portfolio to meet the need of diversification?" The client said, "You know what?"

17:19.96 aggierobison: Um, yeah.

17:30.21 Sarah: We're so thankful that you found this information for us. We don't want them in our portfolio, so please find us a different fund manager that meets the need for this asset.

17:42.78 aggierobison: Yeah, so it's not just evaluating the investments that they have, but I mean right there you're evaluating the vendor that is helping them to set up their investments. Um, which is something, you know, it I think that.

17:52.13 Sarah: Um, yeah, yeah.

18:02.80 aggierobison: I think that what Nves does in this space is, there is a, you know, just me saying this Andrew, there's a need for this across the Catholic Church, right? Because, you know, I work with Petrus, we work with nonprofit Catholic organizations all over, and they have vendors from, you know.

18:10.31 Sarah: And.

18:20.96 aggierobison: The space that we work in is, you know, databases and um, you know, payment processing and um, you know things like that. But a lot of those organizations have become much more focused on advocacy and like you're saying they're donating to support causes that are. You know, antithetical to what that Catholic organization is trying to support, and so it's just fascinating how how that story right? There shows not just the intent on what is your investment. What are your investment dollars doing, but the people that you're paying fees to to organize those investment dollars.

18:41.55 Sarah: Will.

18:58.21 Sarah: Um, yeah, and you know it's we've had this conversation in the past couple of months with various organizations that that serve Catholic organizations and.

18:59.60 aggierobison: What are they doing with those fees. So really fascinating.

19:15.91 Sarah: We we find that we want to create an ecosystem to offer Catholic organizations. We've got this ecosystem of services that we can provide and we had someone ask us? You know what? if someone really has no stance about a hot topic you know, but.

19:18.83 aggierobison: Yeah.

19:35.64 Sarah: And we've kind of landed on well as long as they're not advertising their beliefs that are antithetical to the church. Maybe they're you know they're They're not misaligned. They're not advertising that they're misaligned. They have no statement. That's okay, you know that's fine. But.

19:47.71 aggierobison: Right, right.

19:55.64 Sarah: There's definitely a lot of service providers out there who are organizations that have Catholics working in them serving Catholic organizations, and we want to kind of create that awareness of all of us. Not.

20:11.47 aggierobison: That's amazing. Um, hey so question 3 looks like you kind of answered a lot of it in that. Um, I think it would be kind of duplicative if we ask that question 4. It says, "What's your approach to Catholic Portfolio construction?"

20:23.37 Sarah: Um, um.

20:28.42 aggierobison: Um, so you talk about the organization, the investment committee, and then the investment policy statement. Yes, 1

20:34.14 Sarah: Okay, home on once again.

20:40.21 Sarah: All right? Yeah so in question, 3 though, there's we can probably blend question 3 and question 4.

20:46.96 aggierobison: Right.

20:51.49 Sarah: Okay, yeah, I can do that.

20:57.50 aggierobison: So then if I ask if I skip to question 4 and say you know just that question paints. Good picture. What's your approach to Catholic Portfolio construction then you can talk about investment committee policy statements. Um, because you already talk about vent alignment. You can kind of reiterate that but and then whatever you know. From 3 you want to pull in there as well.

21:15.50 Sarah: Perfect in one second

21:25.90 Sarah: Okay.

21:31.54 aggierobison: So Sarah this is ah, really fascinating. He's kind of blowing my mind here but and and so you've paint a pretty good picture of the process that um, but I'm I'm sure there's a lot that goes into it right? So what is inovs approach to Catholic Portfolio construction how do you ultimately do that.

21:47.78 Sarah: That's a good question and it's It's a multistep process We we really believe in a lot of processes here at anest and we're like the it's the process that leads you to this success right? So it's isnt a funny how they kind of align.

21:51.40 aggierobison: Great.

21:57.80 aggierobison: Right? same thing in fundraising How about that.

22:04.61 Sarah: So couple things. Let me back up one second and talk about you know when we work with a catholic organization to create a morally aligned portfolio. It's not our job to tell them exactly how to invest all of their money. It's our job to walk them through and help them define the terms that they want to invest their money so we use the picture of a spectrum and on the left side of the spectrum. You have those who don't really care about if their portfolio is morally aligned. The middle part of the spectrum. Maybe they they care and they say okay, we're going to do the best that we can do. But if there's a fund that doesn't screen out something within the usccb guidelines. We're not going to be completely strict on that or they create revenue thresholds. And then you have all the way to the right? you've got. We're going to screen the portfolio for sinstocksabortion pornography contraception all of those things we don't want that to touch the portfolio and then we also want the portfolio to be values aligned like we were just talking about. Okay, so once we figure out. Where the organization falls on the spectrum and help maybe maybe the investment committee or the board needs some guidance on how to get to where they want to get so once we do that then we start to work with the investment committee on a.

23:40.10 Sarah: Ips an investment policy statement and that ips statement provides general investment goals and the objectives for the organization and it describes the strategies that the portfolios fund managers can employ to meet these objectives so that's the first step. Okay, and I know we talked about you know we we don't give proprietary products. That's our job is to look for the products to construct the best in class portfolio. But we've got that due diligence team. That's an important another important piece to keep in mind and the due diligence team at in Innovest. It's comprised of I would say 16 to 19 people and they're the ones who are constantly vetting those fund managers to make sure that they're still in accordance with what they say they set out to be. They're meeting the the needs of not touching abortion pornography contraception. All the sin stocks that are agreed upon in the ips and then also making sure that they are strong performance and they're creating a return. So.

24:51.17 aggierobison: Yeah.

24:55.19 Sarah: That's in working with the investment committee and the ips. So remember how I talked about how all portfolios are customized all right. We touched on that So when we work with an investment committee to begin the investment.

25:02.10 aggierobison: Um, great.

25:11.35 Sarah: I'm sorry to to begin the portfolio construction process and we've got that ips statement set up. We know it's important to them then we start to construct the portfolio with a bucketed approach and we have to look at other things that take other things into mind. Portfolio construction because it's not just like we're saying Okay, we don't want abortion to touch our portfolio. We've identified that that's great, but but there's actual a whole nother process. So We have a bucketed approach and we have to identify the different time horizons to optimize returns. Just for the different pool of assets and those pool of assets can include a foundation an endowment the operating reserves and each one of those has a different time Horizon so you have to identify that time Horizon Once you've identified the time horizon.

25:58.29 aggierobison Sure.

26:06.44 Sarah Next, you have to quantify the downside risk. So here's what I mean by that: downside risk is how much the organization is willing to lose in a given year for the portfolio.

26:09.42 aggierobison Okay, got it.

26:21.24 Sarah We ask the question, "What is the investment committee comfortable with losing?" We do this because in a down market, like at the beginning of 2020 when the pandemic hit, there's a lot of emotional decisions that can be made with the portfolio. You start to get...

26:34.14 aggierobison Sure, yeah, I can imagine. Yeah, yeah.

26:40.32 Sarah Yeah, you start to get phone calls asking, "Should we just pull all of our money out?" We don't want any mistakes made within the portfolio. So quantifying that downside risk helps us...

26:58.26 aggierobison Got it.

26:58.57 Sarah ...avoid those mistakes. When we quantify the downside risk, they're more grounded when a down market happens, and they make more sound decisions overall. So that's the next process.

27:08.41 aggierobison Yeah, yeah, because you don't want these long-term decisions, you know, 20, 50, 100-year decisions, being changed because of how somebody's feeling about where the market is going that day or that week.

27:21.00 Sarah Exactly, yeah. Also, because people on investment committees and boards change over time. The point of the IPS is to document what is best for the organization.

27:29.26 aggierobison Yeah, exactly.

27:34.97 aggierobison Yeah, right, because my level of risk tolerance is much different than my wife's level of risk tolerance, you know? But we want to...

27:37.80 Sarah Decide what's best for the people sitting on that investment committee, rather than basing decisions on emotions in the moment.

27:51.20 aggierobison Exactly. We create a policy and a system that we're both comfortable with. So when I say, "Let it ride," and she says, "No, pull it all out," we've already made that decision, and we meet in the middle with what our decision was when we were thinking clearly and not...

28:04.23 Sarah Yeah, yep, yep. There's a lot of emotion involved, and that's just between two people. Imagine an investment committee with people holding different opinions and viewpoints.

28:06.81 aggierobison Exactly. And especially when people are scared because of the circumstances at hand.

28:17.86 aggierobison Yeah, ah, yeah, okay.

28:23.70 Sarah So, those are the next two steps. Then we take all of that information and build the diversified portfolio. I say that because we really love to use alternative investments. By alternative investments, I mean timberland, farmland, private debt, private equity. We found, as we're out there educating at these conferences and talking to more Catholic organizations, that it's important to discuss the alternative investment strategy because not all Catholic organizations are utilizing this strategy, and alternatives can be a significant area of growth for an organization. So that's the whole process, and...

29:07.68 aggierobison Are you going to tell me how they can benefit, or is that for another podcast?

29:12.37 Sarah Well, maybe that's a whole other podcast, but the short answer is yes. This year, with interest rates going up, something we haven't seen in a long time, alternative investments did well because they weren't affected by interest rates, unlike bonds.

29:33.26 aggierobison Okay.

29:43.31 aggierobison Okay, okay. Well, I'll just say that I'm glad that there are smart people like you and the folks on your Innovest team who understand all this and evaluate and spend...

29:50.56 Sarah ...a lot of time and energy understanding these things and then ultimately pass that information along to nonprofits that I care about. I think that everything you're talking about that Innovest does is so important, and yet it's an afterthought for most...

30:20.76 Sarah ...nonprofit organizations. I'm glad it's being talked about now, and you're educating groups on it. But it's not something that's probably top of mind for most organizations. Yeah.

30:23.26 aggierobison: "Nonprofit organizations, which is—you know, I'm glad that it's being talked about now, and you're educating groups on it now. But um, you know it's not something that's probably at the forefront of mind for most organizations. Yeah."

30:33.70 Sarah: "Yeah, and I also think that knowledge is power. I would say I've never seen this—maybe other people at Innovest who have been here for longer have seen this—but I've never seen an investment consulting firm kind of cross the aisle to steward Catholic organizations the way that we do. So, you know."

30:56.13 aggierobison: "Yeah, yeah, that's awesome. So what are some of the trends in Catholic investment? You talked about alternative investments. You talked about ESG. Ah, you talked about rising interest rates. What are some of the other trends in Catholic investing that you think fundraisers, fundraisers specifically, should know when trying to be good stewards of their donors' dollars?"

31:18.58 Sarah: "My gosh. There are a couple of stories that come to mind, and I think we touched a little bit on it when we talk about values alignment. I think that's an important trend right now. It seems to be that more and more vendors that I talked to that are working with Catholic organizations, if we're in the same ecosystem, we're seeing the same thing, right? And sometimes we don't understand why a Catholic organization would choose to work with someone who may be doing things that."

31:42.93 aggierobison: "Right."

31:57.25 Sarah: "You know we can't quite explain, but what I've also noticed is I've had two examples of maybe I'll just talk about one. I don't know, we'll see how much time we have, but where Catholic organizations are starting to realize that they're being canceled."

32:16.46 aggierobison: "Interesting."

32:17.50 Sarah: "By some of their vendors. It's very interesting. We saw an organization, a faith-based organization. They were canceled by their CRM service. Can you imagine going to work one day and just... The CRM service that you use to house all your data is pulling the plug on you because they don't like what you stand for. So, that's the first one. We also heard another story about a Catholic organization where their bank pulled a sponsorship for their annual gala."

32:40.18 aggierobison: "Um, yeah."

32:50.32 aggierobison: "A."

32:54.84 Sarah: "Because the bank told them that the Catholic Church is behind the times. So it's kind of a wake-up call for them, for that Catholic organization."

32:56.65 aggierobison: "Right."

33:03.33 aggierobison: "So what's the answer to this?"

33:07.40 Sarah: "You know, I think it comes back—I know I keep saying the word 'Catholic ecosystem'—but it comes back to that Catholic ecosystem and just figuring out who is in that Catholic ecosystem and starting to utilize businesses that are on your same team. You know, it's the PO. I think what happens when you start to use like-minded vendors—we'll just continue to use the word 'vendors'—like-minded businesses when you're doing business with like-minded businesses, there's a lot of positive effects that happen."

33:35.81 aggierobison: "Um, sure."

33:46.79 Sarah: "And those are contagious, and if you're experiencing a lot of positive energy at work, that actually helps you flourish not only at work but in your personal life because you have a great day at work."

33:48.98 aggierobison: "Um."

34:03.87 Sarah: "Then you go home. You take that home to your family, and then you affect change within your family. It's easier, right, when it's all throughout your day, and sometimes it's not always the case. You're at work, and you're like, 'Ah, you're experiencing some difficulties,' and it's harder to take."

34:21.14 Sarah: "Positivity home."

34:22.64 aggierobison: "Well, it isn't, and we had Jeff Schiffelbeen on a couple of months ago, and he talked about how do you live an undivided life, meaning and not how do you engage in these conversations based on these values."

34:30.22 Sarah: "To whom?"

34:40.30 aggierobison: "Based on these people at work and then go home and try to completely shift. But it's like, how do you live a life where your values, your morals, your beliefs, they transfer across all of your systems, right? Your work, your home, your church, your community. And that's tough, right? But it's because of organizations like and NFS. It's because of organizations like Petras. It's because of organizations that are mission and value-aligned that are."

35:12.60 Sarah: "You."

35:16.21 aggierobison: "That are growing, that are putting good business practices in place to be sustainable, that are creating that Catholic ecosystem. You know, Catholic ecosystems are great, but even just a morally aligned ecosystem is like even if we could just get to that point, right? We're making huge progress. Um, and so."

35:26.37 Sarah: "Yes, yes. Um, yeah."

35:35.26 aggierobison: "I think that's interesting, you know, that Catholic organizations being canceled and, you know, what's the answer? It's like, 'All right, well then we go find a CRM that is more...' and it's a pain when that happens to you, but it certainly does."

35:53.60 aggierobison: "It certainly does drive home the point that people of faith and people of good moral character can also and should also be involved in the creation of businesses and of."

36:07.19 Sarah: "Yes, it's so true. I think about it in your own personal life, right? Think about what happens at work on a daily basis and reflect back on situations that you're in."

36:10.20 aggierobison: "A world that supports everybody, right?"

36:26.50 Sarah: "Makes you leave work just uplifted and energized and fired up about what you're doing and the work that you do versus situations where it could be a little bit draining, and you're trying to fight for the right thing to happen, and you go home and you're like, 'Had such a hard day.' Yeah."

36:38.34 aggierobison: "Yeah."

36:43.74 Sarah: "Yeah, always avoid the hard days. But if you can focus on looking for more of those opportunities, imagine what we could do in this world. I know."

36:46.35 aggierobison: "Um, right."

36:54.39 aggierobison: "It's pretty exciting, so got a couple more questions before we go to our lightning round. Um, what are—I'm gonna skip to question 8 and then I'll kind of come back and weave in question 7 your transition in a minute. So."

37:07.60 Sarah: "Tricks."

37:10.50 aggierobison: "Sarah, what are some of your challenges? What keeps you up at night?"

37:15.94 Sarah: "Um, when I first started at NFS, it was the vernacular."

37:20.28 aggierobison: "Ah, you know you didn't know what due diligence at ESG and alternative investments and ICSS and all of these are okay, right."

37:22.86 Sarah: "Um, yeah, all of those things, right? And so, and you move at such a fast pace, but, you know, people have to go back and listen and add a couple of times to conceptualize it and to understand it. That's okay, that's."

37:40.76 aggierobison: "Sorry."

37:40.83 Sarah: "The beautiful thing about podcasts. But no seriously, with all joking aside, sometimes I think one of the biggest challenges is I just feel like there's not enough time to do all the things we want to do, you know? There's... We're constantly working to be in front of more people to talk about values-aligned portfolios and mission-aligned portfolios and morally aligned portfolios, and so that's exciting to me to be able to have those opportunities. But... Oftentimes I'm like, 'I just wish I had more time, just one more time to talk about the values alignment and to talk about what we see, exactly the conversation we're having right now.' Yeah, just wish that there was more time."

38:19.92 aggierobison: "Yeah."

38:34.86 aggierobison: "Well, there's at the Raised Conference, which is a Catholic fundraising conference that Petrus puts on every summer, I told a story about how I was driving down the road one day after work, and I saw a piece of lumber lying in the middle of the intersection. And as I... And I was kind of zoned out, and then I turned and started driving, and immediately, I was convicted of, you know, and I thought, 'Well, that's dangerous. You know, somebody should pick that up.' And then immediately as I turned, I thought, 'Wait a minute, why didn't I pick that up? Why am I putting that on somebody else?' And... It was kind of a moment of clarity for me, just in terms of like, you know."

38:56.56 Sarah: "He?"

39:08.57 aggierobison: "Yeah, we want to... We want to work hard to make big changes, but sometimes... We're presented with opportunities to make a difference every day, and sometimes it's a little act, like, you know, getting out and picking up the piece of wood in the road so it doesn't cause an accident, you know. And it's... You know, to your point, it's... I'm sure you love the opportunities to speak at conferences and speak on podcasts, and you know, to affect big audiences. But you know what you're doing, I'm sure, on a daily basis, just in your conversations, and you know, with vendors, and you know, somebody calls you on the phone and you start talking about, like, you know, you're spreading the message in small ways that, you know... Are probably as impactful in those one-on-one conversations as they are to a big audience. So, you know, yes, we want more time, and I feel you on that. But you know, also take heart and take courage in the fact that, you know, even the small moments are."

39:51.71 Sarah: "Um, yeah, um."

40:02.95 aggierobison: "Um, leading to pretty substantive change."

40:03.82 Sarah: "Yeah, that's a good point. That's a good visual too."

40:10.22 aggierobison: "So, ah, last question this section. What do you love most about the work? What gets you up every morning ready to take on these challenges and take on this day?"

40:18.22 Sarah: "Oh, I will tell you my favorite thing is when I get an email in my inbox from a Catholic organization inviting us to work with them, and it's not in the sense that, 'Oh, we want you to manage our portfolio.' Yeah, that's great, but it's exactly what you just said in your last statement about having those smaller conversations. I love it when I get an email from whether it's a foundation or our diocese, and they say, 'Hey.'"

40:45.72 aggierobison: "Um."

40:53.53 Sarah: "Can you help us work through this problem? Can you help us come present to our investment committee on alternative investments because we're considering putting alternative investments into our portfolio but we don't know where to start, and we have a lot of questions. So it's..."

41:01.14 aggierobison: "Um, yeah."

41:13.29 Sarah: "It's days like that where, and I get an email from someone that says, 'Hey, come help us answer this particular question,' and then obviously the days where I get the emails inviting us to the RFP process. Those are pretty fun days as well. But it's situations like those that come across in emails where you see it start to click with people, and they say, 'Yeah, yeah, we want that. We also want that. How do we get there? How can you help us get there?'"

41:46.10 aggierobison: "Well, it's just... But I mean, it's validation that the work, the message that you're sharing that other people are hearing and sharing as well, that there is an option if you want to invest in a morally aligned way."

42:01.91 Sarah: "Um, move on."

42:04.33 aggierobison: "And see the returns that you would see otherwise, right? Like there is an option, and the fact that people haven't been thinking about that over time, it... It just means that now that word is getting out, and those emails, those invitations to speak, those are validation that."

42:05.68 Sarah: "Um, yeah."

42:23.17 aggierobison: "It is working, and people are open to it, and people are looking forward to seeking out this Catholic ecosystem that you've been talking about."

42:29.70 Sarah: "You know, I also think it's important to, just in the beginning, we talked about how at Innovest, our mission is stewardship, and I think when we get those emails or those requests to help, it helps us live our mission of stewardship. And it's not always what we're talking about here in portfolio construction. Sometimes it's, you know, when you get an email or a phone call from someone that says, 'Hey, can you help on this committee or can you help me figure out..."

43:06.49 Sarah: "Um, looking for the right person to hire for my organization. That's really mission aligned, and so it's using the things that we do on a daily basis, not only to help ourselves in a way but to help other people."

43:08.49 aggierobison: "Yeah."

43:20.36 aggierobison: "Yeah, I said that was the last question before we went to the lightning round, but how did your work as a fundraiser, as that frontline development director, help you now in these conversations and the work that you're doing."

43:22.33 Sarah: "And help other organizations live out their mission."

43:38.13 aggierobison: "With Innovest."

43:39.69 Sarah: "How did my work as a fundraiser help? That's a good question. I think understanding the hard work that nonprofits have to do to live out their mission is really important for people to realize because if you work for a corporate entity, it is very easy to just get up and go to work every day. It's not easy to do your job, but it's probably a little bit simpler because you're not fighting all of the battles that maybe a nonprofit has to fight in terms of making sure their budget is balanced, making sure their donors aren't leaving them, making sure that there are people coming to their gala, making sure they're going to have enough money to give out if that's what their mission is, you know. So understanding the deep amount of work that goes into a nonprofit, I think, was helpful for me coming into Innovest to be able to recognize how we can help them even more."

44:50.92 aggierobison: "That's awesome. Well, it's certainly very clear that Innovest is helping, and that you are helping in that process as well. Um, just want to say thanks for all the work that you do. Thanks to Rich and what was the co-founder's name, Megan?"

45:03.83 Sarah: "Wendy, it is Wendy."

45:07.80 aggierobison: "Wendy. Ah, thanks to Rich and Wendy for their vision in starting this twenty-seven years ago. Just really thrilled to have you on, to have this conversation, to continue this conversation with other people, and to bring these ideas to light. So certainly want to... Just, I appreciate how much I appreciate the work that you guys do."

45:28.42 Sarah: "No, thank you. We appreciate what you guys are doing too. Kiss all needed to... It sounds good. See how fast they can go."

45:32.14 aggierobison: "We all have our roles, right? We all have our roles. So, what do you say? We switch over to our lightning round, right? Right on. Perfect. Great question number 1: If you could work with any organization or cause at any point in history, what would it be?"

45:51.37 Sarah: "All right. Okay, so my major in college was actually publishing. So people often wonder, how'd you go from publishing to investing, you know? But like I said at the beginning, it's all about the people, you know? But I think if I could go back to any era and work for anybody, it would be like the Gutenberg printing press era. Yeah, I used to typeset these books. We had a press in the department where I went to school."

46:02.16 aggierobison: "Naha."

46:08.68 Sarah: "Like I said at the beginning, it's all about the people, you know? But I think if I could go back to any era and work for anybody, it would be like the Gutenberg printing press era. Yeah, I used to typeset these books. We had a press in the department where I went to school."

46:18.25 aggierobison: "That is awesome."

46:28.96 Sarah: "Publishing, and we had this press, and I would typeset books. It's actually a pretty interesting process, and then you would roll the book out with the big ink press, and you'd put the book together and bind it and all the things. But I don't know if most people realize this, but what..."

46:37.47 aggierobison: "Um, yeah."

46:44.86 Sarah: "The printing world did for the entire world is actually pretty incredible because they were able to print about thirty-six hundred pages of information a day once the Gutenberg press came, and it's because of that that's when the bible was able to, like..."

47:01.38 aggierobison: "Yes, yes, that's amazing. Was the bible the first book printed on the Gutenberg printing press?"

47:02.98 Sarah: "They were able to print the bible in mass quantities. So that's what changed the world of evangelization, right? There don't ask me those questions, but I know it was one of the first."

47:17.14 aggierobison: "Okay."

47:20.18 Sarah: "I know in one of where that was the first. I don't know and."

47:23.21 aggierobison: "Ah, okay, that'd be curious to see like what were like the first 10 books that he set up his press to print. Fascinating. Question number 2: If you could have a donor meeting with anyone in the world, living or dead, who would it be with?"

47:32.49 Sarah: "Isn't that crazy? But..."

47:38.13 Sarah: "All right. So, this is actually a tough one for me because I don't want to sound too trite, you know, like, but oftentimes I think about donor meetings not, and we were actually having this conversation before we hit play. But a donor meeting really isn't about going in to ask for money. A donor meeting is about going in to build the relationship, right? And it's the relationship piece that's important. So it's not that I'd want to sit down with someone in particular and ask them for money, but I..."

48:04.66 aggierobison: "Um, preach."

48:16.90 Sarah: "Actually, like to sit down with Mother Teresa and talk to her about how she approached relationships and her love for people because I think you could probably glean a lot from what she did in her life and take that and emulate it to build better relationships."

48:28.56 aggierobison: "Um, yeah."

48:34.69 Sarah: "To raise money, you know? Yeah, if it ever happens, you and I, but exactly not in this life."

48:35.92 aggierobison: "That's awesome. I would love that conversation as well."

48:42.16 aggierobison: "Ah, what happened in this life anymore. Unfortunately. Question number 3: Is there enough money out there for every organization that's doing good work?"

48:51.43 Sarah: "I definitely think so. I think, I think, especially religious-based organizations, fear that there's not enough money. But if you think about all the creative ways to raise money, whether it's through planned giving, different types of donor asks, different types of events, I think you can even get creative, and universities, I think, are really good at raising money because they have all these very creative ways of building relationships and doing an ask and..."

49:22.80 aggierobison: "Um, oh yeah."

49:30.70 Sarah: "I think if we could think a little bit more like that, there is enough money."

49:33.57 aggierobison: "Great! Love it. Question number 4: If you could go back in time and offer yourself one piece of advice, what would it be?"

49:40.36 Sarah: "The one piece of advice I think I would tell myself is just don't worry. Definitely don't worry about money. But God, I think God always provides, and I think that my work in development has shown me this. If you just have your process, like you stated, Petrus has their process, Innovest has their process, stick to your process, you put in the work. If you also have some faith and you're in a relationship with God, asking Him to help guide you, He'll provide."

50:05.80 aggierobison: "A."

50:14.66 aggierobison: "Right? I love it. Question number 5. Is that question number 5? Yeah, question number 5. Who are 3 people who have most influenced your professional development?"

50:17.69 Sarah: "Yeah."

50:25.77 Sarah: "Um, you know."

50:31.72 Sarah: "Okay, 3 people. It's kind of asking a lot, Andrew. You're right, that's true. It is all about the people. You know, you're right about that all. So, I would say, you know, I reference where I started."

50:38.91 aggierobison It's all about the people you know. I just want you to pick your top 3 that have influenced your professional development, right?

50:51.52 Sarah My nonprofit career at that small organization where we served inner city kids with tuition assistance. The executive director, she was my boss. We were a team of 3 people, and we were a small but mighty team, and we did a lot of work. But.

51:04.36 aggierobison Love it.

51:09.50 Sarah Would say so, her name was Laurie Beera, and she definitely influenced my professional life because of what I learned from her. She had such care and concern for her donors. But then she also had this urgency to raise the money for the students we were serving. And so when you take those and you mold those it. It was very influential because you just learn like we're doing great things. We have to work hard to do great things, but we also have to care for the people who are helping us do those great things, so she was phenomenal.

51:42.59 aggierobison There you go, yep.

51:47.41 Sarah He might laugh if he listens to this podcast, but I would say Rich Todd, the next person that has influenced my professional career quite a bit. Your Rich has faith in people, and he.

51:51.63 aggierobison Right on.

52:05.74 Sarah He does it in this really subtle way. He shows his faith in people in a very subtle way, and he also has a lot of care and concern for the people that he encounters, whether they work here in an investment or whether his stewardship mindset is crazy. He's willing to help anybody. So you know he's got that going for him, and he also is a great coach. He's very passionate about the Catholic faith, and so he wants things that we do at Innovest just to be very precise and sharp and come with expertise and. That's very important, so he leads with a lot of character, and I think you're gonna laugh at the last one because it's actually a person I've never met, but we could probably have a whole another podcast about working mothers, and there's, you know, I've got four kids and. There's a couple differences. But so the third one I would say would be Jennifer Fulweiler. She goes in Texas; she's a Catholic comedian.

53:06.51 aggierobison Yeah, it's different, I get it, yeah.

53:18.51 aggierobison Ah, her good. That's awesome.

53:21.32 Sarah She keeps me sane with her weekly podcast. It makes me laugh and makes me not take myself too seriously because it's really easy to get caught up in making sure you're always on, always doing the right thing, delivering what you say you're gonna deliver and stuff like that, and she makes me laugh.

53:40.26 aggierobison That's awesome. Ah, I'm going to get a quick plug for your mention of Rich Todd and kind of his subtle way of coaching and caring for people on the team. Season 15 of our Holy Donor series is about Vince Lombardi, who is the famous Green Bay Packers coach.

53:41.20 Sarah Yeah.

53:56.30 Sarah Um, kind of.

53:57.44 aggierobison And he was famous for his coaching on the field. He would yell and scream and demand. You know his players do more and work harder, and you know he was going to cut them and all of this stuff, but then he would find them in the locker room, particularly, you know if he picked on a guy a lot during practice. He'd find him in the locker room, and he just had this like practice of. You know he'd walk by and he'd just like kind of tap them on the shoulder and he'd say, "Good work out there today," you know, and it was like these players they they didn't love that being yelled at and screamed at, but they took so much from that sort of very simple word of encouragement from coach.

54:20.71 Sarah Um, and.

54:34.24 aggierobison Because they knew how meaningful it was. You know that he really did want the best for them, and pushing them on the field made them better, and the encouragement in the locker room sort of gave them validation that they were on the right path. So great season. I learned a lot about Vincent Lombardi.

54:36.22 Sarah Um, yeah.

54:51.34 aggierobison And I would say, check out if you like podcasts, check out that 1 Holy Donor Season 15 Vince Lombardi. Question number 6: What is something interesting about you that people may not know?

54:55.00 Sarah Um, that's awesome.

55:06.89 Sarah This seems to come up on a daily basis because it's such a weird, I wouldn't say weird, but it's just such a funny thing people don't know, it's unexpected. We'll use the word unexpected. It's ah unexpected.

55:14.30 aggierobison Okay, all right. I Love unexpected things. Yeah.

55:19.62 Sarah So when I graduated from college, actually, my senior year of college, my parents had a baby. Yes, see, unexpected. I have a brother that's 22 years younger than I am. Yeah, but it's funny because the Holy Spirit was working in that instance.

55:24.60 aggierobison Oh my gosh. Ah, that is unexpected. Yes, Wow. Okay.

55:36.71 Sarah Because my plan in my own life was to graduate from college, move to New York City, work in a publishing house, and live happily ever after. And when my parents had this baby, it actually made me rethink my life plans. I thought, you know, is this really what the Lord is calling me to do and. So I had to stop and pause, and I ended up doing a year of service work for the Jesuit Volunteer Corps in San Diego, so I moved from the East Coast, and then I moved home for the summer to help my mom with the baby, and then I moved to San Diego for a year.

56:00.33 aggierobison Cool.

56:13.67 Sarah And I worked full-time for a community service center, helping low-income people find housing, and then I also helped them do their taxes during tax season. So it's a good year of my life in service.

56:28.11 aggierobison That's awesome. I didn't do a year of service. I did ah now it's a trendy. It's a gap year. Um, after my sophomore year of college, I just took the year off and lived on my own in the mountains of Colorado, and I worked and supported myself. Yeah, so it wasn't anything noble like.

56:40.28 Sarah Um, yeah, um.

56:44.39 aggierobison You did and helping people find housing, but it was a very formative year of my life. Um, and a lot of generous people helped make that happen and um, but you know looking back, I wish I would have been more intentional and done something like JVC or.

57:01.78 Sarah This.

57:02.64 aggierobison Peace Corps or you know somewhere where you're sort of intentionally giving back, and my sincere hope for my kids is that at some point, they'll consider something an opportunity like that for themselves as well and you know we'll see but um, but that's really cool that you did that.

57:12.78 Sarah Yeah, yeah, yeah, it was, you know, the time focus was not a thing, so there was no fellowship of Catholic University students so that wasn't an option at that point. They were smaller. I mean they were around but they were smaller. So.

57:19.92 aggierobison Right.

57:32.48 Sarah I was looking for **a spiritual component, a service component, a community component. It had a simplicity component that I didn't totally agree with but still did it? Yeah.

57:43.60 aggierobison Okay, good last question in our line of question 7 what is one book you think everyone should read.

57:52.33 Sarah Um, have you read Patrick Lencioni's 6 Types of Working Geniuses? Well, you should.

57:54.10 aggierobison Oh, you're supposed to ask me if I've read it because no I have not, but I've definitely watched talks with Patrick Lencioni and where he references Working Genius, but no I haven't read the book yet.

58:03.48 Sarah Yeah, I actually read it. Yeah, it's probably been I read it in the summertime. So maybe two months ago, and I found it very insightful because it helps you figure out your own personality and how you work best at work like what comes in your inbox. How do you go about approaching different conflicts? How do you approach different ideas? But then the other thing it helps you do is it helps you understand and start to see how other people work best, and so there's 6, just like the book says, 6 types of working geniuses, and then each person has 2 main working geniuses. And so once you can identify those, you understand maybe some of the frustrations that come up at work and also you understand why some people take things and just run with them and they're really good at certain things. It's because they fit into a different type of working genius, so I would recommend that read for anybody.

58:57.39 aggierobison Right.

59:13.24 Sarah You can translate it into work also but then into your home life as well with your kids. Start to see what their geniuses are as well.

59:14.90 aggierobison Yeah, yeah, for sure, that's awesome. Well, I'm gonna have to find it on Audible because, as you may not know, I don't read books but I listen to a lot of books. So I'll find it on Audible.

59:23.81 Sarah Not you know.

59:31.00 aggierobison And put it on my list. Sarah, thank you very much for asking me if I've read it and I have not, so I will put it on my list, appreciate that.

59:31.87 Sarah That, you that once you've listened to it. You got to let me know, you can also go online and take an assessment, you pay $25 and you take this assessment. So if you do that you tell me we can compare notes.

59:49.12 aggierobison Okay, great. Well, I don't know if it's one of the working geniuses. But um, it's become abundantly clear that one of your gifts in life has got to be empathy because everything that you've talked about has definitely been trying to understand.

59:59.23 Sarah Oh.

01:00:05.57 aggierobison Other people and how you can better serve them and that comes from a place of empathy, and so I admire that. Yeah, your kids definitely if they're like my kids they definitely would not think that you're empathetic to their needs. But that's totally different.

01:00:09.62 Sarah No thank you, I don't know so other people would agree with you.

01:00:20.29 Sarah Um, my husband would say what is he talking about? Yeah.

01:00:25.34 aggierobison Ah, ah, that's hilarious. Well, Sarah, this has been fantastic. I love the conversation. If people want to learn more about you or learn more about Innovest, where should they go?

01:00:33.85 Sarah So, to learn more about Innovest, my bio is actually on the Innovest website. You can go to innovestinc.com, so it's INNOVESTINC.com.

01:00:53.20 aggierobison Great. Awesome. Cool. It just struck me, did you apply because you looked at the website and you thought it was like "ink" like publishing, and maybe, you know, I'm just, ah, that's right. Yeah, you said Rich called you? Yeah, that's right? Yeah.

01:00:53.21 Sarah Think back? Yeah.

01:01:00.48 Sarah No, I've actually never applied to work at Innovest. I'm telling you, Rich called me in a roundabout way. Wait, we got, yeah, we had a conversation. Yeah.

01:01:09.51 aggierobison That's awesome. Well, Sarah, it's been a pleasure. I have enjoyed our time together, and I hope that we get to spend more time together at Raise 24 in San Antonio next June. Oh my gosh.

01:01:23.65 Sarah As you say, did you move the date?

01:01:26.78 aggierobison No, I can't believe we're already talking about it next June 24th through June 26th, 2024, will be in San Antonio on the River Walk. It's going to be a fantastic 23rd through 26th. Okay, I totally botched this. June 24th through June 26th, 2024.

01:01:39.65 Sarah More.

01:01:46.21 aggierobison In San Antonio on the Riverwalk. Raise 24, it's going to be great, and hopefully, you'll be able to join us there, Sarah, and hopefully, our listeners will as well.

01:01:53.57 Sarah Who So be great. I will say you always pick the best places to have your conference. You do so.

01:02:05.50 aggierobison Yes, yes, we have good locations, yeah, for sure. Well, Sarah, it's been a pleasure. Thank you so much for joining me, and thank you to all those listening. If you do have any questions or you want to reach out, you can always shoot us a message at [email protected]. You can find information about Petrus and our solutions at petrusdevelopment.com.

01:02:12.26 Sarah Thank you.

01:02:24.77 aggierobison And this fall, we are launching our BOAT program. It's a fantastic ten-week immersive online course. You can take it at your own pace, but we will have weekly cohort meetings so you can go through it live with a Petrus instructor and with other people who are learning. BOAT stands for Basic Online Advancement Training. You can go to our website patrickdevelopment.com/boat to sign up and register, and hopefully, you join us there. Other than that, we will pray for you in your work today, and that it is fruitful and brings life and energy to you and the people you serve. So, thank you so much for joining us. God bless, have a great day.