“It turns out you can give your money to a project positively impacting the world with the goal of earning a financial return.”

I want to thank Adrian for reaching out to me via Instagram to share this very informational book.

This post contains affiliate links. See Disclosures for details.

The Do Gooder’s Guide to Investing

Can you grow your money while investing in positive change for people and the planet? I believe that we can and this book The Do Gooder’s Guide to Investing by Adrian Reif provides a roadmap on how we can do all that. The word “investing” can sometimes get a bad rap because it’s associated with Wall Street, but it’s absolutely possible to invest in affordable housing, renewable energy and local communities and still grow your money. The Do-Gooder’s Guide to Investing provides a comprehensive list of these investing options. Even if you are not ready to invest yet in these organizations, I highly recommend reviewing and learning more about the organizations that Adrian lists as it will give you some hope about the future. The book is an easy read with none of the jargon that make investing books boring or dry.

Book Setup

The book is easy to read and depending on your own values and investing goals, you can skip around the book to find the content that suits you. Adrian starts the book with Why? An all important question as it dictates the How. Why are you investing? if you are like most folks, your answer will involve financial freedom, financial independence, financial security for family, while also impacting the world through good work. Not all investing is created equal.

I agree that this book is for everyone whether you are a beginner or advanced investor. I consider myself an intermediate investor. I know enough to be dangerous. Towards the latter part of the book Adrian does an Investing Primer which I believe could be really helpful for someone just starting out. I believe one of the challenges with sustainable investing is that investing itself feels out of reach for most folks. Many people don’t believe they have enough money or knowledge to invest and therefore don’t do anything. Not investing serves no one because it doesn’t help you grow your money and it doesn’t support companies and people that need capital to carry on their work. People selling investments also make it sound complicated that it scares many people from going out to learn more about investing and what can work for them. I, personally, didn’t start out wanting to invest sustainably and I would even venture to admit that I only invested because my mom told me to do so, but I’ve learned since then that investing can be a huge catalyst to achieve financial independence faster. Now, as I’ve dived deeper into the sustainability field, I now want my money to work for me and for people and the planet. So to be transparent, while I have gained some money from investigating in oil companies, I am now looking to shift my dollars into something more attune to my values.

The book is split into 3 parts.

Part 1: Where We’ve Been, Where We Are and Where We Can Go - describes the current state, the whys, and how a new model could change the world

Part 2: Setting a Course - provides the various investing options from microfinance, affordable housing, better food systems, finding a more sustainable stock market, etc. I was frankly surprised at so many options, which goes to tell you that alternatives do exist, we just have to look for it, ask for it and move towards investing in these alternatives.

Part 3: Building Your Portfolio - this part provides a quick intro investing and samples of portfolios that you can mirror as well as the #DoGooder’s $10K Challenge

Part 3 of the book provides an Investment Primer as well as sample portfolios you can replicate. I would highly recommend reading this part first if you are new to investing as it will give you more confidence with investing language. He condenses the most importants aspects of investing into a few pages. It’s succinct and to be honest the only information you need to get started with your investing goals. Don’t let others over complicate investing.

Source: The Four Investing Destinations from The Do Gooder’s Guide to Investing by Adrian Reif

There’s a beautiful chart on Page 222 that provides a map of Four Investing Destinations. Depending on what your goals are, you can create a portfolio that addresses short-term/long-term needs and risk tolerance. For many of us, if you are young and in the pursuit of FI, the Long-Term, Slow Growth area is most likely were we want to park our money. Of course this will change over time and Adrian provides options depending on your goals AND still taking into account investments that are doing good for the world.

The sample portfolios that Adrian provides mirror some of the best investors out there like Ray Dalio. Highly recommend taking a look at the way they are allocated.

The Do Gooder’s $10K Challenge

A few months ago, I brought up a suggestion to my husband that what if a large collective of us bought just one share of a company and exercise our voting rights to change how the company addresses their sustainability goals, we could potentially shift the pendulum towards change. Of course, this takes work and a collective effort by many to get thus done.

Instead, I’m on board with Adrian’s challenge to move $10K or any amount of money towards a do-gooder investment so that we can all profit with purpose.

1 million people.
$10K each.
$1 BILLION in change.

Seems achievable in my opinion. Think what a $1 billion investment could do to combat climate change, increase affordable housing and get more people better healthcare or food options.

if you don’t have $10K to invest, any amount would help. Additionally, you can opt to bank with a local bank that’s committed to local community development, you are on your way to making change.

Final Words and Action Items

I’m happy to have reviewed the book as it personally gave me new ideas on what to invest in. It also supported my own belief that you can invest and still do good in the world. I first wrote about responsible investing a few years back and I had a hard time finding the right information so I’m glad that there’s a growing movement of people that want to invest responsibly. You can read that post here. To be honest, when I wrote the post, it was more about me wanting to be less hypocritical about my money. Here I was trying to reduce waste and being a sustainability champion, yet I was investing heavily in fossil fuels and tobacco and other things. It just didn’t sit well with me. Is my entire portfolio sustainable? No, but we have to start somewhere.

Here are a few actions items you can do today:

Learn more about investing so that investing language no longer scares you. Sign-up for Investing 101, scroll down to see the form. While you are there, grab a copy of the FREE FI Hacks.
Open an account with Vanguard. Vanguard is the best company to invest your money in because they have low fees and work with your best interest, but other well known firms will do too.
Start saving and put that saved money into an investment account. Take a sample portfolio from the book and create one for yourself. If you are not ready for a large investment, use Acorns which rounds up and saves your spare change.
If you aren’t ready to invest due to debt, check out The Money Journal. Work through the exercises so that you can effectively change your money mindset to one of abundance. People and planet need your support and it’s OK to get paid for it too.
If you have investments in multiple accounts, check out Personal Capital and analyze your fees. Fees can sometimes eat up your portfolio in the long-term so stay vigilant.

As always, I’m interested to know your thoughts on this topic and how we can help you invest with people, planet and profit in mind.

One last thing, it’s OK to be a do-gooder. We need more people like you that believe and want to make an impact in the world.