Faith-based investing is having a moment

• Religious investment funds are having a moment.
• Assets in faith-based funds hit $100 billion for the first time last year.
• Their rise has come alongside Trump's presidency and growing religious sentiment in the US.

A corner of the exchange-traded and mutual fund market has seen a quiet surge in recent years, which investing pros say has come alongside the rise of Donald Trump and a reinvigoration of religious sentiment during his two terms as president.

Faith-based investments are a relatively small part of the ETF world, but investors — typically of Christian or Catholic faith — piled into these vehicles in the last year, many of which promise to keep money out of anything with links to things like abortion, tobacco, or gambling.

The value of faith-based investments swelled to at least $130 billion last year, but the total size of the market is likely larger than that, according to a study from the faith-based investment advisory Brightlight.

According to Brightlight's survey, assets managed by faith-based funds hit $100 billion for the first time last year, a 14% jump in the 15 months leading up to June 2024.

Brightlight has also seen more people seek its investment advisory services in the last year. Demand for the firm's screening services, which filter stocks for faith-based values, has doubled since 2023, the firm told BI.

Inspire, which claims to be the world's largest faith-based ETF provider, has also seen a surge of interest in its faith-based investment products.

The company's investing arm hit $3 billion in assets under management last year, with $1 billion of that coming in the 18 months leading up to September, it said in a statement.

Inspire CEO Robert Netzly said he sees rising religious fervor behind the surge in interest in faith-based investing.

"There's opening the eyes of His people to this huge problem, that we've been putting His money into things that break His heart. Things like human trafficking and abortion, drug manufacturing and all sorts of things. And we don't have to do that anymore," he said.

Guidestone, another faith-based investment firm, also said it's seeing greater demand for its investment products. The firm has $22.5 billion in assets under management, up around 46% over the last three years, according to statements and information on its website.

There are funds tailored to the values of many religions, but Christians, Catholics, and evangelicals make up the bulk of the investors working with Inspire and Brightlight, Netzly and Brightlight head of global advisory, Tim Macready, told BI.

Investing strategies can also differ from client to client, but generally, the funds aim to steer money away from things that are against a client's religious principles, while allocating to investments that comply with their faith.

Real estate tends to be a popular investment, as many clients believe community development aligns with their religious principles. Meanwhile, companies with any links to abortion, alcohol, gambling, pornography, or child labor are avoided, Macready said.

Since many faith-based funds typically screen out companies on the no-buy list, many have underperformed the broader market in the past year. Inspire's flagship Inspire 100 ETF (ticker: BIBL), for instance, doesn't hold any of the Magnificent Seven stocks.

Yet, while the fund may have missed out on last year's big gains for the cohort, it is actually beating the market in 2025 after avoiding the rout in mega-cap tech this year. As of Friday afternoon, the ETF is down about 1% year-to-date compared to the S&P 500's 3.8% decline.

Religious investors, though, are more focused on their faith than beating the market, Netzly said.

"There really is a movement going on that we believe is from God," he added. "So certainly if we can eat our breakfast to the glory of God, we can invest millions, billions, trillions of dollars in the Christian market."

Trump's touch

Investors BI spoke to attributed the boom in these types of investments to God's wish, but the rise in faith-based investing also coincides with Trump's time in the White House.

Phillip Dickson, the CEO of Monorail, an investment service that supports faith- and values-based investing, said clients became "more bullish for sure" after Trump won the November election.

Trump drew strong support from white evangelical Protestant voters, with 81% saying they would vote for Trump over Biden. Trump himself said he identifies as a nondenominational Christian in 2020.

Macready said he believed the rising popularity of faith-based funds has to do with the shifting political landscape in the US.

"Faith-based investors have become much more vocal on, again, the conservative side of things," he said, pointing to a generally unified stance against partisan issues like abortion.

Netzley said he noticed that many faith-based investors are pro-Trump, and said he expected the president's policies to boost the companies Inspire invests in.

"People of faith by large margins voted for Trump, not because he's a Christian, but because his policies tend to be favorable towards people of faith," Netzley said. "So it's certainly exciting to us to consider that, to start to see that show up in returns."