What Story Do We Tell?

For an author and former tech company executive, Seth Godin has a no frills blog that offers pithy insight. In a podcast some years back, he observed the following:

“Once you have enough for beans and rice and taking care of your family and a few other things, money is a story. You can tell yourself any story you want about money, and it’s better to tell yourself a story about money that you can happily live with.”

SGI is an organization for those who want to tell a different kind of story about their money than a simple report on the bottom line. Our members are those who want their investments to tell a story consistent with the values and passions of their lives. Our members have served those on the margins in far-flung missions or just on the other side of town. Our members have run schools to provide a quality education, inspired by faith, to those who might not otherwise be able to obtain it. Our members have built health institutions that have served the ill and injured regardless of their capacity to pay. Our members have worked tirelessly to care for and to protect creation. Would it not make sense that the savings destined for their healthcare and retirement, and those funds entrusted to them by generous donors, be used in ways that reflect what our members believe to be important?

Once upon a time, I used to urge folks to look through the last ten checks they wrote—now, I’d suggest that younger readers look through the credit card statement—what do those expenditures say about our priorities and values? The work of SGI is to tell a story with our funds. It is a story that values the poor so often invisible within the economy, especially vulnerable children and women. It is a story where the Earth, its soil and seas and air, is more valuable than the gold and oil buried underground.

A story that focuses solely on the economic return is a story too thin to heal. Indeed, we need a story rich enough to live by. Our story will not interpret the world to everyone’s satisfaction. But, finally, in our judgement, their stories can’t stand up to our stories.