GOOD INTENTIONS STUDY

Our most comprehensive, in-depth study of faith-consistent investing globally

Faith groups collectively manage billions of dollars in investments and overwhelmingly tell us they want to achieve positive impact with their financial assets. Our landmark Good Intentions 2026 study, published in April 2026, examines 275 faith-based investment policies to assess the extent to which they have integrated their values into their investment practice.

Our study found that FCI has great commitment but also major gaps. Our FCI framework offers practical steps for improvement

Our founding organisation FaithInvest has been taking the temperature of the state of faith-consistent investing for several years by assessing real faith-based investment policies. Good Intentions 2026 is our biggest and most comprehensive, data-driven assessment to date of how faith values are embedded in investment decision-making.

The study evaluates 275 publicly available investment policies and guidelines using our FCI Assessment Framework, which looks at how organisations articulate faith alignment across ten core areas of investment policy – from foundational beliefs and screening approaches, through to governance, portfolio construction, and ongoing review.

The findings reveal an evolving sector: while commitment to faith-consistent investing is real and growing, most organisations have yet to fully integrate their values into how capital is allocated, managed, and monitored. Much of this is structural – due to lack of internal capacity or access to resources or networks, for example – which is why we created the FCI Centre of Excellence.

Scroll down for a snapshot of the key findings.

The key findings and our scoring methodology

Each of the 10 criteria in Good Intentions 2026 is scored on a scale of zero to five, and that gives a total score out of 50, which total places an organisation into one of four tiers. The table opposite provides a snapshot of how strong faith commitments are translated into formal investment policy across the sample.

Notably, no organisation received the highest score range (40-50 points) under our assessment framework.
A modest 11% achieved between 30-30 points, reflecting a solid foundation.
Half of all assessed policies fell with the 20-29 point range, showing evidence of intentional effort but lack of depth, clarity or systematic integration.
29% scored below 20 points, indicating minimal articulation of FCI principles.

A game-changer for faith-based investors and a framework for improvement

What should we make of these findings? At first glance, they are rather dismal. They clearly indicate that faith-based organisations have much to do to achieve true FCI integration.

But as mentioned above, our analysis shows that the gaps we identified are less about commitment than about lack of infrastructure or capacity. That's why we believe Good Intentions 2026 marks a game-changer for faith-based investors.

As well as revealing in unprecedented detail how faith-based organisations actually invest and where the gaps are, it also provides – for the first time – a framework for organisations to assess how they are performing in the 10 assessment criteria against the 275 organisations we assessed.

And we have lots of recommendations for how faith organisations can improve their scores – many of them relatively simple to implement. Our FCI Framework pages provide more details on the key findings for each criteria and recommendations for improvement.

The first step is easy. Contact us for a free and confidential investment policy & guidelines (IP&G) assessment to see where you are now and for a roadmap for improvement.

FCI Framework

IP&G Assessment

Catherine Devitt

Co-author of Good Intentions 2026

For us, one of the core messages within Good Intentions 2026 is that commitment is not necessarily the problem here.

What is, or where there is a gap, is around infrastructure and support to fully support faith organisations to go further on their faith-consistent investing journey.

Next steps

Read FaithInvest's news story about the report to find out more.
Access the full 104-page Good Intentions 2026 report by filling in the form below, or download a 12-page summary of the report.
Contact us about a free and confidential IP&G Assessment.

Scroll down to watch recordings of our four deep dives into the findings of Good Intentions 2026.
Check out our FCI Framework pages for more detailed information on each of the 10 criteria – including practical recommendations for how to improve your own organisation's policy.

Catch up on our four Good Intentions deep dive webinars

We held four deep dive webinars into our Good Intentions findings:

May 2026: Online global launch to introduce the study and discuss the research and the key findings
June 2026: Deep dive into the first four criteria of the 10-point assessment framework: Faith Documentation; Ethical Exclusions; Positive Screening; Investment Vehicle Selection
July 2026: Third deep dive into the next three criteria: Governance, Stakeholder Communication, Education and Expertise
September 2026: Fourth and final deep dive on the last three criteria: Professional Guidance; Regular Review & Monitoring; Continuous Improvement.