The GuideStone Approach to Investing: Rooted in Christian Values, Driven by Performance

At GuideStone^®, we believe in biblical stewardship in every financial decision — from everyday budgeting to personal investments. Investments should encompass, not compromise, your Christian values in the pursuit of competitive performance. That’s why we have a dual investment mandate to honor the Lord with the financial resources entrusted to us while pursuing competitive, risk-adjusted returns. The GuideStone Funds^®, our family of faith-based mutual funds, are centered around three tenets:

1. The prudent stewardship of investor assets includes incorporating a multifaceted faith-based investing program.

   Scripture reminds us that how we use the resources God has given to us matters (Luke 16:10-12). At GuideStone, we uphold the faith-based values of protecting life, guarding society’s vulnerable and caring for God’s creation.

   To ensure that these values are reflected in our strategies, we begin by screening out potential investments in companies or organizations that are publicly known for offering products or services that are incompatible with our Christian values, including, but not limited to, those involving abortion, sexual immorality, alcohol, tobacco or gambling.¹

   We also engage with companies we have invested in to encourage them to develop more Christ-honoring business practices.

   Finally, we’ve developed specific impact strategies that invest in organizations seeking to make a positive impact in the world with their products and services.

2. An emphasis on intentional risk can help investors reach their long-term goals.

   Usually, we think of risk in life as something to avoid. But when it comes to investments, you can’t have financial rewards without taking a measure of risk. But it’s important to be intentional about both the amount and type of risk you take.

   • Factor risk refers to an investment’s exposure to broad market factors, such as economic conditions or geopolitical events, which can affect the entire market or specific sectors regardless of the individual investment selected.
   • Selection risk refers to the risk a specific investment might have due to company-specific factors.

   Researching and understanding both kinds of risks related to our investment strategies serves as the basis for our intentional risk allocation decisions. We emphasize certain risks within a Fund and de-emphasize others in pursuit of maximum potential return for the amount of risk taken.

3. An active portfolio management approach that brings together a wide variety of managers with different styles can produce robust performance over the long term.

   Active management means more than just buying, holding and selling individual investments. It means pursuing outperformance against an established benchmark, such as the S&P 500^®2.

   At GuideStone, we employ a distinctive manager-of-managers approach to bring together institutional-class sub-advisers that are typically unavailable to individual investors and combine their strategies to potentially maximize risk-adjusted returns.

We regularly monitor and evaluate each sub-adviser’s adherence to their investment mandate, return performance and other factors to determine when proactive changes need to be made, including shifting capital among sub-advisers or hiring and terminating sub-advisers.

Our distinct, integrated approach to investing is built on a foundation of Christian values and guided by biblical stewardship principles. Whether you’re investing through a GuideStone employer-sponsored retirement plan, an IRA or an individual investment account, you’ll have access to our faith-based GuideStone Funds — all aligned with our values-driven investment philosophy.

Your faith guides how you live. Shouldn’t your faith also guide how you invest?