Coconuts and Human Trafficking? They’re Surprisingly Connected

Global InvestmentGlobal Impact
Written By Donald Simmons, CFP®

In August of this year, I highlighted Dignity Coconuts in the Business as Mission article titled Scarcity versus Abundance. The article focused on the goodness that can transpire when investments, not donations, are put to use to serve people in poor communities by building a business. Dignity’s impact plan for economic development is possible because of patient investment, described below:

A wonderful example of economic development is Dignity Coconuts, a missional business located in the formerly undeveloped seaside villages region in the Philippines. Dignity’s story illustrates the power of investments to foster development combined with bringing abundant blessing to the village inhabitants. The investors, many of whom are still waiting for a financial return on their investment, are able to partner with God in sowing seeds, doing good work, and experiencing a harvest of righteousness. They are willing to look beyond just financial returns and participate in the creation of additional and different types of wealth.

Economic development’s compounding effects

Dignity distributes its products to a worldwide market, but the economic impact isn’t the only outcome Dignity’s founders seek. The jobs they create in the community of its processing plant have a direct connection to reducing the trafficking and exploitation that often plague similar small-scale farmers in remote areas of developing nations.

Dignity’s impact recently drew the attention of a Minneapolis-St. Paul Fox News affiliate. Watch this three minute news feature and be encouraged by some good news!

If you are interested in learning about the power your investments can have to reduce human trafficking and other injustices that break God’s heart, talk to an advisor at our sister site Steward Advisors Group.

Donald Simmons, CFP®

Don has over thirty years of experience building and managing a boutique investment firm in upstate New York that he founded in 1988. A CFP® Professional with a degree in counseling and post graduate training as a portfolio asset allocation specialist, Don fuses professional portfolio strategy with investor psychology and behavior to provide a well-informed perspective on our role as Christian steward-investors.  With nearly a quarter billion dollars of assets under management, his firm consistently ranks among the top 1% of financial advisor practices in the United States. 

Being a fiduciary of his clients’ assets has enlightened Don’s understanding of our role as God’s “oikonomos”—His designated asset managers.  Additionally, Don believes that business itself is an incarnational witness, much like the ministry of Young Life through which Don began his own personal relationship with Christ and with which Don has been involved as staff, volunteer, and committee chair for over four decades.  

While serving as chief operations officer for a London-based Christian economic development fund,  Don observed firsthand the great chasm between societies where capital is hoarded in abundance compared to locations where it is in short supply and desperately needed to fulfill God’s redemptive plan. Don was responsible for coordinating a global management team that deployed dozens of mentors and coaches and financial capital to transformational businesses across more than twenty countries and among the most impoverished communities in the world. Furthermore, as he has traveled extensively both personally and professionally to dozens of frontier market countries since 2003, he’s gained an awareness of the physical and spiritual poverty that are too often met with ignorance and apathy of American Christians regarding their plight. 

Don’s passion for meeting these needs through the expansion of business as mission, as well as being a long-time steward of his clients’ assets, has led him to not only help his clients prepare for retirement, manage their wealth, and consider charitable giving, but also to help investors match their investment decisions to God’s purposes.  

Don has been married to Amy since 1989. Their home is a hub of activity for their four children and a steady stream of guests. In addition to family, Don’s passions include flying an antique (1948) seaplane, cooking pizza in his wood-fired pizza oven, and serving as a board member for numerous charities.

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