Bring Greater Intention to How You Use Your Resources
As you shift into a new phase of life, we’re committed to helping you experience financial contentment and peace through a plan that’s right for you. Part of planning, however, is understanding how you want to live and what you want to do. We guide you in identifying your vision for the years ahead. Whether you want to spend time with family or volunteer to make the world a better place, we help you prepare to spend your time, talents, and resources on what matters most to you.
The advice we provide flows from a biblical worldview: God owns it all, and we are called to be prudent stewards of the resources entrusted to us. For the faithful steward, planning from a biblical perspective aligns faith and finance by translating those values into specific goals.
We seek to foster relationships of trust and mutual respect, while at the same time delivering investment and financial planning advice consistent with our mission, vision, and core values. In all cases, we adhere to the highest ethical standards and place our client's best interests first.
Our Services
Biblically Responsible Investment Management
At Financial Cornerstones, we consider ourselves stewards of your investments, and that is a role we will never take lightly. Biblically Responsible Investing allows you to invest without compromising your deeply held beliefs, aligning your investments with the Cornerstones of your faith.
We utilize both dynamic and tactical portfolio management. With dynamic portfolio management, we rely on analytical research, forecasts, and professional experience to make decisions on which securities to buy, sell, and hold. With tactical asset management, we believe that inefficiencies in the market create opportunities to identify mispriced securities and thereby achieve stronger long-term returns than simply following an index. This approach allows us to take advantage of sectors in the market that may be underpriced and reduce exposure to the areas in the market that may be significantly overpriced.
And we go one step further. We add an extra layer of due diligence to the research process by screening investments for moral issues based on Christian values. Implementing faith-based investing begins just like any other investment management process - looking for great investments.
Comprehensive Financial Planning
Having a comprehensive financial plan is essential to pursuing and achieving your goals. You wouldn’t build a house without a plan. Why should your financial life be any different? Our comprehensive financial planning process is designed to connect your financial decisions to the people and things that matter most in your life.
Comprehensive financial planning is about more than just managing money. It’s about setting goals for your future and taking steps to pursue those goals. Goals always concern the future, as they are a statement of faith and one of the primary ways that we may see God at work in one's financial affairs.
We take the time to learn about you, your needs, and your goals. After all, goals are the foundation of any plan, and every spending decision is a spiritual decision. With our assistance, we analyze your income and expenses along with your assets and liabilities to create your current financial picture. Our process makes it easy to review your objectives and helps you see what adjustments can be made to better pursue your long-term goals.
Retirement Income Strategies
At Financial Cornerstones, we help you prepare for the day when your money is working for you instead of you working for your money. Whether you will retire in the next few years, or are already retired, having an income strategy is all about generating more money by managing multiple income streams tax efficiently.
For many current and future retirees, these can be stressful decisions that are often put off and left unanswered for too long. We help you look at many different scenarios to best utilize, from a management process, the sequence on which account to draw from first, from both a return perspective and in a tax-efficient manner.
One of the common questions we answer is “When should I claim my Social Security benefit?”. We analyze complex claiming strategies, factoring in your unique circumstance to show you how you can maximize your benefit.
Our income strategies give you viable plans of action based on current investment assets, employer-sponsored savings plan balances, and projected future savings rates. Retirement income planning usually presents significant, sometimes unique, tax and investment management issues.
With our guidance, we help you make confident, informed decisions. Stewarding resources isn’t just a pre-retirement task — it happens in retirement as well. Having an income strategy is important so your money is working for you even as you start to use your assets.
Tax Planning & Risk Management
Tax Planning: Thoughtful tax planning around your investment management can help you keep more of what you earn. When taxes begin to take a large portion of your annual income, it’s essential to take a proactive approach to minimize your tax burden. We conduct a comprehensive review of your tax returns and look at ways to strategically minimize taxes over your lifetime so that you have more to leave for the people and missions you love.
Taxes impact every aspect of your financial life. Without tax planning, you risk facing tax surprises that can debilitate your resources. We use specialized software to evaluate your present and future income and earnings. We identify potential savings or restructuring opportunities and give you proactive ideas to save money in the future. It is not just about how much you have earned; it is also about how much of those resources you get to keep after taxes.
In scripture, taxes are commanded to be paid. They should never be a source of cash-flow problems as they can always be adequately planned for. Tax planning should not be the ultimate driving force in financial decisions. In many ways, income taxes are an indicator of God's blessings.
Risk Management: If we believe God owns it all and we are the stewards, then we must protect what has been entrusted to us. Just as a wise shepherd protects his flock, a financially faithful person builds a moat of protection around his family and home. We do an in-depth analysis of your risk management plan so that you can protect the resources that have been entrusted to you by God.
We advise on the complexities of Medicare – it’s not automatic, it’s not free, and it does not cover everything. We help steer you toward optimal choices for cost-effective health care. Whether you are considering life insurance, disability insurance, or other coverage, we can be your guide in working with your insurance professional, even recommending insurance in your estate and legacy planning.
A sound risk management plan prepares you for the unexpected. Let us help you to prepare for the unexpected.
Legacy & Estate Planning
You’ve made it a priority to provide for your family now and want to ensure they will be cared for when you have gone to your eternal home. At Financial Cornerstones, we work with your estate attorney as you develop your will, and help you structure your estate to provide for them after God has called you home. Financial Cornerstone’s guidance can help you plan for their future while passing on the resources and values that are so dear to you.
We believe that there are three forms of capital that pass from generation to generation – financial, social, and spiritual. Wealth transfer begins during one’s lifetime and considers the impact on the beneficiary as its primary objective. A beneficiary should never be surprised by the decisions of the steward. It is the last stewardship decision that God allows the steward to make.
At Financial Cornerstones, we provide advice on how best to prepare your legacy to develop careful estate planning that is aligned with your values. Estate planning involves setting up a plan that establishes who will eventually receive your assets after you go to heaven. Wealth transfer is different from estate planning in that it begins during your lifetime and considers the impact on the beneficiary as its primary objective. If desired, a Christian Will Preamble can be built into your will, to ensure that the values God has inspired you to support will be passed to future generations. We can also incorporate your values into medical directives that support a pro-life philosophy.
Planned Giving
We believe giving is one of the keys to experiencing true financial contentment and peace. Financial Cornerstones helps you explore charitable giving strategies that are powerful tools to invest in the people and places that build the Kingdom.
We guide you in exploring the best way for you and your family to invest in charities you love and achieve your giving goals. There are many options available to anyone charitably motivated that can impact generations to come through your God-given resources.
Giving is commanded in the scriptures both for the benefit of the recipient and for the benefit of the giver. Charitable giving should be an integral part of any maturing Christian's life. The amount should be prayerfully determined, in proportionate to one’s income, and should be done regularly and cheerfully.
Whether you are giving now or upon your death, Financial Cornerstones can help you explore strategic ways to give to your favorite charities.
Begin the Process
Financial peace starts with a conversation. Reach out to learn more about how our services work and how we can help you experience the financial security you’re looking for.