Investors traded spreadsheets for shovels and prayer walks on June 20, joining Steven Libman – co-founder of Integrity Holdings Group (IHG) and founder of Investing With Purpose – for a Serve Day at Rise Avalon, an IHG-owned community in Charlotte, NC. The quarterly event brought together investors, operating partners, and leadership for a full day of on-site resident engagement, including prayer walks, a community barbecue, bounce houses, and family programming. Rise 48 Equity, a co-investor on the property, joined the event alongside the team.
The Serve Day model is a recurring initiative that Libman helped to develop across IHG’s portfolio and is now carrying forward into Investing With Purpose as the firm builds out its own residential communities. Each event is designed to give back to the people at the heart of the investment – the residents themselves.
Families come together for a full community Family Fun Day featuring bounce houses, obstacle courses, pool games, BBQ, raffles, photo booths, and live entertainment. Local small businesses, food trucks, fire departments, and community vendors are brought in alongside the investor team, creating a day that offers something for everyone — from a free meal and a few hours of entertainment for the kids, to a heartfelt conversation or a moment of prayer for those who need it. For the investors who show up, it is the most tangible expression of what the firm means when it says capital meets calling.
“We always talk about temporal returns and eternal returns,” said Libman. “Every resident who pays rent here is contributing to investor returns. But can we also show them the eternal return – the people, the names, the faces on site. That is what today is about.”
Nick Stromwall of Rise 48 Equity echoed the sentiment. “The community managers who manage these properties know the people,” said Stromwall. “When you genuinely care about people and serve them, the returns come back and help the investors as well.”
For investors attending their first Serve Day, the experience of meeting residents in person shifted how they understood the investment. “To put faces to all of it, to come and pray with the community – that is the biggest thing,” said Matt Emerson, an investor who attended the Charlotte event. “It does actually make a difference where you live and how you get cared for.”
The Purposed Care Initiative model that Libman has built is central to the investment thesis he is advancing through Investing With Purpose – that profit and purpose are causally connected. We invest in real estate. We care for communities. We grow returns – Purposed.
