That’s why Brighter Investing is a Public Benefit Registered Investment Adviser specializing in sustainable & impact investing.
We work with individual investors, families, and organizations to build long-term investment portfolios (and provide full-service financial advice) that align your investments and values.
We believe sustainable investing is an incredibly important and relatively easy way for every American to divert precious resources toward SOLUTIONS to local, national and global problems that philanthropy and governments are challenged to solve alone.
You do not have to be a world leader – or even a billionaire – to make an impact. If we are going to turn things around, we all need to do our part to make it happen.
CHANGE STARTS WITH YOU.
Ted Turner
PEOPLE, PLANET AND PROFIT
We believe in the power of social enterprise.
That’s why we’ve made a legal commitment to the triple bottom line – people, planet and profit – as a Public Benefit LLC. Unlike the majority of U.S. companies whose fiduciary duty starts and ends with shareholder profit, we’ve committed to operate our company in a sustainable & responsible manner. We also have to define the specific public benefit we’re in business to deliver and report on our progress.
Brighter’s “Statement of Public Benefit”
To deliver services that encourage Americans to invest in sustainable, responsible, and impact investments that divert resources toward the environmental, social, humanitarian, and other issues that affect their world today and in the future.
Furthermore, we seek to provide educational tools that can empower consumers to
- improve their own financial literacy and
- become stronger advocates for issues that matter to them.
Additional pledges and principles
LEADERSHIP
Gary Whitehurst, CSRIC™
CEO & Co-Founder
With more than two decades in the Atlanta wealth management business, Gary has devoted his career to building exceptional client experiences. He held nearly every role from financial advisor to operations to head of advisory services and corporate leadership for a local firm that grew to $1.4 billion in assets under management during his tenure. He’s also seen firsthand how society and client demand for sustainability, transparency & shareholder action has disrupted the status quo for the better.
University of Georgia
Bachelor of Business Administration
Chartered SRI Counselor
Clients deserve more choice and transparency when they invest for the future. One major problem: advisers often use a standard process with clients to ensure consistency, but often at the cost of personalization, especially when recommending investments. “Here’s your portfolio!” they may say after doing a simple risk tolerance questionnaire and cash flow projection.
At Brighter, we believe that’s an overly simplified, incomplete approach. Yes, clients want their investments to generate financial return. They often ALSO want their investments to reflect their values about the environment, human rights, corporate governance, gender diversity and more.
Unfortunately, too many financial advisors hold outdated perceptions about sustainable investing, so they brush it off as a fad or cite inaccurate data about lower returns. That’s a lose-lose response for clients, advisors, and society.
The data is clear: This isn’t an either/or conversation. It’s not a fad, and it’s doesn’t mean you have to invest in “green” companies and sacrifice returns. It’s an AND. You can generate competitive returns AND invest for sustainability and impact. When people realize they can have both, they often feel a strong, even urgent desire to get started quickly. It just makes sense for us as individuals and a society.
That’s why we had to launch a firm like Brighter.
Nancy Sagar
President & Co-Founder
A seasoned social entrepreneur and growth-stage executive, Nancy Sagar has won national and international recognition for her work on behalf of for-profit social ventures, nonprofits, government agencies and charitable causes. Since 2013, she and Gary have worked together in the wealth management industry and launched Brighter as a Public Benefit LLC to offer sustainable investing combined with financial literacy and cause education to help clients become better investors & advocates for the issues that matter today and decades away.
The University of Michigan – Ann Arbor
BA with Distinction, Economics & Communication
UCLA Anderson School of Management
MBA with Honors, Entrepreneurship & Marketing
Climate Reality Leadership Corps
Climate Activist & Speaker
MBA Oath > Responsible Value Creation
Career pledge outlining inductees’ commitment to practicing business with the highest ethical standards, protecting human rights and dignity, opposing discrimination and exploitation, and protecting the right of future generations to advance their standard of living and enjoy a healthy planet.
I truly believe every American family, business and organization needs to embrace sustainable investing now. Not next year or next month, but TODAY.
I personally don’t want my investments supporting companies that create, contribute to or flat-out ignore the world’s problems. I want to invest in solutions that will propel our local and global societies forward, that truly improve lives (including financially)!
I’m thrilled that so many Americans feel the same way AND that sustainable investing is no longer a strategy only the wealthy can utilize. Each of us can make a difference with our investments, and I literally can’t wait to quantify & qualify the difference we make in the work we do with our clients and communities.
PARTNERS AND PLATFORMS
We’ve partnered with Schwab for their award-winning custodial and back-end support for Registered Investment Advisory firms like ours. We chose Schwab for their commitment to client service, their cutting-edge technology, and their industry leadership.
eMoney is an award-winning place to work, and their financial planning tools are topnotch. That’s why we selected their technology to power the financial plans, reports and documents we create with our clients. And you can view it all by logging into your portal from any device.
One way we fulfill our mission is to do business with companies that create important products, share our values and make a positive difference in the community – like Riskalyze, whose Southeast HQ is 3 MARTA stops from ours. We use their behavioral tools to establish quantitative data about each client’s risk tolerance (“conservative” or “moderate” just don’t cut it). It’s one of the first things we’ll do with you when you’re considering becoming a client.
Black Diamond is a reporting engine with serious horsepower. We’ve integrated it with eMoney and Riskalyze to deliver seamless reporting for clients and 24/7 access to your investment balances, allocations and rates of return through your own client portal.
Ultimately, our vision is BIG
Today, we’re an advisory firm specializing in sustainable & impact investing. That’s the first component of a much bigger vision that incorporates
- Financial literacy for all ages
- Issue-related experiences and education
- Impact ratings that enable each of us to become stronger investors and advocates for our collective futures.
We think this work is incredibly important and we’re thrilled to work with wonderful clients and organizations who feel the same way.
Don’t wait – say hello now!
We’re on a mission & love answering questions large and small. Are you curious to learn more? Please don’t be shy – send us an email, call us or let’s set up a meeting if you’d like to talk face-to-face. (A great way to learn, we believe, and much more fun!)
We just ask you to start thinking about this NOW, not next month, next quarter or some other nebulous date. You’re investing for the future, and that future arrives quickly. It’s time to make sure we’re all investing in the future we truly want.
P.S. Don’t worry, we won’t try to hard sell you on working with us (although we think you may want to)! We just believe every American should have the opportunity to invest this way, and every conversation counts. So ask away. We’re here to help.