Whether he’s hunting gator or fishing for redeye bass, Chuck Welden loves the thrill of the catch. So, when he realized his international mission trips weren’t the best way for him to be a fisher of men, he decided to cast his line in a different pond.
Chuck, a principal at WeldenField Development in Birmingham, Alabama, is as comfortable in a jon boat as he is in the boardroom. Since 1977, his company of 900 employees has developed more than 12,000 apartment homes and manages 20,000 others in 15 states. But success in his family real estate business hasn’t been enough for Chuck. Since he gave his life to Jesus as a college student at the University of Alabama, he’s been on a journey of generosity that has led him to discover his sweet spot between business and mission – redemptive real estate.
Establishing a local giving community
One of the first pivotal moments in his journey happened almost 20 years ago, after his company completed a significant transaction. “The check I was going to get from the sale would require a large tithe, and I didn’t want to give it to only one organization,” Chuck says.
That’s when a friend suggested Chuck get in touch with the National Christian Foundation (NCF). Chuck opened a Giving Fund at NCF, which gave him the ability to recommend multiple grants over time to a variety of charities.
Then Chuck had a thought. “If I have this problem, other people have this problem, too,” he says. “Surely NCF will make our giving more efficient and almost like training together in sports. If you’re doing it together with someone else, you’re probably going to work harder at it and go further.”
So, he and a few other local givers provided support, recruited an executive director, and founded NCF Alabama.
Bam! An epiphany in missions
At home, Chuck and his wife, Lauren, were being very intentional with teaching their four children about generosity. They took each of them on multiple mission trips to serve abroad in countries all over the world. As rewarding as these trips were, Chuck still felt something was missing.
“After being on over 20 mission trips with my family, I kept wondering, ‘How much impact am I having?’”
“I’m not that good of a concrete worker. I’m not that good of a teacher. I’m not that good at handing out medication. I knew it was good for me not to be in charge, and for my children to see me in a place of submission,” he says. “But the long and short of it was I was not using my talents.”
Eager for an answer, Chuck hired an intern to research his burning question, “How can I use my business skills to advance the kingdom in a more efficient way?” The intern found an article in The New York Times about Business as Mission (BAM), and soon Chuck was very involved in the BAM movement.
“This is what I was looking for, this intersection of my faith, my knowledge, my work, my skill set,” Chuck says. “Since then, we’ve funded 40 social and spiritual impact companies on five continents. All the way from movies like Woodlawn and I Can Only Imagine, shoe manufacturing in Peru, micro-insurance in Kenya, a Christian bookstore in Thailand, a dairy farm and an apple orchard in Moldova, and homebuilding in Romania. The list goes on and on.”
Multi-family: The ministry right under his nose
After launching 40 BAM projects worldwide and serving on a number of boards, a friend asked him a pointed question: Why wasn’t Chuck structuring his own business as a mission?
“I was like, ‘Well, that’s a pretty darn good question,’” Chuck says. “It was convicting, actually.”
That realization led to the formation of the WeldenField BAM Real Estate Fund, an impact investment venture committed to delivering market-rate returns while also having significant social and spiritual impact. Given their industry experience, Chuck and his team determined multi-family properties as the area with the most missional potential.
“About 95 percent of the people living in apartments are unchurched, or dechurched, roughly 45 million people,” Chuck says. “That’s a mission field the size of Canada who live in apartments and don’t go to church in America.”
The redemptive real estate journey begins
WeldenField purchased five properties in three states, totaling 600 units for this new venture. They hired a dedicated team to craft and implement both financial and spiritual plans. They implemented a resident-life-experience program, so team members could build relationships with residents and do daily life together with them.
The team organizes visits, activities, community events, and times to engage with residents on a more personal level, which ultimately provides organic opportunities for conversations about faith. Their approach is methodical. They measure everything, learn from other groups, and constantly refine their strategy.
“Our goal is for every person in the property to have a chance to hear the gospel every quarter,” Chuck says. “We’ve had 60 or more people either come to a knowledge of Christ or recommit their lives.”
Investing beyond the bottom line
The WeldenField BAM Real Estate Fund works because investors are willing to prioritize kingdom returns over strictly financial returns.
“We tell our investors their returns may be one to two percent less than our typical apartment deals,” Chuck says. “The reason is we charge the property between one and two percent of the equity per year to help pay the overhead for the resident life experience.” But Chuck is learning that the cost may not be a cost at all and actually may be accretive because they are seeing less turnover, better internet reviews, higher occupancy, and other benefits.
Chuck also hopes that Christians will be part of the solution to the housing affordability crisis. “We get calls from investors wanting to help with housing afforability, and we tell them we can do it if they are willing to take a 10 to 12 percent return instead of requiring the 15 to 18 percent return that we shoot for in our regular value add deals,” Chuck says.
Ultimately, he thinks it may take a measure of sacrifice. “It may take an eight to 10 percent return to be part of the solution of the affordability issue that our country is facing right now,” he says. “So that’s one of our goals, to educate investors on these other needs, and hopefully, some of them will migrate some of their capital into that space as well.”
What redemption looks like
At one of WeldenField’s apartment complexes, the staff met a couple who were living together. They made it clear they didn’t want to hear anything about religion, but they were interested in community events. The apartment staff introduced themselves and invited them to community events.
“They started coming to parties,” Chuck says. “Three months later, they start attending a Bible study. Three months later, they realized they were not followers of Christ and accepted Christ. Then, three months later, they realized living together was not consistent with what the Bible said, so they decided to get married.”
Eventually, the couple asked the WeldenField team to host their bachelor and bachelorette parties and be witnesses at the courthouse for their marriage. Now the wife drives for Uber, so she can share her faith more often.
“But it all started off with, ‘Don’t talk to me about religion,’” Chuck says.
Spreading the movement
Recently, Chuck and his team hosted a two-day, redemptive-real-estate immersion in Birmingham, where they shared their ideas and thoughts with 11 people from other real estate firms around the country.
“We’re willing to share everything we have with other multi-family developers to try to spread this idea,” Chuck says.
“Ultimately, the question is, ‘Did you try to integrate your faith in your business in a way that somebody has a chance to hear something about Jesus they wouldn’t hear otherwise?’” he says. “That’s how we look at things. And that’s how we hope other real estate professionals will start to see it, too.”
Contact your NCF team to find out more or share your ideas about redemptive real estate opportunities in your area.
