Steve-French-President-CEO-Signatry-Financial-Finish-Line
Finish Line Podcast Episode 21

Steve French, CEO of the Signatry, on Strategically Maximizing Our Financial Impact

You may sincerely want to use your resources for God’s purposes while still making major financial decisions as though you are the ultimate owner.

How can you shift from simply giving away some of what you have to stewarding your business, investments, property, and other assets as resources God has entrusted to you?


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Meet your guide

Steve French, president and CEO of The Signatry, brings decades of experience as an entrepreneur, investor, and business owner to the work of helping generous families steward significant resources for kingdom impact. After early success in finance and business, Steve experienced a major entrepreneurial failure that nearly erased his liquid net worth and taught him a lasting lesson about the difference between ownership and stewardship.

Steve shares how that experience eventually led him to The Signatry, a Christian donor advised fund organization that helps families connect their resources with ministries addressing needs such as clean water, human trafficking, Bible translation, and gospel advancement. He explains why giving appreciated assets such as stock, business interests, real estate, art, and other property can sometimes create far greater charitable impact than simply giving cash.

Throughout the conversation, Steve returns to the idea that God owns not only your money, but also your abilities, opportunities, assets, and time. You may come away thinking more creatively about what God has entrusted to you and how thoughtful stewardship can multiply its kingdom impact.

What you’ll gain

  • Why stewardship begins by recognizing God as the owner
  • How financial failure can reshape your understanding of generosity
  • Why appreciated assets can multiply the impact of giving
  • How donor advised funds can support more strategic generosity
  • What creative stewardship looks like beyond simply giving cash
  • Why family purpose matters in multigenerational generosity

Inspired? Take your next step

Try the Game of Life Simulator

Step into a four-minute interactive experience and see what unfolds as you decide how to manage your resources.

Start the Game
Game of Life Simulator Mobile Screenshot
Game of Life Simulator Mobile Screenshot

Inspired? Learn how to partner with ministries well.

A compelling ministry story can inspire you to respond. But wise partnership often begins with better questions.

Applied Generosity Intervention Partnership Focus

What is the ministry really seeking to restore?

Learn to look beyond visible needs toward people, context, relationships, and flourishing.

Applied Generosity Intervention Partnership Fruitfulness

How do you recognize meaningful impact?

Consider how ministries learn, evaluate their work, and pursue lasting change.

Applied Generosity Intervention Partnership Faithfulness

What does genuine ministry partnership look like?

Explore how to foster trust, alignment, and shared mission in your giving.

In our Intervention Series on the Applied Generosity Podcast, we’ll help you become a more thoughtful, discerning, and faithful partner.

Start the Series

Quotes to Remember

  • “I didn’t have a clue where God was leading me, I just knew I was supposed to leave.”
  • “This is the most important thing to ever happen to me in my life other than my adoption, coming to know Christ, and getting married to my wife Debbie.”
  • “Because God was telling me, ‘I wanted you to learn for the rest of your life that you are a steward and I am the owner. But you thought you were the steward AND the owner.'”
  • “God intends, and always has intended, to work through the family.”
  • “God has a vision and a mission for every family, and it’s not a one generational purpose.”
  • “God is the owner of everything. Not just our material resources, but our gifts, our talents, our time.”
  • “Our life is determined, it’s written in the Lamb’s book of life. It has a start, and it has a finish. So how do we steward that time that’s between those 2 points?”
  • “That failing to me is more important that my successes. And God get’s glorified every time I tell that story.”
  • “God is the best investor that there’ll ever be or ever has been. His returns on investment are 2x or 3x. His returns are 100x or 1000x.”
  • “By unlocking those assets, they can often give 10 times as much as they would have given had they given cash.”

Links from the Show

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Have you considered the ways you are uniquely called into generosity? We’re not all called into the same adventure.

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Use Our
Free Guide

Have you considered the ways you are uniquely called into generosity? We’re not all called into the same adventure.
Generosity Profile Image
Enter your information below and we’ll send you our free PDF guide to explore the specific adventure you were called into.
Generosity Profile Image

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