Serving the Church—One Investor at a Time
Two of CDF Capital’s longtime employees may be familiar voices to many of you CDF investors. We asked them to share some thoughts about their joy in working with you and how CDF has grown over the years.
Nedra: My name is Nedra Macshane, and I have been at CDF for 29 years. I work with investors. I’m an investment coordinator, so I open new investments, help them with distributions, whatever their needs are when they call me or mail in or fax in.
Chris: My name is Chris Mathis, and I have been here 16 years. So I’m a newbie compared to Nedra, but I’ve been working in the investment department as well all those years. I primarily focus now within presidential investors but work with all of our investors.
What big changes have you seen at CDF over the years?
Nedra: Well, we just were in the western states so then we branched out. So really, that we’re across the country. Our investors, their hearts are still the same, but the technology has changed. We used to do everything by mail when I was first here. Now I have 90-year-olds that are emailing me their paperwork. It’s neat to see. I remember when we got our first fax machine and we all stood there in amazement on how this could possibly work. And it’s just grown from there.
Chris: The ’90s were definitely the technology change time.
Nedra: It was. It was.
Chris: And for me, marketing has increased and gotten better. And the increase in our investor base, having a lot more people we deal with on a daily basis. I’ve seen CDF grow that way. How we’re developing leaders in our company and seeing new people take on new roles is exciting to me.
Nedra: For sure.
And how has CDF stayed the same?
Chris: Having the same mission.
Nedra: Exactly. That’s what I was going to say. We have branched out to Leadership Capital and Spiritual as well, and that’s neat to see. But our mission has not changed. That never grows old.
Chris: It’s remained steadfast and has been very faithful to our investors and our churches and our loans. We’ve done what we’ve needed to do in the good economy and in the bad economy.
What is your favorite part about your job?
Chris: Working with the investors and seeing what all walks of life that they come from. So I get to visit with people who are pastors, of course, in ministry, people that are outside of ministry, church members, architects. I enjoy hearing their stories. We’re just working with them and sharing the mission here at CDF with their investments, knowing that their investments are helping our loans, servicing the investor growth of our loans. It helps for our loans, new loans to grow those. And that’s our mission.
Nedra: Investors. I’m definitely a people person. And seeing their excitement that their money is coming in and they get to see what it does and seeing that the churches that we put out there for them to see what they’ve helped. So it’s solving problems for investors, just helping them out if there’s something going on. So really, just working with them and seeing that their heart is in the mission.
Chris: Yeah. We value our investors. I think both of us do. And the people we work with, they know what their money is being used for. So that and therein lies the mission of helping the churches with loans.
Can you think of your favorite investor story?
Nedra: There’s quite a few. I think one of my favorites is four generations of investors. So the 90-year-old and the grandson are actually named after each other. They all have investments with us. So that spans...
Chris: Generations.
Nedra: That is just amazing to me, what a commitment that family’s had.
Chris: And working with a 100-year-old lady opening a new investment. That was for five years.
Nedra: I know.
Chris: That’s positive.
Nedra: It’s just amazing how committed some people are to CDF. Then when the primary owner has died and the children say, “I know how important this was to my mother for CDF, so we want to leave the funds here.” That means a lot to us—they got our mission.
Chris: A widow called. She had an investment at CDF for years, and she apologized for having to take a redemption for a medical expense she had. But she hated to take away from helping the Lord’s work. You don’t get that very often—it is her money, but she apologized for needing to take it.
Nedra: That’s commitment. Absolutely.
What type of investors energize you the most?
Chris: The ones that are mission-minded, the ones that want to help CDF with the loan funding. Then we have some people that are excited about sharing legacy investments with their family and their children and their grandchildren. They want to be examples to them on the investment side—how to save and where to save it. You know, like what a great place CDF is to do that. So they’re trying to pass that on as a legacy. That’s exciting.
Nedra: Plus some also go beyond and give to Kairos Benevolence Fund. Seeing them want to help the pastors shows their heart, and that is so good. I love the investors that have been here for years and then the new ones that are really excited about CDF. They’ve never heard of it before. Our investors are all unique to us. Absolutely.
Now please tell us your favorite part about working with the other one because you’ve worked together for 16 years.
Nedra: Chris is so consistent, and we do share that mindset of the love of CDF and the mission and our investors and the Lord. She’s just a friend too. We work great together. Overall we’re a team like the rest of our department. You can see the Holy Spirit in her.
Chris: And with Nedra, the same. She’s such a positive and happy person, and we get along. We both, like you say, have those same values of mission and customer service and providing the best we can. So we share that together, but she’s just a great person to work with.
Chris, tell us something about Nedra that our investors wouldn’t know about her otherwise.
Chris: Well, she is a mother of three handsome boys, and she was a psych major in college—we don’t hold that against her, but she does like to analyze occasionally. So we let her do that and we learn from it. But she’s just a fun and happy person to work with. She’s always bringing food to share and flowers for special occasions. So she’s always bringing light and love in with her when she comes into work every day.
Nedra, tell us something about Chris that our investors do not know.
Nedra: She is enjoying being a new grandmother.
Chris: Yes. This past year, first time grandma. I’m very excited about it.
Nedra: A little baby granddaughter.
Chris: I try to keep it contained though.
Nedra: She’s fitting into that role nicely. She’s just there for her family totally. The CDF family grows!
So did you grow up in the church? How did you come to faith?
Chris: I grew up on the church, kind of hit and miss, but then was baptized when I was 16 when I was very active at a youth group in Rosemead, California—and actually met my future husband there. Rick has been a pastor for years, so I’ve been a pastor’s wife, worked in Sunday school teaching children at the church, with adult singles and recovery groups, and in the office at church with my husband. We’ve served in ministry in Texas and in California. working with adult singles and recovery groups. I’ve enjoyed that through the years.
Nedra: I grew up in a Christian church. I was baptized when I was 12. Still have that little baptism card, so once in a while I see that. I was very active in youth group growing up and then attended Azusa Pacific Christian University. I served when my kids were younger in Pioneer Club with my husband. I don’t currently have any church ministries I’m involved in, but the Lord’s tugging at my heart for maybe for a couple that I’m thinking about.
How have you seen growth in your faith as a result of working at CDF?
Chris: I guess, for me, just listening. I know for Nedra probably too, because I hear her the same. Just being able to talk with investors on the phone and hearing their faith stories and their stories of having illness and great sorrow or great joys. We experience it together, sometimes pray together. And their stories help me to grow and walk my faith journey. So that’s been wonderful through the years.
Nedra: I think it feels like a family, especially if you’ve worked with some of these people for years. They say, "How are your children?" And I’ll say, "How’s your health?" We all are in God’s family. We do have that bond of the mission of CDF, but also our love for God. Where do you get to go to work and do that every day? It’s amazing.
Through all the change you’ve seen over the years and some of the things that have remained the same, why do you believe in CDF?
Nedra: Because I’ve seen it work. I’ve seen churches that weren’t there or were small and they’ve grown, and now people are getting baptized. I’ve seen churches that needed a new building or needed to expand and CDF brought them the funding. It’s our investors and the loans that do that.
Chris: We hear those stories time and time again.
Nedra: Absolutely. Just knowing that if we didn’t have the investors to make the loans, these churches wouldn’t be where they are. So it’s neat knowing God has used us. Even for us, we’re on the phone, we’re working, we don’t actually build a building or do the baptism—but we do feel a part of the whole process, and that’s honoring.
Chris: We always feel it’s a mission, and that’s what we’re here to do—to serve. We’re committed to doing that here at CDF. One of the things that I am excited about is the Kairos Benevolence Fund. We’ve helped many pastors in need and people that serve in ministry with medical expenses and dire needs. And our investors are responding to that. I’m glad that we are here to help fill that need.
