Most BRI coverage focuses on the exclusion side of the screens: who does not make the cut. But the better BRI funds also apply positive screens. They do not just ask "is this company funding abortion?" They also ask "is this company supporting life-affirming alternatives?" Pregnancy resource centers, adoption agencies, foster care organizations, and pro-life nonprofits are all part of the positive scoring framework.

Here is how the pro-life positive filter actually works and which companies get credit.

The basic idea

Positive screening adds points to a company's score when it does things the fund wants to reward. Negative screening subtracts points (or excludes entirely) for things the fund wants to avoid. Most sophisticated BRI methodologies use both.

On the abortion topic specifically, the positive side of the screen tracks things like:

Corporate giving to pregnancy resource centers. Organizations like Care Net, Heartbeat International, National Institute of Family and Life Advocates, and the Option Line hotline.

Adoption agency support. Bethany Christian Services, Nightlight Christian Adoptions, and similar organizations.

Foster care support. Especially programs that help place children in stable families.

Maternal health support that is explicitly non-abortive. Some maternal health programs support pregnant women in crisis with resources to carry pregnancies to term.

Employee benefits that are pro-family. Parental leave, adoption assistance, flexible scheduling for parents, and health coverage for children and dependents.

A company can get scored positively for any combination of these factors.

The problem with public data

Here is the challenge. Corporate giving to specific nonprofits is not always publicly disclosed. Some companies publish detailed CSR reports listing every recipient. Most do not. The 990 forms that nonprofits file include lists of major donors, and third-party databases aggregate this information, but it is incomplete.

So BRI funds doing positive screening have to rely on a mix of corporate CSR reports, nonprofit 990 disclosures, and direct outreach. The resulting scores are as good as the underlying data, which varies a lot by company.

Some companies are excellent at disclosing. Hobby Lobby Stores is private, so it does not trade, but its owners (the Green family) are famously public about their pro-life giving and their benefits philosophy. Chick-fil-A is also private but has similar visible positions. These are brands Christians can support with their wallets, but not with their investment dollars.

Among public companies, the picture is spottier. Some mid-cap companies in the Midwest and South have pro-life giving patterns that show up in 990 data. Big tech and the mega-cap names are usually not in the positive column on this criterion.

Companies that have scored well on the pro-life filter

In the 2020 to 2025 period, a few public companies have appeared repeatedly in Inspire's positive scoring and similar BRI ratings for pro-life supportive corporate behavior.

Tyson Foods (TSN). The Tyson family has historical ties to Christian philanthropy, and corporate giving has included organizations that BRI funds recognize. Tyson is a large-cap consumer staple with food industry issues that BRI funds also weigh, but on the narrow pro-life criterion, the company has scored well.

Cracker Barrel (CBRL). The restaurant chain has historically had a conservative customer base and corporate giving patterns that BRI funds favor. Cracker Barrel has had some cultural controversies that offset the positive scoring in recent years, but the pro-life component has remained consistent.

Chick-fil-A. Private, so not in a portfolio, but their foundation's giving patterns are visible and have been cited as a model.

Interstate Bakeries (pre-bankruptcy, later absorbed). A historical example from earlier BRI analysis.

Several mid-cap insurance and financial services companies with management teams that have published pro-life positions. These change over time.

The list is not long because most mega-cap public companies either do not give to pregnancy resource centers or do not disclose their giving at that level of detail.

The adoption and foster care angle

Adoption is an area BRI funds often treat as directly pro-life positive. Companies that offer adoption assistance benefits to employees get credit. Companies whose foundations support adoption agencies get credit. Some companies sponsor foster care programs or back-to-school drives for foster children.

IKEA (private) has been cited as a positive example. Bank of America (BAC) has had adoption benefits for employees, though BAC also gets flagged by BRI funds for other issues that offset the positive. Google (GOOG/GOOGL) offers adoption assistance as part of parental benefits. Microsoft (MSFT) does too.

The interesting thing is that adoption benefits have become common enough at large employers that they are no longer a meaningful differentiator. BRI funds give small amounts of positive credit for these benefits, but they do not move the score dramatically.

The maternal health question

Supporting pregnant women in crisis is a category that can be scored positively, but it depends on what kind of support. Programs that provide resources to help women carry pregnancies to term are clearly pro-life. Programs that provide "reproductive healthcare" without distinguishing between abortion and non-abortion services are ambiguous.

Walmart, for example, has supported maternal health programs through its foundation, but some of those programs include "full reproductive care" in their mission statements, which BRI funds read as including abortion services. So the Walmart giving does not score as clearly positive on the pro-life filter even though some of the work is genuinely helping women in crisis.

This ambiguity is where the subjectivity in positive screening shows up. Two analysts can look at the same corporate giving report and reach different conclusions about whether to count a program as pro-life positive.

Inspire's methodology specifically

Inspire publishes Impact Scores that explicitly include positive pro-life factors. The methodology assigns points for:

Direct giving to pro-life organizations.

Employee adoption benefits.

Paid parental leave policies.

Pregnancy accommodation beyond legal requirements.

Public statements and advocacy in favor of life-affirming positions.

Companies that rack up enough positive points can score well on the overall Impact Score even if they have some concerning factors on the negative side. Companies with heavy negative factors and no positive offset end up deeply negative.

This scoring system is imperfect but it is at least transparent. You can look at any major company's Impact Score on Inspire Insight and see which factors drove the result.

The biblical framing

Psalm 127:3, "Behold, children are a heritage from the Lord, the fruit of the womb a reward." The Bible treats children and the building of families as fundamental goods, not as lifestyle choices to be optimized or avoided.

James 1:27, "Religion that is pure and undefiled before God the Father is this: to visit orphans and widows in their affliction." This is the most direct biblical mandate for adoption and foster care support. A company helping orphans is doing explicitly the thing James says pure religion does.

Proverbs 31:20, "She opens her hand to the poor and reaches out her hands to the needy." Applied to corporate philanthropy, this supports the idea that companies serving vulnerable populations (including women in crisis pregnancies) are doing stewardship work.

Matthew 25:40, "as you did it to one of the least of these my brothers, you did it to me." The "least of these" includes children, the unborn, and those without protection.

The biblical case for positive scoring is arguably stronger than the case for negative exclusions, because Scripture is full of mandates to do good, not just to avoid evil. Most BRI funds have traditionally been more focused on exclusions than on positive scoring, but the movement has been shifting toward a more balanced approach.

The honest limitations

Positive screening is genuinely harder to do than negative screening. The data is worse. The judgment calls are more subjective. The incremental benefit of each positive factor is small. And companies can engage in what critics call "pro-life washing," where they make public statements or donate small amounts while running businesses with more concerning practices.

BRI funds that use positive screening try to guard against pro-life washing by requiring meaningful commitments rather than token gestures. A 10,000 dollar donation from a 50 billion dollar company does not score much. A sustained benefits program covering thousands of employees scores more.

But the subjectivity is real, and honest BRI fund managers will tell you that positive scoring is more art than science.

What you can do as an individual investor

If you care about supporting pro-life companies specifically, here are practical approaches.

Buy BRI funds that use explicit positive scoring, not just negative screening. Inspire's products do this. Some Eventide evaluations consider positive factors. Timothy Plan has pro-life ratings they publish.

Look at individual company giving when you can find data. The Chronicle of Philanthropy and Inside Philanthropy cover corporate CSR. The 990 filings of organizations you care about will show which companies donate.

Support private pro-life organizations directly through your charitable giving, separate from your investment decisions. Some of the most meaningful pro-life work happens at organizations that have no corporate donor relationships at all. Your giving can support those directly.

Consider shareholder engagement. If you own a company, you can vote on corporate giving proposals, attend annual meetings, and ask questions about giving patterns. This is an advanced move but it is legitimate.

The takeaway

The pro-life filter in BRI is the positive counterpart to the abortion exclusion screen. It is less developed than the exclusion side, the data is messier, and the scoring is more subjective. But it reflects a real principle: Christian investing is not just about avoiding harm, it is also about directing capital toward good work.

A portfolio that excludes all the abortion-exposed names but never rewards any of the pro-life positive names is only doing half the job. The best BRI funds try to do both. And a Christian investor can support that approach by choosing funds with positive methodology and by paying attention to which companies are actually building up the families and communities they say they care about.

Galatians 6:10 says, "So then, as we have opportunity, let us do good to everyone, and especially to those who are of the household of faith." Positive screening is one way of asking "as we have opportunity" when the opportunity is the placement of capital. Imperfect tool, real principle, worth using.

The Pro-Life Stock Filter: How Pregnancy Center Allies Get Scored