(INSPIRE LOGO)

 

Inspire Global Hope ETF

(formerly “Inspire Global Hope ESG ETF”)

BLES

 

 

Inspire Small/Mid Cap ETF

(formerly “Inspire Small/Mid Cap ESG ETF”)

ISMD

 

 

Inspire Corporate Bond ETF

(formerly “Inspire Corporate Bond ESG ETF”)

IBD

 

 

Inspire 100 ETF

(formerly, “Inspire 100 ESG ETF”)

BIBL

 

 

Inspire International ETF

(formerly, “Inspire International ESG ETF”)
WWJD

 

 

each a series of Northern Lights Fund Trust IV

 

PROSPECTUS

 

October 14 , 2022

 

  Advised by:
Inspire Investing, LLC
3597 E Monarch Sky Lane, Suite 330,
  Meridian, Idaho 83646

 

inspireetf.com phone: 877.658.9473 (toll free)

 

This Prospectus provides important information about the Funds that you should know before investing. Please read it carefully and keep it for future reference.

 

These securities have not been approved or disapproved by the Securities and Exchange Commission nor has the Securities and Exchange Commission passed upon the accuracy or adequacy of this Prospectus. Any representation to the contrary is a criminal offense.

 

Shares of the Funds are listed and traded on the NYSE Arca.

 

 

 

TABLE OF CONTENTS

 

FUND SUMMARY - Inspire Global Hope ETF 1
   
FUND SUMMARY - Inspire Small/Mid Cap ETF 9
   
FUND SUMMARY - Inspire Corporate Bond ETF 18
   
FUND SUMMARY - Inspire 100 ETF 27
   
FUND SUMMARY - Inspire International ETF 36
   
ADDITIONAL INFORMATION ABOUT PRINCIPAL INVESTMENT STRATEGIES AND RELATED RISKS 45
Investment Objective 45
Principal Investment Strategies 45
Principal Investment Risks 52
Securities Lending 54
Portfolio Holdings Disclosure 55
Operational and Cybersecurity Risk 55
   
MANAGEMENT 55
Investment Adviser and Index Providers 55
Portfolio Managers 56
   
HOW SHARES ARE PRICED 56
   
HOW TO BUY AND SELL SHARES 57
Premium/Discount Information 57
Book Entry 57
   
FREQUENT PURCHASES AND REDEMPTIONS OF FUND SHARES 58
   
DISTRIBUTION AND SERVICE PLAN 58
   
DIVIDENDS, OTHER DISTRIBUTIONS AND TAXES 58
Taxes 58
Taxes on Distributions 59
Taxes on Exchange-Listed Share Sales 59
Taxes on Purchase and Redemption of Creation Units 59
   
FUND SERVICE PROVIDERS 60
   
OTHER INFORMATION 60
Continuous Offering 60
   
FINANCIAL HIGHLIGHTS 61
   
PRIVACY NOTICE 66

 

 

FUND SUMMARY - Inspire Global Hope ETF
(formerly, Inspire Global Hope ESG ETF)
 

Investment Objective: The Inspire Global Hope ETF (the “Fund”) seeks to replicate investment results that generally correspond, before fees and expenses, to the performance of the Inspire Global Hope Large Cap Equal Weight Index (“Large Cap Index”).

 

Fees and Expenses of the Fund: This table describes the fees and expenses that you may pay if you buy, hold and sell shares of the Fund. You may pay other fees, such as brokerage commissions and other fees to financial intermediaries, which are not reflected in the table and example below.

 

Annual Fund Operating Expenses
(expenses that you pay each year
as a percentage of the value of your investment)
 
Management Fees 0.30%
Distribution and Service (12b-1) Fees None
Other Expenses 0.19%
Total Annual Fund Operating Expenses 0.49%

 

Example: This Example is intended to help you compare the cost of investing in the Fund with the cost of investing in other mutual funds.

 

The Example assumes that you invest $10,000 in the Fund for the time periods indicated and then redeem all of your shares at the end of those periods. The Example also assumes that your investment has a 5% return each year and that the Fund’s operating expenses remain the same. Although your actual costs may be higher or lower, based upon these assumptions your costs would be:

 

1 Year 3 Years 5 Years 10 Years
$50 $157 $274 $616
       

Portfolio Turnover: The Fund pays transaction costs, such as commissions, when it buys and sells securities (or “turns over” its portfolio). A higher portfolio turnover rate may indicate higher transaction costs and may result in higher taxes when Fund shares are held in a taxable account. These costs, which are not reflected in annual fund operating expenses or in the Example, affect the Fund’s performance. During the fiscal year ended November 30, 2021, the Fund’s portfolio turnover rate was 94% of the average value of its portfolio.

 

Principal Investment Strategies: The Fund generally invests at least 80% of its total assets in the component securities of the Large Cap Index. Inspire Investing, LLC (the “Adviser” or Index Provider”), the Fund’s index provider (and also the Fund’s investment adviser) selects foreign (including emerging markets) and domestic equity securities from a global universe of publicly traded equity securities of companies with a market capitalization of $5 billion or greater and which have an Inspire Impact Score® of zero or higher. The Inspire Impact Score® is a proprietary selection methodology that is designed to assign a score to a particular security based on the security’s alignment with biblical values and the positive impact the issuing company has on its customers, communities, workplace and the world.

 

The Inspire Impact Score® methodology removes from the investment universe the securities of any company that has any degree of participation in the following activities or products that do not align with biblical values, which removes them from the eligible investment universe of securities of potential Fund investments. A score of zero is assigned to companies where no information is available about their participation in the following activities or products:

 

Abortifacients – Company produces abortifacient drugs. This category includes all pharmaceuticals used to terminate a pregnancy anytime from the moment of conception onward, including those labeled as “contraceptives” but which may cause a fertilized egg to be destroyed.

 

Abortion Philanthropy – Corporate guided philanthropy to organizations that advocate for or provide abortions (excludes employee matching programs.)

 

Abortion Legislation – Corporate sponsored political, legal or other activism that advocates for or provides abortions.

 

Abortion Procedures – Company offers abortion procedures as a service.

 

Alcohol – Company produces or specifically distributes alcoholic beverages.

 

Cannabis Retail THC – Company produces or distributes retail cannabis products containing THC, which is the psychoactive component of cannabis.

 

Cannabis Cultivation/Processing – Company cultivates or processes cannabis for retail or wholesale distribution.

 

Embryonic Stem Cell Research – Company is engaged directly or indirectly in embryonic stem cell research. This category includes companies which perform research on or produce products using embryonic stem cells, companies which provide embryonic stem cells to other entities and companies which utilize propagated stem cell lines which originally derived from embryonic stem cells.

1

 

Gambling – Company generates revenue from gambling. This category includes the operation of casinos or other gambling facilities, as well as manufacturing gambling machinery and or other gambling specific equipment.

 

Human Rights – Company has exploitative labor practices, working conditions or partnerships with exploitative supply partners, including unjust governmental entities and regimes.

 

In Vitro Fertilization – Company offers In Vitro Fertilization services or manufacture equipment to aid in procedures.

 

LGBT Legislation – Corporate sponsored legal, political or other activism that advocates for the promotion and acceptance of the LGBT lifestyle.

 

LGBT Philanthropy – Corporate guided philanthropy to organizations that advocate for the promotion and acceptance of the LGBT lifestyle (excludes employee match programs).

 

LGBT Promotion – Company provides products or services designed specifically for the promotion and acceptance of the LGBT lifestyle, or otherwise uses corporate influence for the promotion and acceptance of the LGBT lifestyle.

 

Pornography – Company produces or distributes pornography. This category includes all media types, such as film, print and online. Also included are companies that produce AO (Adult Only) rated video games which contain pornographic content.

 

State Owned Enterprise – Company is owned and controlled by a Nation State or government that is a known human rights violator, including situations where the State has veto power, or a “golden share” is owned by the State or State controlled agency.

 

Tobacco – Company derives revenue from growing, manufacturing or distributing tobacco products.

 

The methodology then assigns a positive score based on the company’s track record of acting in alignment with biblical values across the following categories:

 

Access & Affordability: The category addresses a company’s ability to ensure broad access to its products and services, specifically in the context of underserved markets and/or population groups. It includes the management of issues related to universal needs, such as the accessibility and affordability of health care, financial services, utilities, education, and telecommunications.

 

Air Quality: The category addresses a company’s management of air quality impacts resulting from stationary (e.g., factories, power plants) and mobile sources (e.g., trucks, delivery vehicles, planes). Relevant airborne pollutants include, but are not limited to, oxides of nitrogen, oxides of sulfur, volatile organic compounds, heavy metals, particulate matter, and chlorofluorocarbons. The category does not include the management of greenhouse gas emissions, which are addressed in a separate category.

 

Business Ethics: The category addresses a company’s approach to managing risks and opportunities surrounding the ethical conduct of business, including fraud, corruption, bribery and facilitation payments, fiduciary responsibilities, and other business conduct that may have an ethical component. This includes sensitivity to business norms and standards as they shift over time, jurisdiction, and culture   without compromising biblical values. It addresses the company’s ability to provide services that satisfy the highest professional and ethical standards of the industry, which means to avoid conflicts of interest, misrepresentation, bias, and negligence through training employees adequately and implementing policies and procedures to ensure employees provide services free from bias and error.

 

Business Model Resilience: The category addresses a company’s capacity to manage risks and opportunities associated with incorporating social, environmental, and political transitions   into its long-term business model planning without compromising biblical values. This includes responsiveness to the transition to a low-carbon and climate-constrained economy, as well as growth and creation of new markets among unserved and underserved socio-economic populations. The category identifies industries in which evolving environmental and social realities may challenge companies to fundamentally adapt or may put their business models at risk.

 

Competitive Behavior: The category covers social issues associated with the existence of monopolies, which may include, but are not limited to, excessive prices, poor quality of service, and inefficiencies. It addresses a company’s management of issues related to bargaining power, collusion, price fixing or manipulation, protection of patents and intellectual property, and other anti-competitive practices.

 

Critical Incident Risk Management: The category addresses the company’s use of management systems and scenario planning to identify, understand, and prevent or minimize the occurrence of accidents and emergencies with significant potential environmental and social conseqeuences. It relates to the culture of safety at a company, its relevant safety management systems and technological controls, the potential human, environmental, and social implications of such events occurring, and the long-term effects to an organization, its workers, and society should these events occur.

 

Customer Privacy: The category addresses management of risks related to the use of personally identifiable information and other customer or user data for secondary purposes including. but not limited to. marketing through affiliates and non-affiliates. The scope of the category includes social issues that may arise from a company’s approach to collecting data, obtaining consent (e.g., opt-in policies), managing user and customer expectations regarding how their data is used, and managing evolving regulation. It excludes social issues arising from cybersecurity risks, which are covered in Data Security.

2

 

Customer Welfare: The category addresses customer welfare concerns over issues including, but not limited to, health and nutrition of foods and beverages, antibiotic use in animal production, and management of controlled substances. The category addresses the company’s ability to provide consumers with manufactured products and services that are aligned with societal expectations. It does not include issues directly related to quality and safety malfunctions of manufactured products and services, but instead addresses qualities inherent to the design and delivery of products and services where customer welfare may be in question. The scope of the category also captures companies’ ability to prevent counterfeit products.

 

Data Security: The category addresses management of risks related to collection, retention, and use of sensitive, confidential, and/or proprietary customer or user data. It includes social issues that may arise from incidents such as data breaches in which personally identifiable information and other user or customer data may be exposed. It addresses a company’s strategy, policies, and practices related to IT infrastructure, staff training, record keeping, cooperation with law enforcement, and other mechanisms used to ensure security of customer or user data.

 

Ecological Impacts: The category addresses management of the company’s impacts on ecosystems and biodiversity through activities including, but not limited to, land use for exploration, natural resource extraction, and cultivation, as well as project development, construction, and siting. The impacts include, but are not limited to, biodiversity loss, habitat destruction, and deforestation at all stages, planning, land acquisition, permitting, development, operations, and site remediation. The category does not cover impacts of climate change on ecosystems and biodiversity.

 

Employee Engagement, Diversity & Inclusion: The category addresses a company’s ability to ensure that its culture and hiring and promotion practices embrace the building of a diverse and inclusive workforce that reflects the makeup of local talent pools and its customer base in alignment with biblical values. It addresses the issues of discriminatory practices on the basis of race, gender, ethnicity, religion, and other factors.  

 

Employee Health & Safety: The category addresses a company’s ability to create and maintain a safe and healthy workplace environment that is free of injuries, fatalities, and illness (both chronic and acute). It is traditionally accomplished through implementing safety management plans, developing training requirements for employees and contractors, and conducting regular audits of their own practices as well as those of their subcontractors. The category further captures how companies ensure physical and mental health of workforce through technology, training, corporate culture, regulatory compliance, monitoring and testing, and personal protective equipment.

 

Energy Management: The category addresses environmental impacts associated with energy consumption. It addresses the company’s management of energy in manufacturing and/or for provision of products and services derived from utility providers (grid energy) not owned or controlled by the company. More specifically, it includes management of energy efficiency and intensity, energy mix, as well as grid reliance. Upstream (e.g., suppliers) and downstream (e.g., product use) energy use is not included in the scope.

 

GHG Emissions: The category addresses direct greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions that a company generates through its operations. This includes GHG emissions from stationary (e.g., factories, power plants) and mobile sources (e.g., trucks, delivery vehicles, planes), whether a result of combustion of fuel or non-combusted direct releases during activities such as natural resource extraction, power generation, land use, or biogenic processes. The category further includes management of regulatory risks, environmental compliance, and reputational risks and opportunities, as they related to direct GHG emissions. The seven GHGs covered under the Kyoto Protocol are included within the category are carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide, hydrofluorocarbons, perfluorocarbons, sulfur hexafluoride, and nitrogen trifluoride.

 

Human Rights & Community Relations: The category addresses management of the relationship between businesses and the communities in which they operate, including, but not limited to, management of direct and indirect impacts on core human rights and the treatment of indigenous peoples. More specifically, such management may cover socio-economic community impacts, community engagement, cultivation of local workforces, impact on local businesses, license to operate, and environmental/social impact assessments. The category does not include environmental impacts such as air pollution or waste which, although they may impact the health and safety of members of local communities, are addressed in separate categories.

 

Labor Practices: The category addresses the company’s ability to uphold commonly accepted labor standards in the workplace, including compliance with labor laws and internationally accepted norms and standards. This includes, but is not limited to, ensuring basic human rights related to child labor, forced or bonded labor, exploitative labor, fair wages and overtime pay, and other basic workers’ rights. It also includes minimum wage policies and provision of benefits, which may influence how a workforce is attracted, retained, and motivated. The category further addresses a company’s relationship with organized labor and freedom of association.

 

Management of the Legal & Regulatory Environment: The category addresses a company’s approach to engaging with regulators in cases where conflicting corporate and public interests may have the potential for long-term adverse direct or indirect environmental and social impacts. The category addresses a company’s level of reliance upon regulatory policy or monetary incentives (such as subsidies and taxes), actions to influence industry policy (such as through lobbying), overall reliance on a favorable regulatory environment for business competitiveness, and ability to comply with relevant regulations. It may relate to the alignment of management and investor views of regulatory engagement and compliance at large.

3

 

Materials Sourcing & Efficiency: The category addresses issues related to the resilience of materials supply chains to environmental and social factors. It captures the impacts of such external factors on operational activity of suppliers, which can further affect availability and pricing of key resources. It addresses a company’s ability to manage these risks through product design, manufacturing, and end-of-life management, such as by using of recycled and renewable materials, reducing the use of key materials (dematerialization), maximizing resource efficiency in manufacturing, and making R&D investments in substitute materials. Additionally, companies can manage these issues by screening, selection, monitoring, and engagement with suppliers to ensure their resilience to external risks. It does not address issues associated with environmental and social impacts of individual suppliers’ operational activities, which is covered in Supply Chain Management.

 

Product Design & Lifecycle Management: The category addresses incorporation of sustainability considerations in characteristics of products and services provided or sold by the company. It includes, but is not limited to, managing the lifecycle impacts of products and services, such as those related to packaging, distribution and other environmental and social impacts they may have during their use-phase or at the end of life. The category captures a company’s ability to address customer and societal demand for more sustainable products and services as well as to meet evolving environmental and social regulation. It does not address direct environmental or social impacts of the company’s operations nor does it address health and safety risks to consumers from product use, which are covered in other categories.

 

Product Quality & Safety: The category addresses issues involving unintended characteristics of products sold or services provided that may create health or safety risks to end-users. It addresses a company’s ability to offer manufactured products and/or services that meet customer expectations with respect to their health and safety characteristics. It includes, but is not limited to, issues involving liability, management of recalls and market withdrawals, product testing, and chemicals/content/ingredient management in products.

 

Selling Practices & Product Labeling: The category addresses social issues that may arise from a failure to manage the transparency, accuracy, and comprehensibility of marketing statements, advertising, and labeling of products and services. It includes, but is not limited to, advertising standards and regulations, ethical and responsible marketing practices, misleading or deceptive labeling, as well as discriminatory or predatory selling and lending practices. This may include deceptive or aggressive selling practices in which incentive structures for employees could encourage the sale of products or services that are not in the best interest of customers or clients.

 

Supply Chain Management: The category addresses management of sustainability risks within a company’s supply chain. It addresses issues associated with environmental and social externalities created by suppliers through their operational activities. Such issues include, but are not limited to, environmental responsibility, human rights, labor practices, and ethics and corruption. Management may involve screening, selection, monitoring, and engagement with suppliers on their environmental and social impacts. The category does not address the impacts of external factors, such as climate change and other environmental and social factors, on suppliers, operations and/or on the availability and pricing of key resources, which is covered in a separate category.

 

Systemic Risk Management: The category addresses the company’s contributions to or management of systemic risks resulting from large-scale weakening or collapse of systems upon which the economy and society depend. This includes financial systems, natural resource systems, and technological systems. It addresses the mechanisms a company has in place to reduce its contributions to systemic risks and to improve safeguards that may mitigate the impacts of systemic failure. For financial institutions, the category also captures the company’s ability to absorb shocks arising from financial and economic stress and meet stricter regulatory requirements related to the complexity and interconnectedness of companies in the industry.

 

Waste & Hazardous Materials Management: The category addresses environmental issues associated with hazardous and non-hazardous waste generated by companies. It addresses a company’s management of solid wastes in manufacturing, agriculture, and other industrial processes. It covers treatment, handling, storage, disposal, and regulatory compliance. The category does not cover emissions to air or wastewater nor does it cover waste from products at the end of their lifecycle, which are addressed in separate categories.

 

Water & Wastewater Management: The category addresses a company’s water consumption, wastewater generation, and other operational impacts on water resources, which may be influenced by regional differences in the availability and quality of and competition for water resources. More specifically, it addresses management strategies including, but not limited to, water efficiency, rate of consumption, and recycling. Lastly, the category also addresses management of wastewater treatment and discharge, including groundwater and aquifer pollution.

 

The Index Provider uses software that analyzes publicly available data relating to the primary business activities, products and services, philanthropy, legal activities, policies and practices when assigning Inspire Impact Scores® to a company. The 400 securities with the highest Inspire Impact Scores® are included in the Large Cap Index and are equally weighted. The Large Cap Index is typically comprised of 50% domestic securities, 40% in developed foreign securities, and 10% in emerging market securities. The Inspire Impact Scores® of the securities in the Large Cap Index are reviewed periodically (at least annually), and the Index is rebalanced quarterly. If, upon review, the Inspire Impact Score® of a security falls below an acceptable level, the security is removed from the Large Cap Index and replaced with a higher scoring security.

4

 

The equity securities included in the Index are typically foreign and domestic equity securities of companies with capitalization of $5 billion (US Dollars) or more. Under normal market conditions, the Fund will invest at least 40% of its net assets in securities of companies in at least 3 countries outside the U.S. The Fund may concentrate its investments in a particular industry or group of industries to the extent that the Index concentrates in an industry or group of industries.

 

Principal Investment Risks: As with all funds, there is a risk that you could lose money through your investment in the Fund. Many factors affect the Fund’s net asset value (“NAV”) and price of shares and performance.

 

The following describes the risks the Fund bears with respect to its investments. As with any fund, there is no guarantee that the Fund will achieve its goal.

 

Asset Class Risk. Securities in the Large Cap Index or in the Fund’s portfolio may underperform in comparison to the general securities markets or other asset classes.

 

Authorized Participant Risk. Only an Authorized Participant may engage in creation or redemption transactions directly with the Fund. The Fund has a limited number of institutions that may act as Authorized Participants on an agency basis (i.e., on behalf of other market participants). To the extent that Authorized Participants exit the business or are unable to proceed with creation or redemption orders with respect to the Fund and no other Authorized Participant is able to step forward to create or redeem Creation Units, Fund shares may be more likely to trade at a premium or discount to net asset value and possibly face trading halts or delisting. Authorized Participant concentration risk may be heightened for exchange-traded funds (“ETFs”) that invest in non-U.S. securities or other securities or instruments that have lower trading volumes.

 

Biblically Responsible Investment Risk. The Fund invests at least 80% of its assets in the component securities of the Index which uses the Inspire Impact Score® and related biblical values screening criteria in selecting its component securities. As a result of its strategy, the Large Cap Index’s exclusion of securities of certain issuers for nonfinancial reasons may cause the Fund to forgo some market opportunities available to funds that do not use these criteria. This could be due to biblically responsible companies falling out of favor with investors or failing to perform as well as companies that do not receive a favorable Inspire Impact Score®.

 

Concentration Risk. The Fund may focus its investments in securities of a particular industry to the extent the Large Cap Index does. Economic, legislative or regulatory developments may occur that significantly affect the industry. This may cause the Fund’s net asset value to fluctuate more than that of a fund that does not focus in a particular industry.

 

Early Close/Trading Halt Risk. An exchange or market may close or impose a market trading halt or issue trading halts on specific securities, or the ability to buy or sell certain securities or financial instruments may be restricted, which may prevent the Fund from buying or selling certain securities or financial instruments. In these circumstances, the Fund may be unable to rebalance its portfolio, may be unable to accurately price its investments and may incur substantial trading losses.

 

Emerging Markets Risk. Investing in emerging markets involves not only the risks described below with respect to investing in foreign securities, but also other risks, including exposure to economic structures that are generally less diverse and mature, and to political systems that can be expected to have less stability, than those of developed countries. The typically small size of the markets of securities of issuers located in emerging markets and the possibility of a low or nonexistent volume of trading in those securities may also result in a lack of liquidity and in price volatility of those securities.

 

Equity Securities Risk. Fluctuations in the value of equity securities held by the Fund will cause the net asset value (“NAV”) of the Fund and the price of its Shares to fluctuate.

 

Common Stock Risks. Common stock of an issuer in the Fund’s portfolio may decline in price if the issuer fails to make anticipated dividend payments. Common stock will be subject to greater dividend risk than preferred stocks or debt instruments of the same issuer. In addition, common stocks have experienced significantly more volatility in returns than other asset classes.

 

Preferred Stock Risks. Generally, preferred stockholders (such as the Fund) have no voting rights with respect to the issuing company unless certain events occur. In addition, preferred stock will be subject to greater credit risk than debt instruments of an issuer, and could be subject to interest rate risk like fixed income securities, as described below. An issuer’s board of directors is generally not under any obligation to pay a dividend (even if dividends have accrued), and may suspend payment of dividends on preferred stock at any time. There is also a risk that the issuer of any of the Fund’s holdings will default and fail to make scheduled dividend payments on the preferred stock held by the Fund).

 

ETF Structure Risks: The Fund is structured as an ETF and as a result is subject to the special risks, including:

 

Not Individually Redeemable. The Fund’s shares (“Shares”) are not redeemable by retail investors and may be redeemed only by Authorized Participants at NAV and only in Creation Units. A retail investor generally incurs brokerage costs when selling shares.

5

 

Trading Issues. Trading in Shares on the NYSE Arca (the “Exchange”) may be halted due to market conditions or for reasons that, in the view of the Exchange, make trading in Shares inadvisable, such as extraordinary market volatility. There can be no assurance that Shares will continue to meet the listing requirements of the Exchange which may result in the trading of the Shares being suspended or the Shares being delisted. An active trading market for the Shares may not be developed or maintained. If the Shares are traded outside a collateralized settlement system, the number of financial institutions that can act as Authorized Participants that can post collateral on an agency basis is limited, which may limit the market for the Shares.

 

Market Price Variance Risk. The market prices of Shares will fluctuate in response to changes in NAV and supply and demand for Shares and will include a “bid-ask spread” charged by the exchange specialists, market makers or other participants that trade the Shares. There may be times when the market price and the NAV vary significantly. This means that Shares may trade at a discount to NAV.

 

o In times of market stress, market makers may step away from their role market making in the Shares and in executing trades, which can lead to differences between the market value of the Shares and the Fund’s NAV.

 

o The market price of the Shares may deviate from the Fund’s NAV, particularly during times of market stress, with the result that investors may pay significantly more or significantly less the Shares than the Fund’s NAV, which is reflected in the bid and ask price for the Shares or in the closing price.

 

o When all or a portion of the Fund’s underlying securities trade in a market that is closed when the market for the Fund’s shares is open, there may be changes from the last quote of the closed market and the quote from the Fund’s domestic trading day, which could lead to differences between the market value of the Shares and the Fund’s NAV.

 

o In stressed market conditions, the market for the Shares may become less liquid in response to the deteriorating liquidity of the Fund’s portfolio. This adverse effect on the liquidity of the Shares may, in turn, lead to differences between the market value of the Shares and the Fund’s NAV.

 

Foreign Securities Risk. Since the Fund’s investments may include foreign securities, the Fund is subject to risks beyond those associated with investing in domestic securities. Foreign companies are generally not subject to the same regulatory requirements of U.S. companies thereby resulting in less publicly available information about these companies. In addition, foreign accounting, auditing and financial reporting standards generally differ from those applicable to U.S. companies.

 

Market and Geopolitical Risk. The increasing interconnectivity between global economies and financial markets increases the likelihood that events or conditions in one region or financial market may adversely impact issuers in a different country, region or financial market. Securities in the Fund’s portfolio may underperform due to inflation (or expectations for inflation), interest rates, global demand for particular products or resources, natural disasters, climate-change and climate-related events, pandemics, epidemics, terrorism, regulatory events and governmental or quasi-governmental actions. The occurrence of global events similar to those in recent years may result in market volatility and may have long term effects on both the U.S. and global financial markets. The current novel coronavirus (COVID-19) global pandemic and the aggressive responses taken by many governments, including closing borders, restricting international and domestic travel, and the imposition of prolonged quarantines or similar restrictions, as well as the forced or voluntary closure of, or operational changes to, many retail and other businesses, has had negative impacts, and in many cases severe negative impacts, on markets worldwide. It is not known how long such impacts, or any future impacts of other significant events described above, will or would last, but there could be a prolonged period of global economic slowdown, which may impact your Fund investment.

 

Passive Investment Risk. The Fund is not actively managed and the Adviser will not sell shares of an equity security due to current or projected underperformance of a security, industry or sector, unless that security is removed from the Large Cap Index or the selling of shares of that security is otherwise required upon a rebalancing of the Index as addressed in the Large Cap Index methodology.

 

Sampling Risk. The Fund’s use of a representative sampling approach, if used, could result in its holding a smaller number of securities than are in the Large Cap Index. As a result, an adverse development with an issuer of securities held by the Fund could result in a greater decline in NAV than would be the case if the Fund held all of the securities in the Large Cap Index. To the extent the assets in the Fund are smaller, these risks will be greater.

 

Tracking Error Risk. Tracking error is the divergence of the Fund’s performance from that of the Large Cap Index. Tracking error may occur because of imperfect correlation between the Fund’s holdings of portfolio securities and those in the Large Cap Index, pricing differences, the Fund’s holding of cash, differences on timing of the accrual of dividends, changes to the Large Cap Index or the need to meet various regulatory requirements. This risk may be heightened during times of increased market volatility or other unusual market conditions. Tracking error also may result because the Fund incurs fees and expenses, while the Large Cap Index does not.

6

 

Performance: The bar chart and performance table below show the variability of the Fund’s returns, which is some indication of the risks of investing in the Fund by showing changes in the Fund’s performance from year to year and by showing the Fund’s one-year and since inception performance compared with those of a broad measure of market performance. The bar chart shows performance of the Fund’s shares for each calendar year since the Fund’s inception. The performance table compares the performance of the Fund over time to the performance of a broad-based securities market index You should be aware that the Fund’s past performance (before and after taxes) is not necessarily an indication of how the Fund will perform in the future. Updated performance information is available at no cost by visiting www.inspireetf.com or by calling 877.658.9473.

 

Performance Bar Chart For Calendar Year Ended December 31

 

(BAR CHAT)

 

Best Quarter: 2nd Quarter 2020 24.10%
Worst Quarter: 1st Quarter 2020 (29.54)%
     

Performance Table
Average Annual Total Returns
(For periods ended December 31, 2021)

 

  One Year Since
Inception
(2/27/17)
Return before taxes 23.45% 13.02%
Return after taxes on distributions 20.39% 11.94%
Return after taxes on distributions and sale of Fund shares 15.19% 10.14%
Inspire Global Hope Large Cap Equal Weight Index 23.92% 13.33%
S&P Global 1200 Total Return Index 10.87% 12.48%

 

After-tax returns are calculated using the historical highest individual federal marginal income tax rates and do not reflect the impact of state and local taxes. Actual after-tax returns depend on an investor’s tax situation and may differ from those shown, and after-tax returns shown are not relevant to investors who hold their Shares through tax-deferred arrangements, such as 401(k) plans or individual retirement accounts.

7

 

Investment Adviser: Inspire Investing, LLC (the “Adviser”)

 

Portfolio Managers: Darrell Jayroe, CFA®, Chief Investment Officer and Portfolio Manager, and Robert Netzly, Chief Executive Officer, have each served the Fund as a portfolio manager since it commenced operations in February 2017. Tim Schwarzenberger, CFA®, has served the Fund as a portfolio manager since March 2022.

 

Purchase and Sale of Fund Shares: Individual Shares of the Fund may be purchased and sold in secondary market transactions through a broker dealer or at market price. Shares are listed for trading on the Exchange and trade at market prices rather than NAV. Shares may trade at a price that is greater than, at, or less than NAV. An investor may incur costs attributable to the difference between the highest price a buyer is willing to pay to purchase Shares (bid) and the lowest price a seller is willing to accept for Shares (ask) when buying or selling Shares on the secondary market (the “bid-ask spread”). Information on the Fund’s NAV, market price, premiums and discounts, and bid-ask spreads, is available online at www.inspireetf.com.

 

Shares are listed for trading on the Exchange and trade at market prices rather than NAV. Shares may trade at a price that is greater than, at, or less than NAV.

 

Tax Information: The Fund’s distributions generally will be taxable as ordinary income or long-term capital gains. A sale of Shares may result in capital gain or loss.

 

Payments to Broker-Dealers and Other Financial Intermediaries: If you purchase the Fund through a broker-dealer or other financial intermediary (such as a bank), the Fund and its related companies may pay the intermediary for marketing activities or other services related to the sale or promotion of the Fund. These payments may create a conflict of interest by influencing the broker-dealer or other intermediary and your salesperson to recommend the Fund over another investment. Ask your salesperson or visit your financial intermediary’s website for more information.

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FUND SUMMARY - Inspire Small/Mid Cap ETF
(formerly, Inspire Small/Mid Cap ESG ETF)
 

Investment Objective: The Inspire Small/Mid Cap ETF (the “Fund”) seeks to replicate investment results that generally correspond, before fees and expenses, to the performance of the Inspire Small/Mid Cap Impact Equal Weight Index (“Small/Mid Cap Index”).

 

Fees and Expenses of the Fund: This table describes the fees and expenses that you may pay if you buy, hold and sell shares of the Fund. You may pay other fees, such as brokerage commissions and other fees to financial intermediaries, which are not reflected in the table and example below

 

Annual Fund Operating Expenses
(expenses that you pay each year
as a percentage of the value of your investment)
 
Management Fees 0.30%
Distribution and Service (12b-1) Fees None
Other Expenses 0.18%
Total Annual Fund Operating Expenses 0.48%

 

Example: This Example is intended to help you compare the cost of investing in the Fund with the cost of investing in other mutual funds.

 

The Example assumes that you invest $10,000 in the Fund for the time periods indicated and then redeem all of your shares at the end of those periods. The Example also assumes that your investment has a 5% return each year and that the Fund’s operating expenses remain the same. Although your actual costs may be higher or lower, based upon these assumptions your costs would be:

 

1 Year 3 Years 5 Years 10 Years
$49 $154 $269 $604
       

Portfolio Turnover: The Fund pays transaction costs, such as commissions, when it buys and sells securities (or “turns over” its portfolio). A higher portfolio turnover rate may indicate higher transaction costs and may result in higher taxes when Fund shares are held in a taxable account. These costs, which are not reflected in annual fund operating expenses or in the Example, affect the Fund’s performance. During the fiscal year ended November 30, 2021, the Fund’s portfolio turnover rate was 168% of the average value of its portfolio.

 

Principal Investment Strategies: The Fund generally invests at least 80% of its total assets in the component securities of the Small/Mid Cap Weight Index. Inspire Investing, LLC (the “Adviser” or “Index Provider”), the Fund’s index provider (and also the Fund’s investment adviser) selects securities from a universe of publicly traded, domestic small and mid capitalization equity securities of companies with market capitalizations between $1 billion and $3.5 billion and which have an Inspire Impact Score® of zero or higher. The Inspire Impact Score® is a proprietary selection methodology that assigns a score to a particular security based on the security’s alignment with biblical values and the positive impact the issuing company has on its customers, communities, workplace and the world. Under normal circumstances, 50% of the index will be comprised of equities of companies with market capitalizations between $1 billion and $2 billion, and 50% of the index will be comprised of equities of companies with market capitalizations between $2 billion and $3.5 billion.

 

The Inspire Impact Score® methodology removes from the investment universe the securities of any company that has any degree of participation in the following activities or products that do not align with biblical values, which removes them from the eligible investment universe of securities of potential Fund investments. A score of zero is assigned to companies where no information is available about their participation in the following activities or products:

 

Abortifacients – Company produces abortifacient drugs. This category includes all pharmaceuticals used to terminate a pregnancy anytime from the moment of conception onward, including those labeled as “contraceptives” but which may cause a fertilized egg to be destroyed.

 

Abortion Philanthropy – Corporate guided philanthropy to organizations that advocate for or provide abortions (excludes employee matching programs.)

 

Abortion Legislation – Corporate sponsored political, legal or other activism that advocates for or provides abortions.

 

Abortion Procedures – Company offers abortion procedures as a service.

 

Alcohol – Company produces or specifically distributes alcoholic beverages.

 

Cannabis Retail THC – Company produces or distributes retail cannabis products containing THC, which is the psychoactive component of cannabis.

 

Cannabis Cultivation/Processing – Company cultivates or processes cannabis for retail or wholesale distribution.

 

Embryonic Stem Cell Research – Company is engaged directly or indirectly in embryonic stem cell research. This category includes companies which perform research on or produce products using embryonic stem cells, companies which provide embryonic stem cells to other entities and companies which utilize propagated stem cell lines which originally derived from embryonic stem cells.

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Gambling – Company generates revenue from gambling. This category includes the operation of casinos or other gambling facilities, as well as manufacturing gambling machinery and or other gambling specific equipment.

 

Human Rights – Company has exploitative labor practices, working conditions or partnerships with exploitative supply partners, including unjust governmental entities and regimes.

 

In Vitro Fertilization – Company offers In Vitro Fertilization services or manufacture equipment to aid in procedures.

 

LGBT Legislation – Corporate sponsored legal, political or other activism that advocates for the promotion and acceptance of the LGBT lifestyle.

 

LGBT Philanthropy – Corporate guided philanthropy to organizations that advocate for the promotion and acceptance of the LGBT lifestyle (excludes employee match programs).

 

LGBT Promotion – Company provides products or services designed specifically for the promotion and acceptance of the LGBT lifestyle, or otherwise uses corporate influence for the promotion and acceptance of the LGBT lifestyle.

 

Pornography – Company produces or distributes pornography. This category includes all media types, such as film, print and online. Also included are companies that produce AO (Adult Only) rated video games which contain pornographic content.

 

State Owned Enterprise – Company is owned and controlled by a Nation State or government that is a known human rights violator, including situations where the State has veto power, or a “golden share” is owned by the State or State controlled agency.

 

Tobacco – Company derives revenue from growing, manufacturing or distributing tobacco products.

 

The methodology then assigns a positive score based on the company’s track record of acting in alignment with biblical values across the following categories:

 

Access & Affordability: The category addresses a company’s ability to ensure broad access to its products and services, specifically in the context of underserved markets and/or population groups. It includes the management of issues related to universal needs, such as the accessibility and affordability of health care, financial services, utilities, education, and telecommunications.

 

Air Quality: The category addresses the management of air quality impacts resulting from stationary (e.g., factories, power plants) and mobile sources (e.g., trucks, delivery vehicles, planes) as well as industrial emissions. Relevant airborne pollutants include, but are not limited to, oxides of nitrogen (NOx), oxides of sulfur (SOx), volatile organic compounds (VOCs), heavy metals, particulate matter, and chlorofluorocarbons. The category does not include GHG emissions, which are addressed in a separate category.

 

Business Ethics: The category addresses the company’s approach to managing risks and opportunities surrounding ethical conduct of business, including fraud, corruption, bribery and facilitation payments, fiduciary responsibilities, and other behavior that may have an ethical component. This includes sensitivity to business norms and standards as they shift over time, jurisdiction, and culture without compromising biblical values. It addresses the company’s ability to provide services that satisfy the highest professional and ethical standards of the industry, which means to avoid conflicts of interest, misrepresentation, bias, and negligence through training employees adequately and implementing policies and procedures to ensure employees provide services free from bias and error.

 

Business Model Resilience: The category addresses an industry’s capacity to manage risks and opportunities associated with incorporating social, environmental, and political transitions into long-term business model planning without compromising biblical values. This includes responsiveness to the transition to a low-carbon and climate-constrained economy, as well as growth and creation of new markets among unserved and underserved socio-economic populations. The category highlights industries in which evolving environmental and social realities may challenge companies to fundamentally adapt or may put their business models at risk.

 

Competitive Behavior: The category covers social issues associated with existence of monopolies, which may include, but are not limited to, excessive prices, poor quality of service, and inefficiencies. It addresses a company’s management of legal and social expectation around monopolistic and anti-competitive practices, including issues related to bargaining power, collusion, price fixing or manipulation, and protection of patents and intellectual property (IP).

 

Critical Incident Risk Management: The category addresses the company’s use of management systems and scenario planning to identify, understand, and prevent or minimize the occurrence of low-probability, high-impact accidents and emergencies with significant potential environmental and social externalities. It relates to the culture of safety at a company, its relevant safety management systems and technological controls, the potential human, environmental, and social implications of such events occurring, and the long-term effects to an organization, its workers, and society should these events occur.

 

Customer Privacy: The category addresses management of risks related to the use of personally identifiable information (PII) and other customer or user data for secondary purposes including but not limited to marketing through affiliates and non-affiliates. The scope of the category includes social issues that may arise from a company’s approach to collecting data, obtaining consent (e.g., opt-in policies), managing user and customer expectations regarding how their data is used, and managing evolving regulation. It excludes social issues arising from cybersecurity risks, which are covered in a separate category.

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Customer Welfare: The category addresses customer welfare concerns over issues including, but not limited to, health and nutrition of foods and beverages, antibiotic use in animal production, and management of controlled substances. The category addresses the company’s ability to provide consumers with manufactured products and services that are aligned with societal expectations. It does not include issues directly related to quality and safety malfunctions of manufactured products and services, but instead addresses qualities inherent to the design and delivery of products and services where customer welfare may be in question. The scope of the category also captures companies’ ability to prevent counterfeit products.

 

Data Security: The category addresses management of risks related to collection, retention, and use of sensitive, confidential, and/or proprietary customer or user data. It includes social issues that may arise from incidents such as data breaches in which personally identifiable information (PII) and other user or customer data may be exposed. It addresses a company’s strategy, policies, and practices related to IT infrastructure, staff training, record keeping, cooperation with law enforcement, and other mechanisms used to ensure security of customer or user data.

 

Ecological Impacts: The category addresses management of the company’s impacts on ecosystems and biodiversity through activities including, but not limited to, land use for exploration, natural resource extraction, and cultivation, as well as project development, construction, and siting. The impacts include, but are not limited to, biodiversity loss, habitat destruction, and deforestation at all stages, planning, land acquisition, permitting, development, operations, and site remediation. The category does not cover impacts of climate change on ecosystems and biodiversity.

 

Employee Engagement, Diversity & Inclusion: The category addresses a company’s ability to ensure that its culture and hiring and promotion practices embrace the building of a diverse and inclusive workforce that reflects the makeup of local talent pools and its customer base in alignment with biblical values. It addresses the issues of discriminatory practices on the basis of race, gender, ethnicity, religion, and other factors.

 

Employee Health & Safety: The category addresses a company’s ability to create and maintain a safe and healthy workplace environment that is free of injuries, fatalities, and illness (both chronic and acute). It is traditionally accomplished through implementing safety management plans, developing training requirements for employees and contractors, and conducting regular audits of their own practices as well as those of their subcontractors. The category further captures how companies ensure physical and mental health of workforce through technology, training, corporate culture, regulatory compliance, monitoring and testing, and personal protective equipment.

 

Energy Management: The category addresses environmental impacts associated with energy consumption. It addresses the company’s management of energy in manufacturing and/or for provision of products and services derived from utility providers (grid energy) not owned or controlled by the company. More specifically, it includes management of energy efficiency and intensity, energy mix, as well as grid reliance. Upstream (e.g., suppliers) and downstream (e.g., product use) energy use is not included in the scope.

 

GHG Emissions: The category addresses direct (Scope 1) greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions that a company generates through its operations. This includes GHG emissions from stationary (e.g., factories, power plants) and mobile sources (e.g., trucks, delivery vehicles, planes), whether a result of combustion of fuel or non-combusted direct releases during activities such as natural resource extraction, power generation, land use, or biogenic processes. The category further includes management of regulatory risks, environmental compliance, and reputational risks and opportunities, as they related to direct GHG emissions. The seven GHGs covered under the Kyoto Protocol are included within the category’s carbon dioxide (CO2), methane (CH4), nitrous oxide (N2O), hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs), perfluorocarbons (PFCs), sulfur hexafluoride (SF6), and nitrogen trifluoride (NF3).

 

Human Rights & Community Relations: The category addresses management of the relationship between businesses and the communities in which they operate, including, but not limited to, management of direct and indirect impacts on core human rights and the treatment of indigenous peoples. More specifically, such management may cover socio-economic community impacts, community engagement, environmental justice, cultivation of local workforces, impact on local businesses, license to operate, and environmental/social impact assessments. The category does not include environmental impacts such as air pollution or waste which, although they may impact the health and safety of members of local communities, are addressed in separate categories.

 

Labor Practices: The category addresses the company’s ability to uphold commonly accepted labor standards in the workplace, including compliance with labor laws and internationally accepted norms and standards. This includes, but is not limited to, ensuring basic human rights related to child labor, forced or bonded labor, exploitative labor, fair wages and overtime pay, and other basic workers’ rights. It also includes minimum wage policies and provision of benefits, which may influence how a workforce is attracted, retained, and motivated. The category further addresses a company’s relationship with organized labor and freedom of association.

 

Management of the Legal & Regulatory Environment: The category addresses a company’s approach to engaging with regulators in cases where conflicting corporate and public interests may have the potential for long-term adverse direct or indirect environmental and social impacts. The category addresses a company’s level of reliance upon regulatory policy or monetary incentives (such as subsidies and taxes), actions to influence industry policy (such as through lobbying), overall reliance on a favorable regulatory environment for business competitiveness, and ability to comply with relevant regulations. It may relate to the alignment of management and investor views of regulatory engagement and compliance at large.

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Materials Sourcing & Efficiency: The category addresses issues related to the resilience of materials supply chains to impacts of climate change and other external environmental and social factors. It captures the impacts of such external factors on operational activity of suppliers, which can further affect availability and pricing of key resources. It addresses a company’s ability to manage these risks through product design, manufacturing, and end-of-life management, such as by using of recycled and renewable materials, reducing the use of key materials (dematerialization), maximizing resource efficiency in manufacturing, and making R&D investments in substitute materials. Additionally, companies can manage these issues by screening, selection, monitoring, and engagement with suppliers to ensure their resilience to external risks. It does not address issues associated with environmental and social externalities created by operational activity of individual suppliers, which is covered in a separate category.

 

Physical Impacts of Climate Change: The category addresses the company’s ability to manage risks and opportunities associated with direct exposure of its owned or controlled assets and operations to actual or potential physical impacts of climate change. It captures environmental and social issues that may arise from operational disruptions due to physical impacts of climate change. It further captures socio-economic issues resulting from companies failing to incorporate climate change consideration in products and services sold, such as insurance policies and mortgages. The category relates to the company’s ability to adapt to increased frequency and severity of extreme weather, shifting climate, sea level risk, and other expected physical impacts of climate change. Management may involve enhancing resiliency of physical assets and/or surrounding infrastructure as well as incorporation of climate change-related considerations into key business activities (e.g., mortgage and insurance underwriting, planning and development of real estate projects).

 

Product Design & Lifecycle Management: The category addresses incorporation of sustainability considerations in characteristics of products and services provided or sold by the company. It includes, but is not limited to, managing the lifecycle impacts of products and services, such as those related to packaging, distribution, use-phase resource intensity, and other environmental and social externalities that may occur during their use-phase or at the end of life. The category captures a company’s ability to address customer and societal demand for more sustainable products and services as well as to meet evolving environmental and social regulation. It does not address direct environmental or social impacts of the company’s operations nor does it address health and safety risks to consumers from product use, which are covered in other categories.

 

Product Quality & Safety: The category addresses issues involving unintended characteristics of products sold or services provided that may create health or safety risks to end-users. It addresses a company’s ability to offer manufactured products and/or services that meet customer expectations with respect to their health and safety characteristics. It includes, but is not limited to, issues involving liability, management of recalls and market withdrawals, product testing, and chemicals/content/ingredient management in products.

 

Selling Practices & Product Labeling: The category addresses social issues that may arise from a failure to manage the transparency, accuracy, and comprehensibility of marketing statements, advertising, and labeling of products and services. It includes, but is not limited to, advertising standards and regulations, ethical and responsible marketing practices, misleading or deceptive labeling, as well as discriminatory or predatory selling and lending practices. This may include deceptive or aggressive selling practices in which incentive structures for employees could encourage the sale of products or services that are not in the best interest of customers or clients.

 

Supply Chain Management: The category addresses management of sustainability risks within a company’s supply chain. It addresses issues associated with environmental and social externalities created by suppliers through their operational activities. Such issues include, but are not limited to, environmental responsibility, human rights, labor practices, and ethics and corruption. Management may involve screening, selection, monitoring, and engagement with suppliers on their environmental and social impacts. The category does not address the impacts of external factors, such as climate change and other environmental and social factors, on suppliers, operations and/or on the availability and pricing of key resources, which is covered in a separate category.

 

Systemic Risk Management: The category addresses the company’s contributions to or management of systemic risks resulting from large-scale weakening or collapse of systems upon which the economy and society depend. This includes financial systems, natural resource systems, and technological systems. It addresses the mechanisms a company has in place to reduce its contributions to systemic risks and to improve safeguards that may mitigate the impacts of systemic failure. For financial institutions, the category also captures the company’s ability to absorb shocks arising from financial and economic stress and meet stricter regulatory requirements related to the complexity and interconnectedness of companies in the industry.

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Waste & Hazardous Materials Management: The category addresses environmental issues associated with hazardous and non-hazardous waste generated by companies. It addresses a company’s management of solid wastes in manufacturing, agriculture, and other industrial processes. It covers treatment, handling, storage, disposal, and regulatory compliance. The category does not cover emissions to air or wastewater nor does it cover waste from end-of-life products, which are addressed in separate categories.

 

Water & Wastewater Management: The category addresses a company’s water use, water consumption, wastewater generation, and other impacts of operations on water resources, which may be influenced by regional differences in the availability and quality of and competition for water resources. More specifically, it addresses management strategies including, but not limited to, water efficiency, rate of consumption, and recycling. Lastly, the category also addresses management of wastewater treatment and discharge, including groundwater and aquifer pollution.

 

The Index Provider uses software that analyzes publicly available data relating to the primary business activities, products and services, philanthropy, legal activities, policies and practices when assigning Inspire Impact Scores® to a company. The 500 securities with the highest Inspire Impact Scores are included in the Small/Mid Cap Index and are equally weighted. The Inspire Impact Scores® of the securities in the Small/Mid Cap Index are reviewed periodically (at least annually), and the Small/Mid Cap Index is rebalanced quarterly. If, upon review, the Inspire Impact Score of a security falls below an acceptable level, the security is removed from the Small/Mid Cap Index and replaced with a higher scoring security.

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Under normal market conditions, the Fund invests at least 80% of its assets (defined as net assets plus borrowing for investment purposes) in domestic small and mid capitalization equity securities. The Index Provider defines small and mid capitalization companies to be those with a market cap of less than $10 billion, and under normal circumstances targets companies with market capitalizations between $1 billion and $3.5 billion. The Fund may concentrate its investments in a particular industry or group of industries to the extent that the Small/Mid Cap Index concentrates in an industry or group of industries.

 

Principal Investment Risks: As with all funds, there is a risk that you could lose money through your investment in the Fund. Many factors affect the Fund’s net asset value and price of shares and performance.

 

The following describes the risks the Fund bears with respect to its investments. As with any fund, there is no guarantee that the Fund will achieve its goal.

 

Asset Class Risk. Securities in the Small/Mid Cap Index or in the Fund’s portfolio may underperform in comparison to the general securities markets or other asset classes.

 

Authorized Participant Risk. Only an Authorized Participant may engage in creation or redemption transactions directly with the Fund. The Fund has a limited number of institutions that may act as Authorized Participants on an agency basis (i.e., on behalf of other market participants). To the extent that Authorized Participants exit the business or are unable to proceed with creation or redemption orders with respect to the Fund and no other Authorized Participant is able to step forward to create or redeem Creation Units, Fund shares may be more likely to trade at a premium or discount to net asset value and possibly face trading halts or delisting. Authorized Participant concentration risk may be heightened for exchange-traded funds (“ETFs”) that invest in non-U.S. securities or other securities or instruments that have lower trading volumes.

 

Biblically Responsible Investment Risk. The Fund invests at least 80% of its assets in the component securities of the Small/Mid Cap Index which uses the Inspire Impact Score® and related biblical values screening criteria in selecting its component securities. As a result of its strategy, the Small/Mid Cap Index’s exclusion of securities of certain issuers for nonfinancial reasons may cause the Fund to forgo some market opportunities available to funds that do not use these criteria. This could be due to biblically responsible companies falling out of favor with investors or failing to perform as well as companies that do not receive a favorable Inspire Impact Score®.

 

Concentration Risk. The Fund may focus its investments in securities of a particular industry to the extent the Small/Mid Cap Index does. Economic, legislative or regulatory developments may occur that significantly affect the industry. This may cause the Fund’s net asset value and price of shares to fluctuate more than that of a fund that does not focus in a particular industry.

 

Early Close/Trading Halt Risk. An exchange or market may close or impose a market trading halt or issue trading halts on specific securities, or the ability to buy or sell certain securities or financial instruments may be restricted, which may prevent the Fund from buying or selling certain securities or financial instruments. In these circumstances, the Fund may be unable to rebalance its portfolio, may be unable to accurately price its investments and may incur substantial trading losses.

 

Equity Securities Risk. Fluctuations in the value of equity securities held by the Fund will cause the net asset value (“NAV”) of the Fund and the price of its Shares to fluctuate.

 

Common Stock Risks. Common stock of an issuer in the Fund’s portfolio may decline in price if the issuer fails to make anticipated dividend payments. Common stock will be subject to greater dividend risk than preferred stocks or debt instruments of the same issuer. In addition, common stocks have experienced significantly more volatility in returns than other asset classes.

 

Preferred Stock Risks. Generally, preferred stockholders (such as the Fund) have no voting rights with respect to the issuing company unless certain events occur. In addition, preferred stock will be subject to greater credit risk than debt instruments of an issuer, and could be subject to interest rate risk like fixed income securities, as described below. An issuer’s board of directors is generally not under any obligation to pay a dividend (even if dividends have accrued), and may suspend payment of dividends on preferred stock at any time. There is also a risk that the issuer of any of the Fund’s holdings will default and fail to make scheduled dividend payments on the preferred stock held by the Fund).

 

ETF Structure Risks. The Fund is structured as an ETF and as a result is subject to the special risks, including:

 

Not Individually Redeemable. The Fund’s shares (“Shares”) are not redeemable by retail investors and may be redeemed only by Authorized Participants at net asset value (“NAV”) and only in Creation Units. A retail investor generally incurs brokerage costs when selling Shares.

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Trading Issues. Trading in Shares on the NYSE Arca (the “Exchange”) may be halted due to market conditions or for reasons that, in the view of the Exchange, make trading in Shares inadvisable, such as extraordinary market volatility. There can be no assurance that Shares will continue to meet the listing requirements of the Exchange, which may result in the trading of the Shares being suspended or the Shares being delisted. An active trading market for the Shares may not be developed or maintained. If the Shares are traded outside a collateralized settlement system, the number of financial institutions that can act as Authorized Participants that can post collateral on an agency basis is limited, which may limit the market for the Shares.

 

Market Price Variance Risk. The market prices of Shares will fluctuate in response to changes in NAV and supply and demand for Shares and will include a “bid-ask spread” charged by the exchange specialists, market makers or other participants that trade the particular security. There may be times when the market price and the NAV vary significantly. This means that Shares may trade at a discount to NAV.

 

o In times of market stress, market makers may step away from their role market making in the Shares and in executing trades, which can lead to differences between the market value of the Shares and the Fund’s NAV.

 

o The market price of the Shares may deviate from the Fund’s NAV, particularly during times of market stress, with the result that investors may pay significantly more or significantly less the Shares than the Fund’s NAV, which is reflected in the bid and ask price for the Shares or in the closing price.

 

o When all or a portion of the Fund’s underlying securities trade in a market that is closed when the market for the Fund’s shares is open, there may be changes from the last quote of the closed market and the quote from the Fund’s domestic trading day, which could lead to differences between the market value of the Shares and the Fund’s NAV.

 

o In stressed market conditions, the market for the Shares may become less liquid in response to the deteriorating liquidity of the Fund’s portfolio. This adverse effect on the liquidity of the Shares may, in turn, lead to differences between the market value of the Shares and the Fund’s NAV.

 

Market and Geopolitical Risk. The increasing interconnectivity between global economies and financial markets increases the likelihood that events or conditions in one region or financial market may adversely impact issuers in a different country, region or financial market. Securities in the Fund’s portfolio may underperform due to inflation (or expectations for inflation), interest rates, global demand for particular products or resources, natural disasters, climate-change and climate-related events, pandemics, epidemics, terrorism, regulatory events and governmental or quasi-governmental actions. The occurrence of global events similar to those in recent years may result in market volatility and may have long term effects on both the U.S. and global financial markets. The current novel coronavirus (COVID-19) global pandemic and the aggressive responses taken by many governments, including closing borders, restricting international and domestic travel, and the imposition of prolonged quarantines or similar restrictions, as well as the forced or voluntary closure of, or operational changes to, many retail and other businesses, has had negative impacts, and in many cases severe negative impacts, on markets worldwide. It is not known how long such impacts, or any future impacts of other significant events described above, will or would last, but there could be a prolonged period of global economic slowdown, which may impact your Fund investment.

 

Passive Investment Risk. The Fund is not actively managed and the adviser will not sell shares of an equity security due to current or projected underperformance of a security, industry or sector, unless that security is removed from the Small/Mid Cap Index or the selling of shares of that security is otherwise required upon a rebalancing of the Index as addressed in the Small/Mid Cap Index methodology.

 

Sampling Risk. The Fund’s use of a representative sampling approach, if used, could result in its holding a smaller number of securities than are in the Small/Mid Cap Index. As a result, an adverse development with an issuer of securities held by the Fund could result in a greater decline in NAV than would be the case if the Fund held all of the securities in the Small/Mid Cap Index. To the extent the assets in the Fund are smaller, these risks will be greater.

 

Small and Medium Capitalization Stock Risk. The earnings and prospects of small and medium sized companies are more volatile than larger companies and may experience higher failure rates than larger companies. Small and medium sized companies normally have a lower trading volume than larger companies, which may tend to make their market price fall more disproportionately than larger companies in response to selling pressures and may have limited markets, product lines, or financial resources and lack management experience.

 

Tracking Error Risk. Tracking error is the divergence of the Fund’s performance from that of the Index. Tracking error may occur because of imperfect correlation between the Fund’s holdings of portfolio securities and those in the Small/Mid Cap Index, pricing differences, the Fund’s holding of cash, differences on timing of the accrual of dividends, changes to the Index or the need to meet various regulatory requirements. This risk may be heightened during times of increased market volatility or other unusual market conditions. Tracking error also may result because the Fund incurs fees and expenses, while the Small/Mid Cap Index does not.

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Performance: The bar chart and performance table below show the variability of the Fund’s returns, which is some indication of the risks of investing in the Fund by showing changes in the Fund’s performance from year to year and by showing the Fund’s one-year and since inception performance compared with those of a broad measure of market performance. The bar chart shows performance of the Fund’s shares for each calendar year since the Fund’s inception. The performance table compares the performance of the Fund over time to the performance of a broad-based securities market index. You should be aware that the Fund’s past performance (before and after taxes) is not necessarily an indication of how the Fund will perform in the future. Updated performance information is available at no cost by visiting www.inspireetf.com or by calling 877.658.9473.

 

Performance Bar Chart For Calendar Year Ended December 31

 

(BAR CHAT)

 

Best Quarter: 4th Quarter 2020 31.98%
Worst Quarter: 1st Quarter 2020 (32.52)%
     

Performance Table
Average Annual Total Returns
(For periods ended December 31, 2021)

 

  One Year Since
Inception
(2/27/17)
Return before taxes 28.41% 11.00%
Return after taxes on distributions 23.94% 9.70%
Return after taxes on distributions and sale of Fund shares 16.93% 8.18%
Inspire Small/Mid Cap Impact Equal Weight Index 30.92% 12.53%
S&P SmallCap 600 Equal Weight Total Return Index* 32.50% 12.85%

 

* The S&P SmallCap 600 Equal Weight Total Return Index (EWI) is the equal-weight version of the S&P SmallCap 600. The index has the same constituents as the capitalization weighted S&P SmallCap 600, but each company in the S&P SmallCap 600 EWI is allocated a fixed weight. Investors cannot invest directly in an index

 

After-tax returns are calculated using the historical highest individual federal marginal income tax rates and do not reflect the impact of state and local taxes. Actual after-tax returns depend on an investor’s tax situation and may differ from those shown, and after-tax returns shown are not relevant to investors who hold their Shares through tax-deferred arrangements, such as 401(k) plans or individual retirement accounts.

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Investment Adviser: Inspire Investing, LLC.

 

Portfolio Managers: Darrell Jayroe, CFA®, Chief Investment Officer and Portfolio Manager, and Robert Netzly, Chief Executive Officer of the Adviser, have each served the Fund as a portfolio manager since it commenced operations in February 2017. Tim Schwarzenberger, CFA®, has served the Fund as a portfolio manager since March 2022.

 

Purchase and Sale of Fund Shares: Individual Shares of the Fund may be purchased and sold in secondary market transactions through a broker dealer or at market price. Shares are listed for trading on the Exchange and trade at market prices rather than NAV. Shares may trade at a price that is greater than, at, or less than NAV. An investor may incur costs attributable to the difference between the highest price a buyer is willing to pay to purchase Shares (bid) and the lowest price a seller is willing to accept for Shares (ask) when buying or selling Shares on the secondary market (the “bid-ask spread”). Information, including information on the Fund’s NAV, market price, premiums and discounts, and bid-ask spreads, is available online at www.inspireetf.com.

 

Tax Information: The Fund’s distributions generally will be taxable as ordinary income or long-term capital gains. A sale of Shares may result in capital gain or loss.

 

Payments to Broker-Dealers and Other Financial Intermediaries: If you purchase the Fund through a broker-dealer or other financial intermediary (such as a bank), the Fund and its related companies may pay the intermediary for the marketing activities or other services related to the sale or promotion of the Fund. These payments may create a conflict of interest by influencing the broker-dealer or other intermediary and your salesperson to recommend the Fund over another investment. Ask your salesperson or visit your financial intermediary’s website for more information.

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FUND SUMMARY - Inspire Corporate Bond ETF
(formerly, Inspire Corporate Bond ESG ETF)
 

Investment Objective: The Inspire Corporate Bond ETF (the “Fund”) seeks to replicate investment results that generally correspond, before fees and expenses, to the performance of the Inspire Corporate Bond Impact Equal Weight Index (“Corporate Bond Index”).

 

Fees and Expenses of the Fund: This table describes the fees and expenses that you may pay if you buy, hold and sell shares of the Fund. You may pay other fees, such as brokerage commissions and other fees to financial intermediaries, which are not reflected in the table and example below.

 

Annual Fund Operating Expenses
(expenses that you pay each year
as a percentage of the value of your investment)
 
Management Fees 0.30%
Distribution and Service (12b-1) Fees None
Other Expenses 0.14%
Total Annual Fund Operating Expenses 0.44%

 

Example: This Example is intended to help you compare the cost of investing in the Fund with the cost of investing in other mutual funds.

 

The Example assumes that you invest $10,000 in the Fund for the time periods indicated and then redeem all of your shares at the end of those periods. The Example also assumes that your investment has a 5% return each year and that the Fund’s operating expenses remain the same. Although your actual costs may be higher or lower, based upon these assumptions your costs would be:

 

1 Year 3 Years 5 Years 10 Years
$45 $141 $246 $555
       

Portfolio Turnover: The Fund pays transaction costs, such as commissions, when it buys and sells securities (or “turns over” its portfolio). A higher portfolio turnover rate may indicate higher transaction costs and may result in higher taxes when Fund shares are held in a taxable account. These costs, which are not reflected in annual fund operating expenses or in the Example, affect the Fund’s performance. During the fiscal year ended November 30, 2021, the Fund’s portfolio turnover rate was 126% of the average value of its portfolio.

 

Principal Investment Strategies: The Fund generally invests at least 80% of its total assets in the component securities of the Corporate Bond Index. Inspire Investing, LLC (the “Adviser” or “Index Provider”), the Fund’s index provider (and also the Fund’ investment adviser) selects domestic corporate bonds issued by companies that have market capitalizations of $5 billion or more, have credit ratings of BBB- or higher from Standard and Poor’s or Baa3 or higher from Moody’s and which have an Inspire Impact Score® of zero or higher. The Inspire Impact Score® is a proprietary selection methodology that is designed to assign a score to a particular security based on the security’s alignment with biblical values and the positive impact that the issuing company has on its customers, communities, workplace and the world.

 

The Inspire Impact Score® methodology removes from the investment universe the securities of any company that has any degree of participation in the following activities or products that do not align with biblical values, which removes them from the eligible investment universe of securities of potential Fund investments. A score of zero is assigned to companies where no information is available about their participation in the following activities or products:

 

Abortifacients – Company produces abortifacient drugs. This category includes all pharmaceuticals used to terminate a pregnancy anytime from the moment of conception onward, including those labeled as “contraceptives” but which may cause a fertilized egg to be destroyed.

 

Abortion Philanthropy – Corporate guided philanthropy to organizations that advocate for or provide abortions (excludes employee matching programs.)

 

Abortion Legislation – Corporate sponsored political, legal or other activism that advocates for or provides abortions.

 

Abortion Procedures – Company offers abortion procedures as a service.

 

Alcohol – Company produces or specifically distributes alcoholic beverages.

 

Cannabis Retail THC – Company produces or distributes retail cannabis products containing THC, which is the psychoactive component of cannabis.

 

Cannabis Cultivation/Processing – Company cultivates or processes cannabis for retail or wholesale distribution.

 

Embryonic Stem Cell Research – Company is engaged directly or indirectly in embryonic stem cell research. This category includes companies which perform research on or produce products using embryonic stem cells, companies which provide embryonic stem cells to other entities and companies which utilize propagated stem cell lines which originally derived from embryonic stem cells.

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Gambling – Company generates revenue from gambling. This category includes the operation of casinos or other gambling facilities, as well as manufacturing gambling machinery and or other gambling specific equipment.

 

Human Rights – Company has exploitative labor practices, working conditions or partnerships with exploitative supply partners, including unjust governmental entities and regimes.

 

In Vitro Fertilization – Company offers In Vitro Fertilization services or manufacture equipment to aid in procedures.

 

LGBT Legislation – Corporate sponsored legal, political or other activism that advocates for the promotion and acceptance of the LGBT lifestyle.

 

LGBT Philanthropy – Corporate guided philanthropy to organizations that advocate for the promotion and acceptance of the LGBT lifestyle (excludes employee match programs).

 

LGBT Promotion – Company provides products or services designed specifically for the promotion and acceptance of the LGBT lifestyle, or otherwise uses corporate influence for the promotion and acceptance of the LGBT lifestyle.

 

Pornography – Company produces or distributes pornography. This category includes all media types, such as film, print and online. Also included are companies that produce AO (Adult Only) rated video games which contain pornographic content.

 

State Owned Enterprise – Company is owned and controlled by a Nation State or government that is a known human rights violator, including situations where the State has veto power, or a “golden share” is owned by the State or State controlled agency.

 

Tobacco – Company derives revenue from growing, manufacturing or distributing tobacco products.

 

The methodology then assigns a positive score based on the company’s track record of acting in alignment with biblical values across the following categories:

 

Access & Affordability: The category addresses a company’s ability to ensure broad access to its products and services, specifically in the context of underserved markets and/or population groups. It includes the management of issues related to universal needs, such as the accessibility and affordability of health care, financial services, utilities, education, and telecommunications.

 

Air Quality: The category addresses the management of air quality impacts resulting from stationary (e.g., factories, power plants) and mobile sources (e.g., trucks, delivery vehicles, planes) as well as industrial emissions. Relevant airborne pollutants include, but are not limited to, oxides of nitrogen (NOx), oxides of sulfur (SOx), volatile organic compounds (VOCs), heavy metals, particulate matter, and chlorofluorocarbons. The category does not include GHG emissions, which are addressed in a separate category.

 

Business Ethics: The category addresses the company’s approach to managing risks and opportunities surrounding ethical conduct of business, including fraud, corruption, bribery and facilitation payments, fiduciary responsibilities, and other behavior that may have an ethical component. This includes sensitivity to business norms and standards as they shift over time, jurisdiction, and culture without compromising biblical values. It addresses the company’s ability to provide services that satisfy the highest professional and ethical standards of the industry, which means to avoid conflicts of interest, misrepresentation, bias, and negligence through training employees adequately and implementing policies and procedures to ensure employees provide services free from bias and error.

 

Business Model Resilience: The category addresses an industry’s capacity to manage risks and opportunities associated with incorporating social, environmental, and political transitions into long-term business model planning without compromising biblical values. This includes responsiveness to the transition to a low-carbon and climate-constrained economy, as well as growth and creation of new markets among unserved and underserved socio-economic populations. The category highlights industries in which evolving environmental and social realities may challenge companies to fundamentally adapt or may put their business models at risk.

 

Competitive Behavior: The category covers social issues associated with existence of monopolies, which may include, but are not limited to, excessive prices, poor quality of service, and inefficiencies. It addresses a company’s management of legal and social expectation around monopolistic and anti-competitive practices, including issues related to bargaining power, collusion, price fixing or manipulation, and protection of patents and intellectual property (IP).

 

Critical Incident Risk Management: The category addresses the company’s use of management systems and scenario planning to identify, understand, and prevent or minimize the occurrence of low-probability, high-impact accidents and emergencies with significant potential environmental and social externalities. It relates to the culture of safety at a company, its relevant safety management systems and technological controls, the potential human, environmental, and social implications of such events occurring, and the long-term effects to an organization, its workers, and society should these events occur.

 

Customer Privacy: The category addresses management of risks related to the use of personally identifiable information (PII) and other customer or user data for secondary purposes including but not limited to marketing through affiliates and non-affiliates. The scope of the category includes social issues that may arise from a company’s approach to collecting data, obtaining consent (e.g., opt-in policies), managing user and customer expectations regarding how their data is used, and managing evolving regulation. It excludes social issues arising from cybersecurity risks, which are covered in a separate category.

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Customer Welfare: The category addresses customer welfare concerns over issues including, but not limited to, health and nutrition of foods and beverages, antibiotic use in animal production, and management of controlled substances. The category addresses the company’s ability to provide consumers with manufactured products and services that are aligned with societal expectations. It does not include issues directly related to quality and safety malfunctions of manufactured products and services, but instead addresses qualities inherent to the design and delivery of products and services where customer welfare may be in question. The scope of the category also captures companies’ ability to prevent counterfeit products.

 

Data Security: The category addresses management of risks related to collection, retention, and use of sensitive, confidential, and/or proprietary customer or user data. It includes social issues that may arise from incidents such as data breaches in which personally identifiable information (PII) and other user or customer data may be exposed. It addresses a company’s strategy, policies, and practices related to IT infrastructure, staff training, record keeping, cooperation with law enforcement, and other mechanisms used to ensure security of customer or user data.

 

Ecological Impacts: The category addresses management of the company’s impacts on ecosystems and biodiversity through activities including, but not limited to, land use for exploration, natural resource extraction, and cultivation, as well as project development, construction, and siting. The impacts include, but are not limited to, biodiversity loss, habitat destruction, and deforestation at all stages, planning, land acquisition, permitting, development, operations, and site remediation. The category does not cover impacts of climate change on ecosystems and biodiversity.

 

Employee Engagement, Diversity & Inclusion: The category addresses a company’s ability to ensure that its culture and hiring and promotion practices embrace the building of a diverse and inclusive workforce that reflects the makeup of local talent pools and its customer base in alignment with biblical values. It addresses the issues of discriminatory practices on the basis of race, gender, ethnicity, religion, and other factors.

 

Employee Health & Safety: The category addresses a company’s ability to create and maintain a safe and healthy workplace environment that is free of injuries, fatalities, and illness (both chronic and acute). It is traditionally accomplished through implementing safety management plans, developing training requirements for employees and contractors, and conducting regular audits of their own practices as well as those of their subcontractors. The category further captures how companies ensure physical and mental health of workforce through technology, training, corporate culture, regulatory compliance, monitoring and testing, and personal protective equipment.

 

Energy Management: The category addresses environmental impacts associated with energy consumption. It addresses the company’s management of energy in manufacturing and/or for provision of products and services derived from utility providers (grid energy) not owned or controlled by the company. More specifically, it includes management of energy efficiency and intensity, energy mix, as well as grid reliance. Upstream (e.g., suppliers) and downstream (e.g., product use) energy use is not included in the scope.

 

GHG Emissions: The category addresses direct (Scope 1) greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions that a company generates through its operations. This includes GHG emissions from stationary (e.g., factories, power plants) and mobile sources (e.g., trucks, delivery vehicles, planes), whether a result of combustion of fuel or non-combusted direct releases during activities such as natural resource extraction, power generation, land use, or biogenic processes. The category further includes management of regulatory risks, environmental compliance, and reputational risks and opportunities, as they related to direct GHG emissions. The seven GHGs covered under the Kyoto Protocol are included within the category’s carbon dioxide (CO2), methane (CH4), nitrous oxide (N2O), hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs), perfluorocarbons (PFCs), sulfur hexafluoride (SF6), and nitrogen trifluoride (NF3).

 

Human Rights & Community Relations: The category addresses management of the relationship between businesses and the communities in which they operate, including, but not limited to, management of direct and indirect impacts on core human rights and the treatment of indigenous peoples. More specifically, such management may cover socio-economic community impacts, community engagement, environmental justice, cultivation of local workforces, impact on local businesses, license to operate, and environmental/social impact assessments. The category does not include environmental impacts such as air pollution or waste which, although they may impact the health and safety of members of local communities, are addressed in separate categories.

 

Labor Practices: The category addresses the company’s ability to uphold commonly accepted labor standards in the workplace, including compliance with labor laws and internationally accepted norms and standards. This includes, but is not limited to, ensuring basic human rights related to child labor, forced or bonded labor, exploitative labor, fair wages and overtime pay, and other basic workers’ rights. It also includes minimum wage policies and provision of benefits, which may influence how a workforce is attracted, retained, and motivated. The category further addresses a company’s relationship with organized labor and freedom of association.

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Management of the Legal & Regulatory Environment: The category addresses a company’s approach to engaging with regulators in cases where conflicting corporate and public interests may have the potential for long-term adverse direct or indirect environmental and social impacts. The category addresses a company’s level of reliance upon regulatory policy or monetary incentives (such as subsidies and taxes), actions to influence industry policy (such as through lobbying), overall reliance on a favorable regulatory environment for business competitiveness, and ability to comply with relevant regulations. It may relate to the alignment of management and investor views of regulatory engagement and compliance at large.

 

Materials Sourcing & Efficiency: The category addresses issues related to the resilience of materials supply chains to impacts of climate change and other external environmental and social factors. It captures the impacts of such external factors on operational activity of suppliers, which can further affect availability and pricing of key resources. It addresses a company’s ability to manage these risks through product design, manufacturing, and end-of-life management, such as by using of recycled and renewable materials, reducing the use of key materials (dematerialization), maximizing resource efficiency in manufacturing, and making R&D investments in substitute materials. Additionally, companies can manage these issues by screening, selection, monitoring, and engagement with suppliers to ensure their resilience to external risks. It does not address issues associated with environmental and social externalities created by operational activity of individual suppliers, which is covered in a separate category.

 

Physical Impacts of Climate Change: The category addresses the company’s ability to manage risks and opportunities associated with direct exposure of its owned or controlled assets and operations to actual or potential physical impacts of climate change. It captures environmental and social issues that may arise from operational disruptions due to physical impacts of climate change. It further captures socio-economic issues resulting from companies failing to incorporate climate change consideration in products and services sold, such as insurance policies and mortgages. The category relates to the company’s ability to adapt to increased frequency and severity of extreme weather, shifting climate, sea level risk, and other expected physical impacts of climate change. Management may involve enhancing resiliency of physical assets and/or surrounding infrastructure as well as incorporation of climate change-related considerations into key business activities (e.g., mortgage and insurance underwriting, planning and development of real estate projects).

 

Product Design & Lifecycle Management: The category addresses incorporation of sustainability considerations in characteristics of products and services provided or sold by the company. It includes, but is not limited to, managing the lifecycle impacts of products and services, such as those related to packaging, distribution, use-phase resource intensity, and other environmental and social externalities that may occur during their use-phase or at the end of life. The category captures a company’s ability to address customer and societal demand for more sustainable products and services as well as to meet evolving environmental and social regulation. It does not address direct environmental or social impacts of the company’s operations nor does it address health and safety risks to consumers from product use, which are covered in other categories.

 

Product Quality & Safety: The category addresses issues involving unintended characteristics of products sold or services provided that may create health or safety risks to end-users. It addresses a company’s ability to offer manufactured products and/or services that meet customer expectations with respect to their health and safety characteristics. It includes, but is not limited to, issues involving liability, management of recalls and market withdrawals, product testing, and chemicals/content/ingredient management in products.

 

Selling Practices & Product Labeling: The category addresses social issues that may arise from a failure to manage the transparency, accuracy, and comprehensibility of marketing statements, advertising, and labeling of products and services. It includes, but is not limited to, advertising standards and regulations, ethical and responsible marketing practices, misleading or deceptive labeling, as well as discriminatory or predatory selling and lending practices. This may include deceptive or aggressive selling practices in which incentive structures for employees could encourage the sale of products or services that are not in the best interest of customers or clients.

 

Supply Chain Management: The category addresses management of sustainability risks within a company’s supply chain. It addresses issues associated with environmental and social externalities created by suppliers through their operational activities. Such issues include, but are not limited to, environmental responsibility, human rights, labor practices, and ethics and corruption. Management may involve screening, selection, monitoring, and engagement with suppliers on their environmental and social impacts. The category does not address the impacts of external factors, such as climate change and other environmental and social factors, on suppliers, operations and/or on the availability and pricing of key resources, which is covered in a separate category.

 

Systemic Risk Management: The category addresses the company’s contributions to or management of systemic risks resulting from large-scale weakening or collapse of systems upon which the economy and society depend. This includes financial systems, natural resource systems, and technological systems. It addresses the mechanisms a company has in place to reduce its contributions to systemic risks and to improve safeguards that may mitigate the impacts of systemic failure. For financial institutions, the category also captures the company’s ability to absorb shocks arising from financial and economic stress and meet stricter regulatory requirements related to the complexity and interconnectedness of companies in the industry.

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Waste & Hazardous Materials Management: The category addresses environmental issues associated with hazardous and non-hazardous waste generated by companies. It addresses a company’s management of solid wastes in manufacturing, agriculture, and other industrial processes. It covers treatment, handling, storage, disposal, and regulatory compliance. The category does not cover emissions to air or wastewater nor does it cover waste from end-of-life products, which are addressed in separate categories.

 

Water & Wastewater Management: The category addresses a company’s water use, water consumption, wastewater generation, and other impacts of operations on water resources, which may be influenced by regional differences in the availability and quality of and competition for water resources. More specifically, it addresses management strategies including, but not limited to, water efficiency, rate of consumption, and recycling. Lastly, the category also addresses management of wastewater treatment and discharge, including groundwater and aquifer pollution.

 

The Index Provider uses software that analyzes publicly available data relating to the primary business activities, products and services, philanthropy, legal activities, policies and practices when assigning Inspire Impact Scores® to a company. Two hundred fifty (250) bonds from the top 200 issuers with the highest Inspire Impact Scores® are included in the Corporate Bond Index and under normal circumstances are equally weighted across four maturity tranches of 0-3 years, 3-5 years, 5-7 years and 7-10 years, to arrive at an average maturity of approximately 5 years of all holdings. The Inspire Impact Scores® of the securities in the Corporate Bond Index are reviewed periodically (at least annually), and the Corporate Bond Index is rebalanced quarterly. If, upon review, the Inspire Impact Score® of a security falls below an acceptable level, the security is removed from the Corporate Bond Index and replaced with a higher scoring security.

 

Under normal market conditions, the Fund invests at least 80% of its assets (defined as net assets plus borrowing for investment purposes) in domestic corporate bonds. The Fund may concentrate its investments in a particular industry or group of industries to the extent that the Index concentrates in an industry or group of industries.

 

Principal Investment Risks: As with all funds, there is a risk that you could lose money through your investment in the Fund. Many factors affect the Fund’s net asset value and price of Shares and performance.

 

The following describes the risks the Fund bears with respect to its investments. As with any fund, there is no guarantee that the Fund will achieve its goal.

 

Asset Class Risk. Securities in the Corporate Bond Index or in the Fund’s portfolio may underperform in comparison to the general securities markets or other asset classes.

 

Authorized Participant Risk. Only an Authorized Participant Authorized Participant may engage in creation or redemption transactions directly with the Fund. The Fund has a limited number of institutions that may act as Authorized Participants on an agency basis (i.e., on behalf of other market participants). To the extent that Authorized Participants exit the business or are unable to proceed with creation or redemption orders with respect to the Fund and no other Authorized Participant is able to step forward to create or redeem Creation Units, Fund shares may be more likely to trade at a premium or discount to net asset value and possibly face trading halts or delisting. Authorized Participant concentration risk may be heightened for exchange-traded funds (“ETFs”) that invest in non-U.S. securities or other securities or instruments that have lower trading volumes.

 

Biblically Responsible Investment Risk. The Fund invests at least 80% of its assets in the component securities of the Index which uses the Inspire Impact Score® and related biblical values screening criteria in selecting its component securities. As a result of its strategy, the Index’s exclusion of securities of certain issuers for nonfinancial reasons may cause the Fund to forgo some market opportunities available to funds that do not use these criteria. This could be due to biblically responsible companies falling out of favor with investors or failing to perform as well as companies that do not receive a favorable Inspire Impact Score®.

 

Concentration Risk. The Fund may focus its investments in securities of a particular industry to the extent the Corporate Bond Index does. Economic, legislative or regulatory developments may occur that significantly affect the industry. This may cause the Fund’s net asset value to fluctuate more than that of a fund that does not focus in a particular industry.

 

Early Close/Trading Halt Risk. An exchange or market may close or impose a market trading halt or issue trading halts on specific securities, or the ability to buy or sell certain securities or financial instruments may be restricted, which may prevent the Fund from buying or selling certain securities or financial instruments. In these circumstances, the Fund may be unable to rebalance its portfolio, may be unable to accurately price its investments and may incur substantial trading losses.

 

ETF Structure Risks. The Fund is structured as an ETF and as a result is subject to the special risks, including:

 

Not Individually Redeemable. The Fund’s shares (“Shares”) are not redeemable by retail investors and may be redeemed only by the Authorized Participants at net asset value (“NAV”) only in Creation Units. A retail investor generally incurs brokerage costs when selling Shares.

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Trading Issues. Trading in Shares on the NYSE Arca (the “Exchange”) may be halted due to market conditions or for reasons that, in the view of the Exchange, make trading in Shares inadvisable, such as extraordinary market volatility. There can be no assurance that Shares will continue to meet the listing requirements of the Exchange, which may result in the trading of the Shares being suspended or the Shares being delisted. An active trading market for the Shares may not be developed or maintained. If the Shares are traded outside a collateralized settlement system, the number of financial institutions that can act as Authorized Participants that can post collateral on an agency basis is limited, which may limit the market for the Shares.

 

Market Price Variance Risk. The market prices of Shares will fluctuate in response to changes in NAV and supply and demand for Shares and will include a “bid-ask spread” charged by the exchange specialists, market makers or other participants that trade the particular security. There may be times when the market price and the NAV vary significantly. This means that Shares may trade at a discount to NAV.

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o In times of market stress, market makers may step away from their role market making in the Shares and in executing trades, which can lead to differences between the market value of the Shares and the Fund’s NAV.

 

o The market price of the Shares may deviate from the Fund’s NAV, particularly during times of market stress, with the result that investors may pay significantly more or significantly less the Shares than the Fund’s NAV, which is reflected in the bid and ask price for the Shares or in the closing price.

 

o When all or a portion of the Fund’s underlying securities trade in a market that is closed when the market for the Fund’s shares is open, there may be changes from the last quote of the closed market and the quote from the Fund’s domestic trading day, which could lead to differences between the market value of the Shares and the Fund’s NAV.

 

o In stressed market conditions, the market for the Shares may become less liquid in response to the deteriorating liquidity of the Fund’s portfolio. This adverse effect on the liquidity of the Shares may, in turn, lead to differences between the market value of the Shares and the Fund’s NAV.

 

Fixed Income Risk. When the Fund invests in fixed income securities, the value of your investment in the Fund will fluctuate with changes in interest rates. Typically, a rise in interest rates causes a decline in the value of fixed income securities owned by the Fund. In general, the market price of fixed income securities with longer maturities will increase or decrease more in response to changes in interest rates than shorter-term securities. Other risk factors include credit risk (the debtor may default), extension risk (an issuer may exercise its right to repay principal on a fixed rate obligation held by the Fund later than expected), and prepayment risk (the debtor may pay its obligation early, reducing the amount of interest payments). These risks could affect the value of a particular investment by the Fund, possibly causing the Fund’s share price and total return to be reduced and fluctuate more than other types of investments.

 

Market and Geopolitical Risk. The increasing interconnectivity between global economies and financial markets increases the likelihood that events or conditions in one region or financial market may adversely impact issuers in a different country, region or financial market. Securities in the Fund’s portfolio may underperform due to inflation (or expectations for inflation), interest rates, global demand for particular products or resources, natural disasters, climate-change and climate-related events, pandemics, epidemics, terrorism, regulatory events and governmental or quasi-governmental actions. The occurrence of global events similar to those in recent years may result in market volatility and may have long term effects on both the U.S. and global financial markets. The current novel coronavirus (COVID-19) global pandemic and the aggressive responses taken by many governments, including closing borders, restricting international and domestic travel, and the imposition of prolonged quarantines or similar restrictions, as well as the forced or voluntary closure of, or operational changes to, many retail and other businesses, has had negative impacts, and in many cases severe negative impacts, on markets worldwide. It is not known how long such impacts, or any future impacts of other significant events described above, will or would last, but there could be a prolonged period of global economic slowdown, which may impact your Fund investment.

 

Passive Investment Risk. The Fund is not actively managed and the adviser will not sell shares of an equity security due to current or projected underperformance of a security, industry or sector, unless that security is removed from the Corporate Bond Index or the selling of shares of that security is otherwise required upon a rebalancing of the Corporate Bond Index as addressed in the Index methodology.

 

Sampling Risk. The Fund’s use of a representative sampling approach, if used, could result in its holding a smaller number of securities than are in the Corporate Bond Index. As a result, an adverse development with an issuer of securities held by the Fund could result in a greater decline in NAV than would be the case if the Fund held all of the securities in the Corporate Bond Index. To the extent the assets in the Fund are smaller, these risks will be greater.

 

Tracking Error Risk. Tracking error is the divergence of the Fund’s performance from that of the Corporate Bond Index. Tracking error may occur because of imperfect correlation between the Fund’s holdings of portfolio securities and those in the Corporate Bond Index, pricing differences, the Fund’s holding of cash, differences on timing of the accrual of dividends, changes to the Index or the need to meet various regulatory requirements. This risk may be heightened during times of increased market volatility or other unusual market conditions. Tracking error also may result because the Fund incurs fees and expenses, while the Corporate Bond Index does not.

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Performance: The bar chart and performance table below show the variability of the Fund’s returns, which is some indication of the risks of investing in the Fund by showing changes in the Fund’s performance from year to year and by showing the Fund’s one-year and since inception performance compared with those of a broad measure of market performance. The bar chart shows performance of the Fund’s shares for each calendar year since the Fund’s inception. The performance table compares the performance of the Fund over time to the performance of a broad-based securities market index. You should be aware that the Fund’s past performance (before and after taxes) is not necessarily an indication of how the Fund will perform in the future. Updated performance information is available at no cost by visiting www.inspireetf.com or by calling 877.658.9473.

 

Performance Bar Chart For Calendar Year Ended December 31

 

(BAR CHAT)

 

Best Quarter: 2nd Quarter 2020 8.29%
Worst Quarter: 1st Quarter 2020 (4.97)%
     

Performance Table
Average Annual Total Returns
(For periods ended December 31, 2021)

 

  One Year Since
Inception
(7/10/17)
Return before taxes (1.74)% 2.64%
Return after taxes on distributions (2.24)% 1.84%
Return after taxes on distributions and sale of Fund shares (0.99)% 1.68%
Inspire Corporate Bond Impact Equal Weight Index (1.24)% 4.36%
Bloomberg U.S. Intermediate Credit Total Return Index* (1.03)% 3.65%

 

* The Bloomberg U.S. Intermediate Credit Total Return Index (LUICTRUU) measures the investment grade, fixed-rate, taxable corporate bond market whose maturity ranges between 1 to 9.9999 years. It includes USD denominated securities publicly issued by US and non-US industrial, utility and financial issuers. Investors cannot invest directly in an index.

 

After-tax returns are calculated using the historical highest individual federal marginal income tax rates and do not reflect the impact of state and local taxes. Actual after-tax returns depend on an investor’s tax situation and may differ from those shown, and after-tax returns shown are not relevant to investors who hold their Shares through tax-deferred arrangements, such as 401(k) plans or individual retirement accounts.

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Investment Adviser: Inspire Investing, LLC.

 

Portfolio Managers: Darrell Jayroe, CFA®, Chief Investment Officer and Portfolio Manager, and Robert Netzly, Chief Executive Officer of the Adviser, have each served the Fund as a portfolio manager since it commenced operations in February 2017. Tim Schwarzenberger, CFA®, has served the Fund as a portfolio manager since March 2022.

 

Purchase and Sale of Fund Shares: Individual Shares of the Fund may be purchased and sold in secondary market transactions through a broker dealer or at market price. Shares are listed for trading on the Exchange and trade at market prices rather than NAV. Shares may trade at a price that is greater than, at, or less than NAV. An investor may incur costs attributable to the difference between the highest price a buyer is willing to pay to purchase Shares (bid) and the lowest price a seller is willing to accept for Shares (ask) when buying or selling Shares on the secondary market (the “bid-ask spread”). Information, including information on the Fund’s NAV, market price, premiums and discounts, and bid-ask spreads, is available online at www.inspireetf.com

 

Tax Information: The Fund’s distributions generally will be taxable as ordinary income or long-term capital gains. A sale of Shares may result in capital gain or loss.

 

Payments to Broker-Dealers and Other Financial Intermediaries: If you purchase the Fund through a broker-dealer or other financial intermediary (such as a bank), the Fund and its related companies may pay the intermediary for marketing activities or other services related to the sale or promotion of the Fund. These payments may create a conflict of interest by influencing the broker-dealer or other intermediary and your salesperson to recommend the Fund over another investment. Ask your salesperson or visit your financial intermediary’s website for more information.

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FUND SUMMARY - Inspire 100 ETF
(formerly, Inspire 100 ESG ETF)
 

Investment Objective: The Inspire 100 ETF (the “Fund”) seeks to replicate investment results that generally correspond, before fees and expenses, to the performance of the Inspire 100 Index (the “100 Index”).

 

Fees and Expenses of the Fund: This table describes the fees and expenses that you may pay if you buy, hold and sell shares of the Fund. You may pay other fees, such as brokerage commissions and other fees to financial intermediaries, which are not reflected in the table and example below.

 

Annual Fund Operating Expenses
(expenses that you pay each year
as a percentage of the value of your investment)
 
Management Fees 0.30%
Distribution and Service (12b-1) Fees None
Other Expenses 0.12%
Total Annual Fund Operating Expenses 0.42%
Fee Waiver and/or Expense Reimbursement(1) (0.07%)
Total Annual Fund Operating Expenses
After Fee Waiver and/or Expense Reimbursement
0.35%

 

 

(1) The Fund’s adviser has contractually agreed to reduce its fees and/or absorb expenses of the Fund, until at least March 31, 2023, to ensure that total annual fund operating expenses after fee waiver and/or reimbursement (exclusive of any front-end or contingent deferred loads, taxes, brokerage fees and commissions, borrowing costs (such as interest and dividend expense on securities sold short), acquired fund fees and expenses, fees and expenses associated with investments in other collective investment vehicles or derivative instruments (including for example option and swap fees and expenses), or extraordinary expenses such as litigation) will not exceed 0.35% of average daily net assets. This fee waiver and expense reimbursement is subject to possible recoupment from the Fund if such recoupment does not cause the Fund’s expense ratio (after the repayment is taken into account) to exceed both: (i) the Fund’s expense cap in place at the time such expenses were waived, and (ii) the Fund’s current expense cap at the time of recoupment. This agreement may be terminated only by the Board of Trustees on 60 days’ written notice to the Fund’s adviser.

 

Example: This Example is intended to help you compare the cost of investing in the Fund with the cost of investing in other mutual funds.

 

The Example assumes that you invest $10,000 in the Fund for the time periods indicated and then redeem all of your shares at the end of those periods. The Example also assumes that your investment has a 5% return each year and that the Fund’s operating expenses remain the same. Although your actual costs may be higher or lower, based upon these assumptions your costs would be:

 

1 Year 3 Years 5 Years 10 Years
$36 $128 $228 $523
       

Portfolio Turnover: The Fund pays transaction costs, such as commissions, when it buys and sells securities (or “turns over” its portfolio). A higher portfolio turnover rate may indicate higher transaction costs and may result in higher taxes when Fund shares are held in a taxable account. These costs, which are not reflected in annual fund operating expenses or in the Example, affect the Fund’s performance. During the fiscal year ended November 30, 2020, the Fund’s portfolio turnover rate was 100% of the average value of its portfolio.

 

Principal Investment Strategies: The Fund generally invests at least 80% of its total assets in the component securities of the 100 Index. Inspire Investing, LLC (the “Adviser” or “Index Provider”), the Fund’s index provider (and also the Fund’s investment adviser) selects domestic large capitalization equity securities (capitalizations of $20 billion or more) using the index provider’s Inspire Impact Score®, a proprietary selection methodology that is designed to assign a score to a particular security based on the security’s alignment with biblical values and the positive impact that company has on its customers, communities, workplace and the world.

 

The Inspire Impact Score® methodology removes from the investment universe the securities of any company that has any degree of participation in the following activities or products that do not align with biblical values, which removes them from the eligible investment universe of securities of potential Fund investments. A score of zero is assigned to companies where no information is available about their participation in the following activities or products:

 

Abortifacients – Company produces abortifacient drugs. This category includes all pharmaceuticals used to terminate a pregnancy anytime from the moment of conception onward, including those labeled as “contraceptives” but which may cause a fertilized egg to be destroyed.

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Abortion Philanthropy – Corporate guided philanthropy to organizations that advocate for or provide abortions (excludes employee matching programs.)

 

Abortion Legislation – Corporate sponsored political, legal or other activism that advocates for or provides abortions.

 

Abortion Procedures – Company offers abortion procedures as a service.

 

Alcohol – Company produces or specifically distributes alcoholic beverages.

 

Cannabis Retail THC – Company produces or distributes retail cannabis products containing THC, which is the psychoactive component of cannabis.

 

Cannabis Cultivation/Processing – Company cultivates or processes cannabis for retail or wholesale distribution.

 

Gambling – Company generates revenue from gambling. This category includes the operation of casinos or other gambling facilities, as well as manufacturing gambling machinery and or other gambling specific equipment.

 

Embryonic Stem Cell Research – Company is engaged directly or indirectly in embryonic stem cell research. This category includes companies which perform research on or produce products using embryonic stem cells, companies which provide embryonic stem cells to other entities and companies which utilize propagated stem cell lines which originally derived from embryonic stem cells.

 

Human Rights – Company has exploitative labor practices, working conditions or partnerships with exploitative supply partners, including unjust governmental entities and regimes.

 

In Vitro Fertilization – Company offers In Vitro Fertilization services or manufacture equipment to aid in procedures.

 

LGBT Legislation – Corporate sponsored legal, political or other activism that advocates for the promotion and acceptance of the LGBT lifestyle.

 

LGBT Philanthropy – Corporate guided philanthropy to organizations that advocate for the promotion and acceptance of the LGBT lifestyle (excludes employee match programs).

 

LGBT Promotion – Company provides products or services designed specifically for the promotion and acceptance of the LGBT lifestyle, or otherwise uses corporate influence for the promotion and acceptance of the LGBT lifestyle.

 

Pornography – Company produces or distributes pornography. This category includes all media types, such as film, print and online. Also included are companies that produce AO (Adult Only) rated video games which contain pornographic content.

 

State Owned Enterprise – Company is owned and controlled by a Nation State or government that is a known human rights violator, including situations where the State has veto power, or a “golden share” is owned by the State or State controlled agency.

 

Tobacco – Company derives revenue from growing, manufacturing or distributing tobacco products.

 

The methodology then assigns a positive score based on the company’s track record of acting in alignment with biblical values across the following categories:

 

Access & Affordability: The category addresses a company’s ability to ensure broad access to its products and services, specifically in the context of underserved markets and/or population groups. It includes the management of issues related to universal needs, such as the accessibility and affordability of health care, financial services, utilities, education, and telecommunications.

 

Air Quality: The category addresses the management of air quality impacts resulting from stationary (e.g., factories, power plants) and mobile sources (e.g., trucks, delivery vehicles, planes) as well as industrial emissions. Relevant airborne pollutants include, but are not limited to, oxides of nitrogen (NOx), oxides of sulfur (SOx), volatile organic compounds (VOCs), heavy metals, particulate matter, and chlorofluorocarbons. The category does not include GHG emissions, which are addressed in a separate category.

 

Business Ethics: The category addresses the company’s approach to managing risks and opportunities surrounding ethical conduct of business, including fraud, corruption, bribery and facilitation payments, fiduciary responsibilities, and other behavior that may have an ethical component. This includes sensitivity to business norms and standards as they shift over time, jurisdiction, and culture without compromising biblical values. It addresses the company’s ability to provide services that satisfy the highest professional and ethical standards of the industry, which means to avoid conflicts of interest, misrepresentation, bias, and negligence through training employees adequately and implementing policies and procedures to ensure employees provide services free from bias and error.

 

Business Model Resilience: The category addresses an industry’s capacity to manage risks and opportunities associated with incorporating social, environmental, and political transitions into long-term business model planning without compromising biblical values. This includes responsiveness to the transition to a low-carbon and climate-constrained economy, as well as growth and creation of new markets among unserved and underserved socio-economic populations. The category highlights industries in which evolving environmental and social realities may challenge companies to fundamentally adapt or may put their business models at risk.

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Competitive Behavior: The category covers social issues associated with existence of monopolies, which may include, but are not limited to, excessive prices, poor quality of service, and inefficiencies. It addresses a company’s management of legal and social expectation around monopolistic and anti-competitive practices, including issues related to bargaining power, collusion, price fixing or manipulation, and protection of patents and intellectual property (IP).

 

Critical Incident Risk Management: The category addresses the company’s use of management systems and scenario planning to identify, understand, and prevent or minimize the occurrence of low-probability, high-impact accidents and emergencies with significant potential environmental and social externalities. It relates to the culture of safety at a company, its relevant safety management systems and technological controls, the potential human, environmental, and social implications of such events occurring, and the long-term effects to an organization, its workers, and society should these events occur.

 

Customer Privacy: The category addresses management of risks related to the use of personally identifiable information (PII) and other customer or user data for secondary purposes including but not limited to marketing through affiliates and non-affiliates. The scope of the category includes social issues that may arise from a company’s approach to collecting data, obtaining consent (e.g., opt-in policies), managing user and customer expectations regarding how their data is used, and managing evolving regulation. It excludes social issues arising from cybersecurity risks, which are covered in a separate category.

 

Customer Welfare: The category addresses customer welfare concerns over issues including, but not limited to, health and nutrition of foods and beverages, antibiotic use in animal production, and management of controlled substances. The category addresses the company’s ability to provide consumers with manufactured products and services that are aligned with societal expectations. It does not include issues directly related to quality and safety malfunctions of manufactured products and services, but instead addresses qualities inherent to the design and delivery of products and services where customer welfare may be in question. The scope of the category also captures companies’ ability to prevent counterfeit products.

 

Data Security: The category addresses management of risks related to collection, retention, and use of sensitive, confidential, and/or proprietary customer or user data. It includes social issues that may arise from incidents such as data breaches in which personally identifiable information (PII) and other user or customer data may be exposed. It addresses a company’s strategy, policies, and practices related to IT infrastructure, staff training, record keeping, cooperation with law enforcement, and other mechanisms used to ensure security of customer or user data.

 

Ecological Impacts: The category addresses management of the company’s impacts on ecosystems and biodiversity through activities including, but not limited to, land use for exploration, natural resource extraction, and cultivation, as well as project development, construction, and siting. The impacts include, but are not limited to, biodiversity loss, habitat destruction, and deforestation at all stages, planning, land acquisition, permitting, development, operations, and site remediation. The category does not cover impacts of climate change on ecosystems and biodiversity.

 

Employee Engagement, Diversity & Inclusion: The category addresses a company’s ability to ensure that its culture and hiring and promotion practices embrace the building of a diverse and inclusive workforce that reflects the makeup of local talent pools and its customer base in alignment with biblical values. It addresses the issues of discriminatory practices on the basis of race, gender, ethnicity, religion, and other factors.

 

Employee Health & Safety: The category addresses a company’s ability to create and maintain a safe and healthy workplace environment that is free of injuries, fatalities, and illness (both chronic and acute). It is traditionally accomplished through implementing safety management plans, developing training requirements for employees and contractors, and conducting regular audits of their own practices as well as those of their subcontractors. The category further captures how companies ensure physical and mental health of workforce through technology, training, corporate culture, regulatory compliance, monitoring and testing, and personal protective equipment.

 

Energy Management: The category addresses environmental impacts associated with energy consumption. It addresses the company’s management of energy in manufacturing and/or for provision of products and services derived from utility providers (grid energy) not owned or controlled by the company. More specifically, it includes management of energy efficiency and intensity, energy mix, as well as grid reliance. Upstream (e.g., suppliers) and downstream (e.g., product use) energy use is not included in the scope.

 

GHG Emissions: The category addresses direct (Scope 1) greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions that a company generates through its operations. This includes GHG emissions from stationary (e.g., factories, power plants) and mobile sources (e.g., trucks, delivery vehicles, planes), whether a result of combustion of fuel or non-combusted direct releases during activities such as natural resource extraction, power generation, land use, or biogenic processes. The category further includes management of regulatory risks, environmental compliance, and reputational risks and opportunities, as they related to direct GHG emissions. The seven GHGs covered under the Kyoto Protocol are included within the category’s carbon dioxide (CO2), methane (CH4), nitrous oxide (N2O), hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs), perfluorocarbons (PFCs), sulfur hexafluoride (SF6), and nitrogen trifluoride (NF3).

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Human Rights & Community Relations: The category addresses management of the relationship between businesses and the communities in which they operate, including, but not limited to, management of direct and indirect impacts on core human rights and the treatment of indigenous peoples. More specifically, such management may cover socio-economic community impacts, community engagement, environmental justice, cultivation of local workforces, impact on local businesses, license to operate, and environmental/social impact assessments. The category does not include environmental impacts such as air pollution or waste which, although they may impact the health and safety of members of local communities, are addressed in separate categories.

 

Labor Practices: The category addresses the company’s ability to uphold commonly accepted labor standards in the workplace, including compliance with labor laws and internationally accepted norms and standards. This includes, but is not limited to, ensuring basic human rights related to child labor, forced or bonded labor, exploitative labor, fair wages and overtime pay, and other basic workers’ rights. It also includes minimum wage policies and provision of benefits, which may influence how a workforce is attracted, retained, and motivated. The category further addresses a company’s relationship with organized labor and freedom of association.

 

Management of the Legal & Regulatory Environment: The category addresses a company’s approach to engaging with regulators in cases where conflicting corporate and public interests may have the potential for long-term adverse direct or indirect environmental and social impacts. The category addresses a company’s level of reliance upon regulatory policy or monetary incentives (such as subsidies and taxes), actions to influence industry policy (such as through lobbying), overall reliance on a favorable regulatory environment for business competitiveness, and ability to comply with relevant regulations. It may relate to the alignment of management and investor views of regulatory engagement and compliance at large.

 

Materials Sourcing & Efficiency: The category addresses issues related to the resilience of materials supply chains to impacts of climate change and other external environmental and social factors. It captures the impacts of such external factors on operational activity of suppliers, which can further affect availability and pricing of key resources. It addresses a company’s ability to manage these risks through product design, manufacturing, and end-of-life management, such as by using of recycled and renewable materials, reducing the use of key materials (dematerialization), maximizing resource efficiency in manufacturing, and making R&D investments in substitute materials. Additionally, companies can manage these issues by screening, selection, monitoring, and engagement with suppliers to ensure their resilience to external risks. It does not address issues associated with environmental and social externalities created by operational activity of individual suppliers, which is covered in a separate category.

 

Physical Impacts of Climate Change: The category addresses the company’s ability to manage risks and opportunities associated with direct exposure of its owned or controlled assets and operations to actual or potential physical impacts of climate change. It captures environmental and social issues that may arise from operational disruptions due to physical impacts of climate change. It further captures socio-economic issues resulting from companies failing to incorporate climate change consideration in products and services sold, such as insurance policies and mortgages. The category relates to the company’s ability to adapt to increased frequency and severity of extreme weather, shifting climate, sea level risk, and other expected physical impacts of climate change. Management may involve enhancing resiliency of physical assets and/or surrounding infrastructure as well as incorporation of climate change-related considerations into key business activities (e.g., mortgage and insurance underwriting, planning and development of real estate projects).

 

Product Design & Lifecycle Management: The category addresses incorporation of sustainability considerations in characteristics of products and services provided or sold by the company. It includes, but is not limited to, managing the lifecycle impacts of products and services, such as those related to packaging, distribution, use-phase resource intensity, and other environmental and social externalities that may occur during their use-phase or at the end of life. The category captures a company’s ability to address customer and societal demand for more sustainable products and services as well as to meet evolving environmental and social regulation. It does not address direct environmental or social impacts of the company’s operations nor does it address health and safety risks to consumers from product use, which are covered in other categories.

 

Product Quality & Safety: The category addresses issues involving unintended characteristics of products sold or services provided that may create health or safety risks to end-users. It addresses a company’s ability to offer manufactured products and/or services that meet customer expectations with respect to their health and safety characteristics. It includes, but is not limited to, issues involving liability, management of recalls and market withdrawals, product testing, and chemicals/content/ingredient management in products.

 

Selling Practices & Product Labeling: The category addresses social issues that may arise from a failure to manage the transparency, accuracy, and comprehensibility of marketing statements, advertising, and labeling of products and services. It includes, but is not limited to, advertising standards and regulations, ethical and responsible marketing practices, misleading or deceptive labeling, as well as discriminatory or predatory selling and lending practices. This may include deceptive or aggressive selling practices in which incentive structures for employees could encourage the sale of products or services that are not in the best interest of customers or clients.

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Supply Chain Management: The category addresses management of sustainability risks within a company’s supply chain. It addresses issues associated with environmental and social externalities created by suppliers through their operational activities. Such issues include, but are not limited to, environmental responsibility, human rights, labor practices, and ethics and corruption. Management may involve screening, selection, monitoring, and engagement with suppliers on their environmental and social impacts. The category does not address the impacts of external factors, such as climate change and other environmental and social factors, on suppliers, operations and/or on the availability and pricing of key resources, which is covered in a separate category.

 

Systemic Risk Management: The category addresses the company’s contributions to or management of systemic risks resulting from large-scale weakening or collapse of systems upon which the economy and society depend. This includes financial systems, natural resource systems, and technological systems. It addresses the mechanisms a company has in place to reduce its contributions to systemic risks and to improve safeguards that may mitigate the impacts of systemic failure. For financial institutions, the category also captures the company’s ability to absorb shocks arising from financial and economic stress and meet stricter regulatory requirements related to the complexity and interconnectedness of companies in the industry.

 

Waste & Hazardous Materials Management: The category addresses environmental issues associated with hazardous and non-hazardous waste generated by companies. It addresses a company’s management of solid wastes in manufacturing, agriculture, and other industrial processes. It covers treatment, handling, storage, disposal, and regulatory compliance. The category does not cover emissions to air or wastewater nor does it cover waste from end-of-life products, which are addressed in separate categories.

 

Water & Wastewater Management: The category addresses a company’s water use, water consumption, wastewater generation, and other impacts of operations on water resources, which may be influenced by regional differences in the availability and quality of and competition for water resources. More specifically, it addresses management strategies including, but not limited to, water efficiency, rate of consumption, and recycling. Lastly, the category also addresses management of wastewater treatment and discharge, including groundwater and aquifer pollution.

 

The Index Provider uses software that analyzes publicly available data relating to the primary business activities, products and services, philanthropy, legal activities, policies and practices when assigning Inspire Impact Scores® to a company. The 100 securities with the highest Inspire Impact Scores® are included in the 100 Index and are market capitalization weighted. The Inspire Impact Scores® of the securities in the Index are reviewed semi-annually for activities that would cause it to be removed from the investment universe due to participation in the activities described above that do not align with biblical values, and the 100 Index is rebalanced annually. If, upon review, the Inspire Impact Score® of a security falls below the threshold level for inclusion in the Index, the security is removed from the Index and replaced with a higher scoring security.

 

The Adviser may use a representative sampling indexing strategy in an attempt to track the 100 Index. “Representative sampling” is an indexing strategy that involves investing in a representative sample of securities that collectively has an investment profile similar to that of an applicable underlying index. The securities selected are expected to have, in the aggregate, investment characteristics, fundamental characteristics and liquidity measures similar to those of an underlying index. The Fund may or may not hold all of the securities in the 100 Index.

 

The Fund may concentrate its investments in a particular industry or group of industries to the extent that the 100 Index concentrates in an industry or group of industries.

 

Principal Investment Risks: As with all funds, there is a risk that you could lose money through your investment in the Fund. Many factors affect the Fund’s net asset value and price of shares and performance.

 

The following describes the risks the Fund bears with respect to its investments. As with any fund, there is no guarantee that the Fund will achieve its goal.

 

Asset Class Risk. Securities in the 100 Index or in the Fund’s portfolio may underperform in comparison to the general securities markets or other asset classes.

 

Authorized Participant Risk. Only an Authorized Participant may engage in creation or redemption transactions directly with the Fund. The Fund has a limited number of institutions that may act as Authorized Participants on an agency basis (i.e., on behalf of other market participants). To the extent that Authorized Participants exit the business or are unable to proceed with creation or redemption orders with respect to the Fund and no other Authorized Participant is able to step forward to create or redeem Creation Units, Fund shares may be more likely to trade at a premium or discount to net asset value and possibly face trading halts or delisting. Authorized Participant concentration risk may be heightened for exchange-traded funds (“ETFs”) that invest in non-U.S. securities or other securities or instruments that have lower trading volumes.

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Biblically Responsible Investment Risk. The Fund invests at least 80% of its assets in the component securities of the Index which uses the Inspire Impact Score® and related biblical values screening criteria in selecting its component securities. As a result of its strategy, the Index’s exclusion of securities of certain issuers for nonfinancial reasons may cause the Fund to forgo some market opportunities available to funds that do not use these criteria. This could be due to biblically responsible companies falling out of favor with investors or failing to perform as well as companies that do not receive a favorable Inspire Impact Score®.

 

Concentration Risk. The Fund may focus its investments in securities of a particular industry to the extent the Index does. Economic, legislative or regulatory developments may occur that significantly affect the industry. This may cause the Fund’s net asset value to fluctuate more than that of a fund that does not focus in a particular industry.

 

Early Close/Trading Halt Risk. An exchange or market may close or impose a market trading halt or issue trading halts on specific securities, or the ability to buy or sell certain securities or financial instruments may be restricted, which may prevent the Fund from buying or selling certain securities or financial instruments. In these circumstances, the Fund may be unable to rebalance its portfolio, may be unable to accurately price its investments and may incur substantial trading losses.

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Equity Securities Risk. Fluctuations in the value of equity securities held by the Fund will cause the net asset value (“NAV”) of the Fund to fluctuate.

 

Common Stock Risks. Common stock of an issuer in the Fund’s portfolio may decline in price if the issuer fails to make anticipated dividend payments. Common stock will be subject to greater dividend risk than preferred stocks or debt instruments of the same issuer. In addition, common stocks have experienced significantly more volatility in returns than other asset classes.

 

Preferred Stock Risks. Generally, preferred stockholders (such as the Fund) have no voting rights with respect to the issuing company unless certain events occur. In addition, preferred stock will be subject to greater credit risk than debt instruments of an issuer, and could be subject to interest rate risk like fixed income securities, as described below. An issuer’s board of directors is generally not under any obligation to pay a dividend (even if dividends have accrued), and may suspend payment of dividends on preferred stock at any time. There is also a risk that the issuer of any of the Fund’s holdings will default and fail to make scheduled dividend payments on the preferred stock held by the Fund).

 

ETF Structure Risks. The Fund is structured as an ETF and as a result is subject to the special risks, including:

 

Not Individually Redeemable. The Fund’s shares (“Shares”) are not redeemable by retail investors and may be redeemed only by the Authorized Participants at NAV and only in Creation Units. A retail investor generally incurs brokerage costs when selling Shares.

 

Trading Issues. Trading in Fund shares on the NYSE Arca (the “Exchange”) may be halted due to market conditions or for reasons that, in the view of the Exchange, make trading in Shares inadvisable, such as extraordinary market volatility. There can be no assurance that Shares will continue to meet the listing requirements of the Exchange, which may result in the trading of the Shares being suspended or the Shares being delisted. An active trading market for the Shares may not be developed or maintained. If the Shares are traded outside a collateralized settlement system, the number of financial institutions that can act as APs that can post collateral on an agency basis is limited, which may limit the market for the Shares.

 

Market Price Variance Risk. The market prices of Shares will fluctuate in response to changes in NAV and supply and demand for Shares and will include a “bid-ask spread” charged by the exchange specialists, market makers or other participants that trade the particular security. There may be times when the market price and the NAV vary significantly. This means that Shares may trade at a discount to NAV.

 

o In times of market stress, market makers may step away from their role market making in the Shares and in executing trades, which can lead to differences between the market value of the Shares and the Fund’s NAV.

 

o The market price of the Shares may deviate from the Fund’s NAV, particularly during times of market stress, with the result that investors may pay significantly more or significantly less the Shares than the Fund’s NAV, which is reflected in the bid and ask price for the Shares or in the closing price.

 

o When all or a portion of the Fund’s underlying securities trade in a market that is closed when the market for the Fund’s shares is open, there may be changes from the last quote of the closed market and the quote from the Fund’s domestic trading day, which could lead to differences between the market value of the Shares and the Fund’s NAV.

 

o In stressed market conditions, the market for the Shares may become less liquid in response to the deteriorating liquidity of the Fund’s portfolio. This adverse effect on the liquidity of the Shares may, in turn, lead to differences between the market value of the Shares and the Fund’s NAV.

 

Market and Geopolitical Risk. The increasing interconnectivity between global economies and financial markets increases the likelihood that events or conditions in one region or financial market may adversely impact issuers in a different country, region or financial market. Securities in the Fund’s portfolio may underperform due to inflation (or expectations for inflation), interest rates, global demand for particular products or resources, natural disasters, pandemics, climate-change and climate-related events, epidemics, terrorism, regulatory events and governmental or quasi-governmental actions. The occurrence of global events similar to those in recent years may result in market volatility and may have long term effects on both the U.S. and global financial markets. The current novel coronavirus (COVID-19) global pandemic and the aggressive responses taken by many governments, including closing borders, restricting international and domestic travel, and the imposition of prolonged quarantines or similar restrictions, as well as the forced or voluntary closure of, or operational changes to, many retail and other businesses, has had negative impacts, and in many cases severe negative impacts, on markets worldwide. It is not known how long such impacts, or any future impacts of other significant events described above, will or would last, but there could be a prolonged period of global economic slowdown, which may impact your Fund investment.

 

Passive Investment Risk. The Fund is not actively managed and the Adviser will not sell shares of an equity security due to current or projected underperformance of a security, industry or sector, unless that security is removed from the 100 Index or the selling of shares of that security is otherwise required upon a rebalancing of the Index as addressed in the 100 Index methodology.

 

Sampling Risk. The Fund’s use of a representative sampling approach, if used, could result in its holding a smaller number of securities than are in the 100 Index. As a result, an adverse development with an issuer of securities held by the Fund could result in a greater decline in NAV than would be the case if the Fund held all of the securities in the 100 Index. To the extent the assets in the Fund are smaller, these risks will be greater.

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Tracking Error Risk. Tracking error is the divergence of the Fund’s performance from that of the 100 Index. Tracking error may occur because of imperfect correlation between the Fund’s holdings of portfolio securities and those in the 100 Index, pricing differences, the Fund’s holding of cash, differences on timing of the accrual of dividends, changes to the 100 Index or the need to meet various regulatory requirements. This risk may be heightened during times of increased market volatility or other unusual market conditions. Tracking error also may result because the Fund incurs fees and expenses, while the 100 Index does not.

 

Performance: The bar chart and performance table below show the variability of the Fund’s returns, which is some indication of the risks of investing in the Fund by showing changes in the Fund’s performance from year to year and by showing the Fund’s one-year and since inception performance compared with those of a broad measure of market performance. The bar chart shows performance of the Fund’s shares for each calendar year since the Fund’s inception. The performance table compares the performance of the Fund over time to the performance of a broad-based securities market index. You should be aware that the Fund’s past performance (before and after taxes) is not necessarily an indication of how the Fund will perform in the future. Updated performance information is available at no cost by visiting www.inspire.com or by calling 877.658.9473.

 

Performance Bar Chart For Calendar Year Ended December 31

 

(BAR CHAT)

 

Best Quarter: 2nd Quarter 2020 23.67%
Worst Quarter: 1st Quarter 2020 (18.59)%
     

Performance Table
Average Annual Total Returns
(For periods ended December 31, 2020)

 

  One Year Since
Inception
(10/30/17)
Return before taxes 27.66% 17.65%
Return after taxes on distributions 22.07% 16.02%
Return after taxes on distributions and sale of Fund shares 18.75% 13.79%
Inspire 100 Index 28.60% 18.78%
S&P 500 Total Return Index* 28.71% 18.06%

 

* The S&P 500 Total Return Index is an unmanaged market capitalization-weighted index which is comprised of 500 of the largest U.S. domiciled companies and includes the reinvestment of all dividends. Investors cannot invest directly in an index or benchmark.

 

After-tax returns are calculated using the historical highest individual federal marginal income tax rates and do not reflect the impact of state and local taxes. Actual after-tax returns depend on an investor’s tax situation and may differ from those shown, and after-tax returns shown are not relevant to investors who hold their Shares through tax-deferred arrangements, such as 401(k) plans or individual retirement accounts.

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Investment Adviser: Inspire Investing, LLC.

 

Portfolio Managers: Darrell Jayroe, CFA®, Chief Investment Officer and Portfolio Manager, and Robert Netzly, Chief Executive Officer of the Adviser, have each served the Fund as a portfolio manager since it commenced operations in October 2017. Tim Schwarzenberger, CFA®, has served the Fund as a portfolio manager since March 2022.

 

Purchase and Sale of Fund Shares: Individual Shares of the Fund may be purchased and sold in secondary market transactions through a broker dealer or at market price. Shares are listed for trading on the Exchange and trade at market prices rather than NAV. Shares may trade at a price that is greater than, at, or less than NAV. An investor may incur costs attributable to the difference between the highest price a buyer is willing to pay to purchase Shares (bid) and the lowest price a seller is willing to accept for Shares (ask) when buying or selling Shares on the secondary market (the “bid-ask spread”). Information, including information on the Fund’s NAV, market price, premiums and discounts, and bid-ask spreads, is available online at www.inspireetf.com.

 

Tax Information: The Fund’s distributions generally will be taxable as ordinary income or long-term capital gains. A sale of Shares may result in capital gain or loss.

 

Payments to Broker-Dealers and Other Financial Intermediaries: If you purchase the Fund through a broker-dealer or other financial intermediary (such as a bank), the Fund and its related companies may pay the intermediary for marketing activities or other services related to the safe or promotion of the Fund. These payments may create a conflict of interest by influencing the broker-dealer or other intermediary and your salesperson to recommend the Fund over another investment. Ask your salesperson or visit your financial intermediary’s website for more information.

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FUND SUMMARY - Inspire International ETF
(formerly “Inspire International ESG ETF”)
 

Investment Objective: The Inspire International ETF (the “Fund”) seeks to replicate investment results that generally correspond, before fees and expenses, to the performance of the Inspire Global Hope ex-US Index (“Global Hope ex-US Index”).

 

Fees and Expenses of the Fund: This table describes the fees and expenses that you may pay if you buy, hold and sell shares of the Fund. You may pay other fees, such as brokerage commissions and other fees to financial intermediaries, which are not reflected in the table and example below.

 

Annual Fund Operating Expenses
(expenses that you pay each year
as a percentage of the value of your investment)
 
Management Fees 0.45%
Distribution and Service (12b-1) Fees None
Other Expenses 0.24%
Total Annual Fund Operating Expenses 0.69%

 

 

Example: This Example is intended to help you compare the cost of investing in the Fund with the cost of investing in other mutual funds.

 

The Example assumes that you invest $10,000 in the Fund for the time periods indicated and then redeem all of your shares at the end of those periods. The Example also assumes that your investment has a 5% return each year and that the Fund’s operating expenses remain the same. Although your actual costs may be higher or lower, based upon these assumptions your costs would be:

 

1 Year 3 Years 5 Years 10 Years
$70 $221 $384 $859
       

Portfolio Turnover: The Fund pays transaction costs, such as commissions, when it buys and sells securities (or “turns over” its portfolio). A higher portfolio turnover rate may indicate higher transaction costs and may result in higher taxes when Fund shares are held in a taxable account. These costs, which are not reflected in annual fund operating expenses or in the Example, affect the Fund’s performance. During the fiscal period ended November 30, 2021, the Fund’s portfolio turnover rate was 106% of the average value of its portfolio.

 

Principal Investment Strategies: The Fund generally invests at least 80% of its total assets in the component securities of the Global Hope ex-US Index. Inspire Investing, LLC (the “Adviser” or “Index Provider”), the Fund’s index provider (and also the Fund’s investment adviser) selects foreign (including emerging markets) equity securities from a global universe of publicly traded equity securities of foreign and emerging market companies with a market capitalization of $5 billion (US Dollars) or greater and which have an Inspire Impact Score® of zero or higher. The Inspire Impact Score® is a proprietary selection methodology that is designed to assign a score to a particular security based on the security’s alignment with biblical values and the positive impact the issuing company has on its customers, communities, workplace and the world. The Fund holds a representative sample of the securities that make up the Index.

 

The Inspire Impact Score® methodology removes from the investment universe the securities of any company that has any degree of participation in the following activities or products that do not align with biblical values, which removes them from the eligible investment universe of securities of potential Fund investments. A score of zero is assigned to companies where no information is available about their participation in the following activities or products:

 

Abortifacients – Company produces abortifacient drugs. This category includes all pharmaceuticals used to terminate a pregnancy anytime from the moment of conception onward, including those labeled as “contraceptives” but which may cause a fertilized egg to be destroyed.

 

Abortion Philanthropy – Corporate guided philanthropy to organizations that advocate for or provide abortions (excludes employee matching programs.)

 

Abortion Legislation – Corporate sponsored political, legal or other activism that advocates for or provides abortions.

 

Abortion Procedures – Company offers abortion procedures as a service.

 

Alcohol – Company produces or specifically distributes alcoholic beverages.

 

Cannabis Retail THC – Company produces or distributes retail cannabis products containing THC, which is the psychoactive component of cannabis.

 

Cannabis Cultivation/Processing – Company cultivates or processes cannabis for retail or wholesale distribution

 

Gambling – Company generates revenue from gambling. This category includes the operation of casinos or other gambling facilities, as well as manufacturing gambling machinery and or other gambling specific equipment.

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Embryonic Stem Cell Research – Company is engaged directly or indirectly in embryonic stem cell research. This category includes companies which perform research on or produce products using embryonic stem cells, companies which provide embryonic stem cells to other entities and companies which utilize propagated stem cell lines which originally derived from embryonic stem cells.

 

Human Rights – Company has exploitative labor practices, working conditions or partnerships with exploitative supply partners, including unjust governmental entities and regimes.

 

In Vitro Fertilization – Company offers In Vitro Fertilization services or manufacture equipment to aid in procedures.

 

LGBT Legislation – Corporate sponsored legal, political or other activism that advocates for the promotion and acceptance of the LGBT lifestyle.

 

LGBT Philanthropy – Corporate guided philanthropy to organizations that advocate for the promotion and acceptance of the LGBT lifestyle (excludes employee match programs).

 

LGBT Promotion – Company provides products or services designed specifically for the promotion and acceptance of the LGBT lifestyle, or otherwise uses corporate influence for the promotion and acceptance of the LGBT lifestyle.

 

Pornography – Company produces or distributes pornography. This category includes all media types, such as film, print and online. Also included are companies that produce AO (Adult Only) rated video games which contain pornographic content.

 

Tobacco – Company derives revenue from growing, manufacture or distribution of tobacco products.

 

State Owned Enterprise – Company is owned and controlled by a Nation State or government that is a known human rights violator, including situations where the State has veto power, or a “golden share” is owned by the State or State controlled agency.

 

The methodology then assigns a positive score based on the company’s track record of acting in alignment with biblical values across the following categories:

 

Access & Affordability: The category addresses a company’s ability to ensure broad access to its products and services, specifically in the context of underserved markets and/or population groups. It includes the management of issues related to universal needs, such as the accessibility and affordability of health care, financial services, utilities, education, and telecommunications.

 

Air Quality: The category addresses the management of air quality impacts resulting from stationary (e.g., factories, power plants) and mobile sources (e.g., trucks, delivery vehicles, planes) as well as industrial emissions. Relevant airborne pollutants include, but are not limited to, oxides of nitrogen (NOx), oxides of sulfur (SOx), volatile organic compounds (VOCs), heavy metals, particulate matter, and chlorofluorocarbons. The category does not include GHG emissions, which are addressed in a separate category.

 

Business Ethics: The category addresses the company’s approach to managing risks and opportunities surrounding ethical conduct of business, including fraud, corruption, bribery and facilitation payments, fiduciary responsibilities, and other behavior that may have an ethical component. This includes sensitivity to business norms and standards as they shift over time, jurisdiction, and culture without compromising biblical values. It addresses the company’s ability to provide services that satisfy the highest professional and ethical standards of the industry, which means to avoid conflicts of interest, misrepresentation, bias, and negligence through training employees adequately and implementing policies and procedures to ensure employees provide services free from bias and error.

 

Business Model Resilience: The category addresses an industry’s capacity to manage risks and opportunities associated with incorporating social, environmental, and political transitions into long-term business model planning without compromising biblical values. This includes responsiveness to the transition to a low-carbon and climate-constrained economy, as well as growth and creation of new markets among unserved and underserved socio-economic populations. The category highlights industries in which evolving environmental and social realities may challenge companies to fundamentally adapt or may put their business models at risk.

 

Competitive Behavior: The category covers social issues associated with existence of monopolies, which may include, but are not limited to, excessive prices, poor quality of service, and inefficiencies. It addresses a company’s management of legal and social expectation around monopolistic and anti-competitive practices, including issues related to bargaining power, collusion, price fixing or manipulation, and protection of patents and intellectual property (IP).

 

Critical Incident Risk Management: The category addresses the company’s use of management systems and scenario planning to identify, understand, and prevent or minimize the occurrence of low-probability, high-impact accidents and emergencies with significant potential environmental and social externalities. It relates to the culture of safety at a company, its relevant safety management systems and technological controls, the potential human, environmental, and social implications of such events occurring, and the long-term effects to an organization, its workers, and society should these events occur.

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Customer Privacy: The category addresses management of risks related to the use of personally identifiable information (PII) and other customer or user data for secondary purposes including but not limited to marketing through affiliates and non-affiliates. The scope of the category includes social issues that may arise from a company’s approach to collecting data, obtaining consent (e.g., opt-in policies), managing user and customer expectations regarding how their data is used, and managing evolving regulation. It excludes social issues arising from cybersecurity risks, which are covered in a separate category.

 

Customer Welfare: The category addresses customer welfare concerns over issues including, but not limited to, health and nutrition of foods and beverages, antibiotic use in animal production, and management of controlled substances. The category addresses the company’s ability to provide consumers with manufactured products and services that are aligned with societal expectations. It does not include issues directly related to quality and safety malfunctions of manufactured products and services, but instead addresses qualities inherent to the design and delivery of products and services where customer welfare may be in question. The scope of the category also captures companies’ ability to prevent counterfeit products.

 

Data Security: The category addresses management of risks related to collection, retention, and use of sensitive, confidential, and/or proprietary customer or user data. It includes social issues that may arise from incidents such as data breaches in which personally identifiable information (PII) and other user or customer data may be exposed. It addresses a company’s strategy, policies, and practices related to IT infrastructure, staff training, record keeping, cooperation with law enforcement, and other mechanisms used to ensure security of customer or user data.

 

Ecological Impacts: The category addresses management of the company’s impacts on ecosystems and biodiversity through activities including, but not limited to, land use for exploration, natural resource extraction, and cultivation, as well as project development, construction, and siting. The impacts include, but are not limited to, biodiversity loss, habitat destruction, and deforestation at all stages, planning, land acquisition, permitting, development, operations, and site remediation. The category does not cover impacts of climate change on ecosystems and biodiversity.

 

Employee Engagement, Diversity & Inclusion: The category addresses a company’s ability to ensure that its culture and hiring and promotion practices embrace the building of a diverse and inclusive workforce that reflects the makeup of local talent pools and its customer base in alignment with biblical values. It addresses the issues of discriminatory practices on the basis of race, gender, ethnicity, religion, and other factors.

 

Employee Health & Safety: The category addresses a company’s ability to create and maintain a safe and healthy workplace environment that is free of injuries, fatalities, and illness (both chronic and acute). It is traditionally accomplished through implementing safety management plans, developing training requirements for employees and contractors, and conducting regular audits of their own practices as well as those of their subcontractors. The category further captures how companies ensure physical and mental health of workforce through technology, training, corporate culture, regulatory compliance, monitoring and testing, and personal protective equipment.

 

Energy Management: The category addresses environmental impacts associated with energy consumption. It addresses the company’s management of energy in manufacturing and/or for provision of products and services derived from utility providers (grid energy) not owned or controlled by the company. More specifically, it includes management of energy efficiency and intensity, energy mix, as well as grid reliance. Upstream (e.g., suppliers) and downstream (e.g., product use) energy use is not included in the scope.

 

GHG Emissions: The category addresses direct (Scope 1) greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions that a company generates through its operations. This includes GHG emissions from stationary (e.g., factories, power plants) and mobile sources (e.g., trucks, delivery vehicles, planes), whether a result of combustion of fuel or non-combusted direct releases during activities such as natural resource extraction, power generation, land use, or biogenic processes. The category further includes management of regulatory risks, environmental compliance, and reputational risks and opportunities, as they related to direct GHG emissions. The seven GHGs covered under the Kyoto Protocol are included within the category’s carbon dioxide (CO2), methane (CH4), nitrous oxide (N2O), hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs), perfluorocarbons (PFCs), sulfur hexafluoride (SF6), and nitrogen trifluoride (NF3).

 

Human Rights & Community Relations: The category addresses management of the relationship between businesses and the communities in which they operate, including, but not limited to, management of direct and indirect impacts on core human rights and the treatment of indigenous peoples. More specifically, such management may cover socio-economic community impacts, community engagement, environmental justice, cultivation of local workforces, impact on local businesses, license to operate, and environmental/social impact assessments. The category does not include environmental impacts such as air pollution or waste which, although they may impact the health and safety of members of local communities, are addressed in separate categories.

 

Labor Practices: The category addresses the company’s ability to uphold commonly accepted labor standards in the workplace, including compliance with labor laws and internationally accepted norms and standards. This includes, but is not limited to, ensuring basic human rights related to child labor, forced or bonded labor, exploitative labor, fair wages and overtime pay, and other basic workers’ rights. It also includes minimum wage policies and provision of benefits, which may influence how a workforce is attracted, retained, and motivated. The category further addresses a company’s relationship with organized labor and freedom of association.

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Management of the Legal & Regulatory Environment: The category addresses a company’s approach to engaging with regulators in cases where conflicting corporate and public interests may have the potential for long-term adverse direct or indirect environmental and social impacts. The category addresses a company’s level of reliance upon regulatory policy or monetary incentives (such as subsidies and taxes), actions to influence industry policy (such as through lobbying), overall reliance on a favorable regulatory environment for business competitiveness, and ability to comply with relevant regulations. It may relate to the alignment of management and investor views of regulatory engagement and compliance at large.

 

Materials Sourcing & Efficiency: The category addresses issues related to the resilience of materials supply chains to impacts of climate change and other external environmental and social factors. It captures the impacts of such external factors on operational activity of suppliers, which can further affect availability and pricing of key resources. It addresses a company’s ability to manage these risks through product design, manufacturing, and end-of-life management, such as by using of recycled and renewable materials, reducing the use of key materials (dematerialization), maximizing resource efficiency in manufacturing, and making R&D investments in substitute materials. Additionally, companies can manage these issues by screening, selection, monitoring, and engagement with suppliers to ensure their resilience to external risks. It does not address issues associated with environmental and social externalities created by operational activity of individual suppliers, which is covered in a separate category.

 

Physical Impacts of Climate Change: The category addresses the company’s ability to manage risks and opportunities associated with direct exposure of its owned or controlled assets and operations to actual or potential physical impacts of climate change. It captures environmental and social issues that may arise from operational disruptions due to physical impacts of climate change. It further captures socio-economic issues resulting from companies failing to incorporate climate change consideration in products and services sold, such as insurance policies and mortgages. The category relates to the company’s ability to adapt to increased frequency and severity of extreme weather, shifting climate, sea level risk, and other expected physical impacts of climate change. Management may involve enhancing resiliency of physical assets and/or surrounding infrastructure as well as incorporation of climate change-related considerations into key business activities (e.g., mortgage and insurance underwriting, planning and development of real estate projects).

 

Product Design & Lifecycle Management: The category addresses incorporation of sustainability considerations in characteristics of products and services provided or sold by the company. It includes, but is not limited to, managing the lifecycle impacts of products and services, such as those related to packaging, distribution, use-phase resource intensity, and other environmental and social externalities that may occur during their use-phase or at the end of life. The category captures a company’s ability to address customer and societal demand for more sustainable products and services as well as to meet evolving environmental and social regulation. It does not address direct environmental or social impacts of the company’s operations nor does it address health and safety risks to consumers from product use, which are covered in other categories.

 

Product Quality & Safety: The category addresses issues involving unintended characteristics of products sold or services provided that may create health or safety risks to end-users. It addresses a company’s ability to offer manufactured products and/or services that meet customer expectations with respect to their health and safety characteristics. It includes, but is not limited to, issues involving liability, management of recalls and market withdrawals, product testing, and chemicals/content/ingredient management in products.

 

Selling Practices & Product Labeling: The category addresses social issues that may arise from a failure to manage the transparency, accuracy, and comprehensibility of marketing statements, advertising, and labeling of products and services. It includes, but is not limited to, advertising standards and regulations, ethical and responsible marketing practices, misleading or deceptive labeling, as well as discriminatory or predatory selling and lending practices. This may include deceptive or aggressive selling practices in which incentive structures for employees could encourage the sale of products or services that are not in the best interest of customers or clients.

 

Supply Chain Management: The category addresses management of sustainability risks within a company’s supply chain. It addresses issues associated with environmental and social externalities created by suppliers through their operational activities. Such issues include, but are not limited to, environmental responsibility, human rights, labor practices, and ethics and corruption. Management may involve screening, selection, monitoring, and engagement with suppliers on their environmental and social impacts. The category does not address the impacts of external factors, such as climate change and other environmental and social factors, on suppliers, operations and/or on the availability and pricing of key resources, which is covered in a separate category.

 

Systemic Risk Management: The category addresses the company’s contributions to or management of systemic risks resulting from large-scale weakening or collapse of systems upon which the economy and society depend. This includes financial systems, natural resource systems, and technological systems. It addresses the mechanisms a company has in place to reduce its contributions to systemic risks and to improve safeguards that may mitigate the impacts of systemic failure. For financial institutions, the category also captures the company’s ability to absorb shocks arising from financial and economic stress and meet stricter regulatory requirements related to the complexity and interconnectedness of companies in the industry.

39

 

Waste & Hazardous Materials Management: The category addresses environmental issues associated with hazardous and non-hazardous waste generated by companies. It addresses a company’s management of solid wastes in manufacturing, agriculture, and other industrial processes. It covers treatment, handling, storage, disposal, and regulatory compliance. The category does not cover emissions to air or wastewater nor does it cover waste from end-of-life products, which are addressed in separate categories.

 

Water & Wastewater Management: The category addresses a company’s water use, water consumption, wastewater generation, and other impacts of operations on water resources, which may be influenced by regional differences in the availability and quality of and competition for water resources. More specifically, it addresses management strategies including, but not limited to, water efficiency, rate of consumption, and recycling. Lastly, the category also addresses management of wastewater treatment and discharge, including groundwater and aquifer pollution.

 

The Index Provider relies exclusively on software that analyzes publicly available data relating to the primary business activities, products and services, philanthropy, legal activities, policies and practices when assigning Inspire Impact Scores® to a company. The 200 securities with the highest Inspire Impact Scores® are included in the Global Hope ex-US Index and are equally weighted. The Global Hope ex-US Index will typically be comprised of 80% in developed foreign securities, and 20% in emerging market securities. The Inspire Impact Scores® of the securities in the Index are reviewed periodically (at least annually), and the Index is rebalanced quarterly. If, upon review, the Inspire Impact Score® of a security is negative, the security is removed from the Index and replaced with a positive scoring security.

 

The equity securities included in the Index are typically foreign securities of companies with capitalization of $5 billion (US Dollars) or more. The Fund may concentrate its investments in a particular industry or group of industries to the extent that the Index concentrates in an industry or group of industries.

 

Principal Investment Risks: As with all funds, there is a risk that you could lose money through your investment in the Fund. Many factors affect the Fund’s net asset value and performance.

 

The following describes the risks the Fund bears with respect to its investments. As with any fund, there is no guarantee that the Fund will achieve its goal.

 

Asset Class Risk. Securities in the Global Hope ex-US Index or in the Fund’s portfolio may underperform in comparison to the general securities markets or other asset classes.

 

Authorized Participant Risk. Only an Authorized Participant may engage in creation or redemption transactions directly with the Fund. The Fund has a limited number of institutions that may act as Authorized Participants on an agency basis (i.e., on behalf of other market participants). To the extent that Authorized Participants exit the business or are unable to proceed with creation or redemption orders with respect to the Fund and no other Authorized Participant is able to step forward to create or redeem Creation Units, Fund shares may be more likely to trade at a premium or discount to net asset value and possibly face trading halts or delisting. Authorized Participant concentration risk may be heightened for exchange-traded funds (“ETFs”) that invest in non-U.S. securities or other securities or instruments that have lower trading volumes.

 

Biblically Responsible Investment Risk. The Fund invests at least 80% of its assets in the component securities of the Index which uses the Inspire Impact Score(R) and related biblical values screening criteria in selecting its component securities. As a result of its strategy, the Index’s exclusion of securities of certain issuers for nonfinancial reasons may cause the Fund to forgo some market opportunities available to funds that do not use these criteria. This could be due to biblically responsible companies falling out of favor with investors or failing to perform as well as companies that do not receive a favorable Inspire Impact Score(R).

 

Concentration Risk. The Fund may focus its investments in securities of a particular industry to the extent the Global Hope ex-US Index does. Economic, legislative or regulatory developments may occur that significantly affect the industry. This may cause the Fund’s net asset value to fluctuate more than that of a fund that does not focus in a particular industry.

 

Early Close/Trading Halt Risk. An exchange or market may close or impose a market trading halt or issue trading halts on specific securities, or the ability to buy or sell certain securities or financial instruments may be restricted, which may prevent the Fund from buying or selling certain securities or financial instruments. In these circumstances, the Fund may be unable to rebalance its portfolio, may be unable to accurately price its investments and may incur substantial trading losses.

 

Emerging Markets Risk. Investing in emerging markets involves not only the risks described below with respect to investing in foreign securities, but also other risks, including exposure to economic structures that are generally less diverse and mature, and to political systems that can be expected to have less stability, than those of developed countries. The typically small size of the markets of securities of issuers located in emerging markets and the possibility of a low or nonexistent volume of trading in those securities may also result in a lack of liquidity and in price volatility of those securities.

 

Equity Securities Risk. Fluctuations in the value of equity securities held by the Fund will cause the net asset value (“NAV”) of the Fund and the price of its shares (“Shares”) to fluctuate.

40

 

Common Stock Risk. Common stock of an issuer in the Fund’s portfolio may decline in price if the issuer fails to make anticipated dividend payments. Common stock will be subject to greater dividend risk than preferred stocks or debt instruments of the same issuer. In addition, common stocks have experienced significantly more volatility in returns than other asset classes.

 

Preferred Stock Risk. Generally, preferred stockholders (such as the Fund) have no voting rights with respect to the issuing company unless certain events occur. In addition, preferred stock will be subject to greater credit risk than debt instruments of an issuer, and could be subject to interest rate risk like fixed income securities, as described below. An issuer’s board of directors is generally not under any obligation to pay a dividend (even if dividends have accrued), and may suspend payment of dividends on preferred stock at any time. There is also a risk that the issuer of any of the Fund’s holdings will default and fail to make scheduled dividend payments on the preferred stock held by the Fund).

41

 

ETF Structure Risk. The Fund and each Underlying Fund is structured as an ETF and as a result is subject to the special risks, including:

 

Not Individually Redeemable. Shares are not individually redeemable to retail investors and may be redeemed only by the ETF only to Authorized Participants at NAV in large blocks known as “Creation Units.” An Authorized Participant may incur brokerage costs purchasing enough Shares to constitute a Creation Unit.

 

Trading Issues. An active trading market for the Shares may not be developed or maintained. Trading in Shares on the Exchange may be halted due to market conditions or for reasons that, in the view of the Exchange, make trading in Shares inadvisable, such as extraordinary market volatility. There can be no assurance that Shares will continue to meet the listing requirements of the Exchange, which may result in the trading of the Shares being suspended or the Shares being delisted. If the Shares are traded outside a collateralized settlement system, the number of financial institutions that can act as Authorized Participants that can post collateral on an agency basis is limited, which may limit the market for the Shares.

 

Market Price Variance Risk. The market prices of Shares will fluctuate in response to changes in NAV and supply and demand for Shares and will include a “bid-ask spread” charged by the exchange specialists, market makers or other participants that trade the particular security.

 

o In times of market stress, market makers may step away from their role market making in the Shares and in executing trades, which can lead to differences between the market value of the Shares and the Fund’s NAV.

 

o The market price of the Shares may deviate from the Fund’s NAV, particularly during times of market stress, with the result that investors may pay significantly more or significantly less the Shares than the Fund’s NAV, which is reflected in the bid and ask price for the Shares or in the closing price.

 

o When all or a portion of the Fund’s underlying securities trade in a market that is closed when the market for the Fund’s shares is open, there may be changes from the last quote of the closed market and the quote from the Fund’s domestic trading day, which could lead to differences between the market value of the Shares and the Fund’s NAV. In stressed market conditions, the market for the Shares may become less liquid in response to the deteriorating liquidity of an ETF’s portfolio. This adverse effect on the liquidity of the Shares may, in turn, lead to differences between the market value of the Shares and an ETF’s NAV.

 

Foreign Securities Risk. Foreign companies are generally not subject to the same regulatory requirements of U.S. companies thereby resulting in less publicly available information about these companies. The lack of readily available publicly available information may lead to inaccurate Inspire Impact Scores. Not all countries and jurisdictions monitor or regulate all ESG factors so that there may be no relevant information available for certain factors. In addition, foreign accounting, auditing and financial reporting standards generally differ from those applicable to U.S. companies.

 

Market and Geopolitical Risk. The increasing interconnectivity between global economies and financial markets increases the likelihood that events or conditions in one region or financial market may adversely impact issuers in a different country, region or financial market. Securities in the Fund’s portfolio may underperform due to inflation (or expectations for inflation), interest rates, global demand for particular products or resources, natural disasters, climate-change and climate-related events, pandemics, epidemics, terrorism, regulatory events and governmental or quasi-governmental actions. The occurrence of global events similar to those in recent years may result in market volatility and may have long term effects on both the U.S. and global financial markets. The current novel coronavirus (COVID-19) global pandemic and the aggressive responses taken by many governments, including closing borders, restricting international and domestic travel, and the imposition of prolonged quarantines or similar restrictions, as well as the forced or voluntary closure of, or operational changes to, many retail and other businesses, has had negative impacts, and in many cases severe negative impacts, on markets worldwide. It is not known how long such impacts, or any future impacts of other significant events described above, will or would last, but there could be a prolonged period of global economic slowdown, which may impact your Fund investment.

 

Passive Investment Risk. The Fund is not actively managed and the adviser will not sell shares of an equity security due to current or projected underperformance of a security, industry or sector, unless that security is removed from the Global Hope ex-US Index or the selling of shares of that security is otherwise required upon a rebalancing of the Index as addressed in the Global Hope ex-US Index methodology.

 

Sampling Risk. The Fund’s use of a representative sampling approach, if used, could result in its holding a smaller number of securities than are in the Global Hope ex-US Index. As a result, an adverse development with an issuer of securities held by the Fund could result in a greater decline in NAV than would be the case if the Fund held all of the securities in the Global Hope ex-US Index. To the extent the assets in the Fund are smaller, these risks will be greater.

 

Small and Medium Capitalization Risk. The stocks of small and medium capitalization companies involve substantial risk. These companies may have limited product lines, markets or financial resources, and they may be dependent on a limited management group.

 

Tracking Error Risk. Tracking error is the divergence of the Fund’s performance from that of the Global Hope ex-US Index. Tracking error may occur because of imperfect correlation between the Fund’s holdings of portfolio securities and those in the Global Hope ex-US Index, pricing differences, the Fund’s holding of cash, differences on timing of the accrual of dividends, changes to the Global Hope ex-US Index or the need to meet various regulatory requirements. This risk may be heightened during times of increased market volatility or other unusual market conditions. Tracking error also may result because the Fund incurs fees and expenses, while the Global Hope ex-US Index does not.

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Performance: The bar chart and performance table below show the variability of the Fund’s returns, which is some indication of the risks of investing in the Fund by showing changes in the Fund’s performance from year to year and by showing the Fund’s one-year and since inception performance compared with those of a broad measure of market performance. The bar chart shows performance of the Fund’s shares for each calendar year since the Fund’s inception. The performance table compares the performance of the Fund over time to the performance of a broad-based securities market index. You should be aware that the Fund’s past performance (before and after taxes) is not necessarily an indication of how the Fund will perform in the future. Updated performance information is available at no cost by visiting www.inspireetf.com or by calling 877.658.9473.

 

Performance Bar Chart For Calendar Year Ended December 31

 

(BAR CHAT)

 

Best Quarter: 4th Quarter 2020 23.53%
Worst Quarter: 1st Quarter 2020 (27.55)%
     

Performance Table
Average Annual Total Returns
(For periods ended December 31, 2021)

 

  One Year Since
Inception
(09/30/19)
Return before taxes 16.18% 18.49%
Return after taxes on distributions 11.86% 16.36%
Return after taxes on distributions and sale of Fund shares 11.63% 14.11%
Inspire Global Hope Ex-US Index 14.41% 15.81%
S&P International 700 Total Return Index* 9.90% 13.43%

 

* The S&P International 700 Total Return Index measures the non-U.S. component of the global equity market through an index that is designed to be highly liquid and efficient to replicate. The index covers all regions included in the S&P Global 1200 except for the U.S., which is represented by the S&P 500. Investors cannot invest directly in an index.

 

After-tax returns are calculated using the historical highest individual federal marginal income tax rates and do not reflect the impact of state and local taxes. Actual after-tax returns depend on an investor’s tax situation and may differ from those shown, and after-tax returns shown are not relevant to investors who hold their Shares through tax-deferred arrangements, such as 401(k) plans or individual retirement accounts.

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Investment Adviser: Inspire Investing, LLC.

 

Portfolio Managers: Darrell Jayroe, CFA®, Chief Investment Officer and Portfolio Manager, and Robert Netzly, Chief Executive Officer of the Adviser have each served the Fund as a portfolio manager since it commenced operations in October 2019. Tim Schwarzenberger, CFA®, has served the Fund as a portfolio manager since March 2022.

 

Purchase and Sale of Fund Shares: Individual Shares of the Fund may be purchased and sold in secondary market transactions through a broker dealer or at market price. Shares are listed for trading on the Exchange and trade at market prices rather than NAV. Shares may trade at a price that is greater than, at, or less than NAV. An investor may incur costs attributable to the difference between the highest price a buyer is willing to pay to purchase Shares (bid) and the lowest price a seller is willing to accept for Shares (ask) when buying or selling Shares on the secondary market (the “bid-ask spread”).” “Information, including information on the Fund’s NAV, market price, premiums and discounts, and bid-ask spreads, is available online at www.inspireetf.com.

 

Tax Information: The Fund’s distributions generally will be taxable as ordinary income or long-term capital gains. A sale of Shares may result in capital gain or loss.

 

Payments to Broker-Dealers and Other Financial Intermediaries: If you purchase the Fund through a broker-dealer or other financial intermediary (such as a bank), the Fund and its related companies may pay the intermediary for marketing activities or other services related to the sale or promotion of the Fund. These payments may create a conflict of interest by influencing the broker-dealer or other intermediary and your salesperson to recommend the Fund over another investment. Ask your salesperson or visit your financial intermediary’s website for more information.

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ADDITIONAL INFORMATION ABOUT PRINCIPAL INVESTMENT STRATEGIES AND RELATED RISKS
 

Investment Objective:

 

Fund Investment Objective
Inspire Global Hope ETF (formerly, “Inspire Global Hope ESG ETF”) seeks to replicate investment results that generally correspond, before fees and expenses, to the performance of the Inspire Global Hope Large Cap Equal Weight Index.
Inspire Small/Mid Cap ETF (formerly, “Inspire Small/Mid Cap ESG ETF”) seeks to replicate investment results that generally correspond, before fees and expenses, to the performance of the Inspire Small/Mid Cap Impact Equal Weight Index.
Inspire Corporate Bond ETF (formerly, “Inspire Corporate Bond ESG ETF”) seeks to replicate investment results that generally correspond, before fees and expenses, to the performance of the Inspire Corporate Bond Equal Weight Impact Index.
Inspire 100 ETF (formerly, “Inspire 100 ESG ETF”) seeks to replicate investment results that generally correspond, before fees and expenses, to the performance of the Inspire 100 Index
Inspire International ETF (formerly, “Inspire International ESG ETF”) seeks to replicate investment results that generally correspond, before fees and expenses, to the performance of the Inspire Global Hope ex-US Index.

 

Each Fund’s investment objective may be changed by the Board of Trustees upon 60 days’ written notice to shareholders Each Fund has adopted a policy to invest at least 80% of its assets in a particular type of security. Each Fund may change its 80% policy upon 60 days’ written notice to its shareholders.

 

Principal Investment Strategies:

 

To narrow the applicable investment universe of the index, each index uses the Index Provider’s Inspire Impact Score®, a proprietary selection methodology that is designed to assign a score to a particular security based on the security’s alignment with biblical values and the positive impact the issuing company has on its customers, communities, workplace and the world.

 

The Inspire Impact Score® methodology removes from the investment universe the securities of any company that has any degree of participation in the following activities or products that do not align with biblical values, which removes them from the eligible investment universe of securities of potential Fund investments. A score of zero is assigned to companies where no information is available about their participation in the following activities or products:

 

Abortifacients – Company produces abortifacient drugs. This category includes all pharmaceuticals used to terminate a pregnancy anytime from the moment of conception onward, including those labeled as “contraceptives” but which may cause a fertilized egg to be destroyed.

 

Abortion Philanthropy – Corporate guided philanthropy to organizations that advocate for or provide abortions (excludes employee matching programs.)

 

Abortion Legislation – Corporate sponsored political, legal or other activism that advocates for or provides abortions.

 

Abortion Procedures – Company offers abortion procedures as a service.

 

Alcohol – Company produces or specifically distributes alcoholic beverages.

 

Cannabis Retail THC – Company produces or distributes retail cannabis products containing THC, which is the psychoactive component of cannabis.

 

Cannabis Cultivation/Processing – Company cultivates or processes cannabis for retail or wholesale distribution.

 

Gambling – Company generates revenue from gambling. This category includes the operation of casinos or other gambling facilities, as well as manufacturing gambling machinery and or other gambling specific equipment.

 

Human Rights – Company has exploitative labor practices, working conditions or partnerships with exploitative supply partners, including unjust governmental entities and regimes.

 

In Vitro Fertilization – Company offers In Vitro Fertilization services or manufacture equipment to aid in such procedures.

 

LGBT Legislation – Corporate sponsored legal, political or other activism that advocates for the promotion and acceptance of the LGBT lifestyle.

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LGBT Philanthropy – Corporate guided philanthropy to organizations that advocate for the promotion and acceptance of the LGBT lifestyle (excludes employee match programs).

 

LGBT Promotion – Company provides products or services designed specifically for the promotion and acceptance of the LGBT lifestyle, or otherwise uses corporate influence for the promotion and acceptance of the LGBT lifestyle.

 

Pornography – Company produces or distributes pornography. This category includes all media types, such as film, print and online. Also included are companies that produce AO (Adult Only) rated video games which contain pornographic content.

 

State Owned Enterprise – Company is owned and controlled by a Nation State or government that is a known human rights violator, including situations where the State has veto power, or a “golden share” is owned by the State or State controlled agency.

 

Tobacco – Company derives revenue from growing, manufacturing or distributing tobacco products.

 

The methodology then assigns a positive score based on the company’s track record of acting in alignment with biblical values across the following categories:

 

Access & Affordability: The category addresses a company’s ability to ensure broad access to its products and services, specifically in the context of underserved markets and/or population groups. It includes the management of issues related to universal needs, such as the accessibility and affordability of health care, financial services, utilities, education, and telecommunications.

 

Air Quality: The category addresses the management of air quality impacts resulting from stationary (e.g., factories, power plants) and mobile sources (e.g., trucks, delivery vehicles, planes) as well as industrial emissions. Relevant airborne pollutants include, but are not limited to, oxides of nitrogen (NOx), oxides of sulfur (SOx), volatile organic compounds (VOCs), heavy metals, particulate matter, and chlorofluorocarbons. The category does not include GHG emissions, which are addressed in a separate category.

 

Business Ethics: The category addresses the company’s approach to managing risks and opportunities surrounding ethical conduct of business, including fraud, corruption, bribery and facilitation payments, fiduciary responsibilities, and other behavior that may have an ethical component. This includes sensitivity to business norms and standards as they shift over time, jurisdiction, and culture without compromising biblical values. It addresses the company’s ability to provide services that satisfy the highest professional and ethical standards of the industry, which means to avoid conflicts of interest, misrepresentation, bias, and negligence through training employees adequately and implementing policies and procedures to ensure employees provide services free from bias and error.

 

Business Model Resilience: The category addresses an industry’s capacity to manage risks and opportunities associated with incorporating social, environmental, and political transitions into long-term business model planning without compromising biblical values. This includes responsiveness to the transition to a low-carbon and climate-constrained economy, as well as growth and creation of new markets among unserved and underserved socio-economic populations. The category highlights industries in which evolving environmental and social realities may challenge companies to fundamentally adapt or may put their business models at risk.

 

Competitive Behavior: The category covers social issues associated with existence of monopolies, which may include, but are not limited to, excessive prices, poor quality of service, and inefficiencies. It addresses a company’s management of legal and social expectation around monopolistic and anti-competitive practices, including issues related to bargaining power, collusion, price fixing or manipulation, and protection of patents and intellectual property (IP).

 

Critical Incident Risk Management: The category addresses the company’s use of management systems and scenario planning to identify, understand, and prevent or minimize the occurrence of low-probability, high-impact accidents and emergencies with significant potential environmental and social externalities. It relates to the culture of safety at a company, its relevant safety management systems and technological controls, the potential human, environmental, and social implications of such events occurring, and the long-term effects to an organization, its workers, and society should these events occur.

 

Customer Privacy: The category addresses management of risks related to the use of personally identifiable information (PII) and other customer or user data for secondary purposes including but not limited to marketing through affiliates and non-affiliates. The scope of the category includes social issues that may arise from a company’s approach to collecting data, obtaining consent (e.g., opt-in policies), managing user and customer expectations regarding how their data is used, and managing evolving regulation. It excludes social issues arising from cybersecurity risks, which are covered in a separate category.

 

Customer Welfare: The category addresses customer welfare concerns over issues including, but not limited to, health and nutrition of foods and beverages, antibiotic use in animal production, and management of controlled substances. The category addresses the company’s ability to provide consumers with manufactured products and services that are aligned with societal expectations. It does not include issues directly related to quality and safety malfunctions of manufactured products and services, but instead addresses qualities inherent to the design and delivery of products and services where customer welfare may be in question. The scope of the category also captures companies’ ability to prevent counterfeit products.

 

Data Security: The category addresses management of risks related to collection, retention, and use of sensitive, confidential, and/or proprietary customer or user data. It includes social issues that may arise from incidents such as data breaches in which

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personally identifiable information (PII) and other user or customer data may be exposed. It addresses a company’s strategy, policies, and practices related to IT infrastructure, staff training, record keeping, cooperation with law enforcement, and other mechanisms used to ensure security of customer or user data.

 

Ecological Impacts: The category addresses management of the company’s impacts on ecosystems and biodiversity through activities including, but not limited to, land use for exploration, natural resource extraction, and cultivation, as well as project development, construction, and siting. The impacts include, but are not limited to, biodiversity loss, habitat destruction, and deforestation at all stages, planning, land acquisition, permitting, development, operations, and site remediation. The category does not cover impacts of climate change on ecosystems and biodiversity.

 

Employee Engagement, Diversity & Inclusion: The category addresses a company’s ability to ensure that its culture and hiring and promotion practices embrace the building of a diverse and inclusive workforce that reflects the makeup of local talent pools and its customer base in alignment with biblical values. It addresses the issues of discriminatory practices on the basis of race, gender, ethnicity, religion, and other factors.

 

Employee Health & Safety: The category addresses a company’s ability to create and maintain a safe and healthy workplace environment that is free of injuries, fatalities, and illness (both chronic and acute). It is traditionally accomplished through implementing safety management plans, developing training requirements for employees and contractors, and conducting regular audits of their own practices as well as those of their subcontractors. The category further captures how companies ensure physical and mental health of workforce through technology, training, corporate culture, regulatory compliance, monitoring and testing, and personal protective equipment.

 

Energy Management: The category addresses environmental impacts associated with energy consumption. It addresses the company’s management of energy in manufacturing and/or for provision of products and services derived from utility providers (grid energy) not owned or controlled by the company. More specifically, it includes management of energy efficiency and intensity, energy mix, as well as grid reliance. Upstream (e.g., suppliers) and downstream (e.g., product use) energy use is not included in the scope.

 

GHG Emissions: The category addresses direct (Scope 1) greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions that a company generates through its operations. This includes GHG emissions from stationary (e.g., factories, power plants) and mobile sources (e.g., trucks, delivery vehicles, planes), whether a result of combustion of fuel or non-combusted direct releases during activities such as natural resource extraction, power generation, land use, or biogenic processes. The category further includes management of regulatory risks, environmental compliance, and reputational risks and opportunities, as they related to direct GHG emissions. The seven GHGs covered under the Kyoto Protocol are included within the category’s carbon dioxide (CO2), methane (CH4), nitrous oxide (N2O), hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs), perfluorocarbons (PFCs), sulfur hexafluoride (SF6), and nitrogen trifluoride (NF3).

 

Human Rights & Community Relations: The category addresses management of the relationship between businesses and the communities in which they operate, including, but not limited to, management of direct and indirect impacts on core human rights and the treatment of indigenous peoples. More specifically, such management may cover socio-economic community impacts, community engagement, environmental justice, cultivation of local workforces, impact on local businesses, license to operate, and environmental/social impact assessments. The category does not include environmental impacts such as air pollution or waste which, although they may impact the health and safety of members of local communities, are addressed in separate categories.

 

Labor Practices: The category addresses the company’s ability to uphold commonly accepted labor standards in the workplace, including compliance with labor laws and internationally accepted norms and standards. This includes, but is not limited to, ensuring basic human rights related to child labor, forced or bonded labor, exploitative labor, fair wages and overtime pay, and other basic workers’ rights. It also includes minimum wage policies and provision of benefits, which may influence how a workforce is attracted, retained, and motivated. The category further addresses a company’s relationship with organized labor and freedom of association.

 

Management of the Legal & Regulatory Environment: The category addresses a company’s approach to engaging with regulators in cases where conflicting corporate and public interests may have the potential for long-term adverse direct or indirect environmental and social impacts. The category addresses a company’s level of reliance upon regulatory policy or monetary incentives (such as subsidies and taxes), actions to influence industry policy (such as through lobbying), overall reliance on a favorable regulatory environment for business competitiveness, and ability to comply with relevant regulations. It may relate to the alignment of management and investor views of regulatory engagement and compliance at large.

 

Materials Sourcing & Efficiency: The category addresses issues related to the resilience of materials supply chains to impacts of climate change and other external environmental and social factors. It captures the impacts of such external factors on operational activity of suppliers, which can further affect availability and pricing of key resources. It addresses a company’s ability to manage these risks through product design, manufacturing, and end-of-life management, such as by using of recycled and renewable materials, reducing the use of key materials (dematerialization), maximizing resource efficiency in manufacturing, and making R&D investments in substitute materials. Additionally, companies can manage these issues by

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screening, selection, monitoring, and engagement with suppliers to ensure their resilience to external risks. It does not address issues associated with environmental and social externalities created by operational activity of individual suppliers, which is covered in a separate category.

 

Physical Impacts of Climate Change: The category addresses the company’s ability to manage risks and opportunities associated with direct exposure of its owned or controlled assets and operations to actual or potential physical impacts of climate change. It captures environmental and social issues that may arise from operational disruptions due to physical impacts of climate change. It further captures socio-economic issues resulting from companies failing to incorporate climate change consideration in products and services sold, such as insurance policies and mortgages. The category relates to the company’s ability to adapt to increased frequency and severity of extreme weather, shifting climate, sea level risk, and other expected physical impacts of climate change. Management may involve enhancing resiliency of physical assets and/or surrounding infrastructure as well as incorporation of climate change-related considerations into key business activities (e.g., mortgage and insurance underwriting, planning and development of real estate projects).

 

Product Design & Lifecycle Management: The category addresses incorporation of sustainability considerations in characteristics of products and services provided or sold by the company. It includes, but is not limited to, managing the lifecycle impacts of products and services, such as those related to packaging, distribution, use-phase resource intensity, and other environmental and social externalities that may occur during their use-phase or at the end of life. The category captures a company’s ability to address customer and societal demand for more sustainable products and services as well as to meet evolving environmental and social regulation. It does not address direct environmental or social impacts of the company’s operations nor does it address health and safety risks to consumers from product use, which are covered in other categories.

 

Product Quality & Safety: The category addresses issues involving unintended characteristics of products sold or services provided that may create health or safety risks to end-users. It addresses a company’s ability to offer manufactured products and/or services that meet customer expectations with respect to their health and safety characteristics. It includes, but is not limited to, issues involving liability, management of recalls and market withdrawals, product testing, and chemicals/content/ingredient management in products.

 

Selling Practices & Product Labeling: The category addresses social issues that may arise from a failure to manage the transparency, accuracy, and comprehensibility of marketing statements, advertising, and labeling of products and services. It includes, but is not limited to, advertising standards and regulations, ethical and responsible marketing practices, misleading or deceptive labeling, as well as discriminatory or predatory selling and lending practices. This may include deceptive or aggressive selling practices in which incentive structures for employees could encourage the sale of products or services that are not in the best interest of customers or clients.

 

Supply Chain Management: The category addresses management of sustainability risks within a company’s supply chain. It addresses issues associated with environmental and social externalities created by suppliers through their operational activities. Such issues include, but are not limited to, environmental responsibility, human rights, labor practices, and ethics and corruption. Management may involve screening, selection, monitoring, and engagement with suppliers on their environmental and social impacts. The category does not address the impacts of external factors, such as climate change and other environmental and social factors, on suppliers, operations and/or on the availability and pricing of key resources, which is covered in a separate category.

 

Systemic Risk Management: The category addresses the company’s contributions to or management of systemic risks resulting from large-scale weakening or collapse of systems upon which the economy and society depend. This includes financial systems, natural resource systems, and technological systems. It addresses the mechanisms a company has in place to reduce its contributions to systemic risks and to improve safeguards that may mitigate the impacts of systemic failure. For financial institutions, the category also captures the company’s ability to absorb shocks arising from financial and economic stress and meet stricter regulatory requirements related to the complexity and interconnectedness of companies in the industry.

 

Waste & Hazardous Materials Management: The category addresses environmental issues associated with hazardous and non-hazardous waste generated by companies. It addresses a company’s management of solid wastes in manufacturing, agriculture, and other industrial processes. It covers treatment, handling, storage, disposal, and regulatory compliance. The category does not cover emissions to air or wastewater nor does it cover waste from end-of-life products, which are addressed in separate categories.

 

Water & Wastewater Management: The category addresses a company’s water use, water consumption, wastewater generation, and other impacts of operations on water resources, which may be influenced by regional differences in the availability and quality of and competition for water resources. More specifically, it addresses management strategies including, but not limited to, water efficiency, rate of consumption, and recycling. Lastly, the category also addresses management of wastewater treatment and discharge, including groundwater and aquifer pollution.

 

The Index Provider uses software that analyzes publicly available data relating to the primary business activities, products and services, philanthropy, legal activities, policies and practices when assigning Inspire Impact Scores ® to a company. The screening process looks through a company to its parents, subsidiaries, and affiliates in determining whether a company has any degree of participation in these activities.

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Inspire Global Hope ETF

 

The Fund generally invests at least 80% of its total assets in the component securities of the Inspire Global Hope Large Cap Equal Weight Index. The Index Provider selects foreign (including emerging markets) and domestic equity securities from a global universe of publicly traded equity securities of companies with a market capitalization of $5 billion or greater and which have an Inspire Impact Score® of zero or higher. The Inspire Impact Score® is a proprietary selection methodology that is designed to assign a score to a particular security based on the security’s alignment with biblical values and the positive impact the issuing company has on its customers, communities, workplace and the world.

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The 400 securities with the highest Inspire Impact Scores are included in the Large Cap Index and are equally weighted. The Large Cap Index will typically be comprised of 50% domestic securities, 40% in developed foreign securities, and 10% in emerging market securities. The Inspire Impact Scores® of the securities in the Large Cap Index are reviewed periodically (at least annually), and the Large Cap Index is rebalanced quarterly. If, upon review, the Inspire Impact Score® of a security falls below an acceptable level, the security is removed from the Large Cap Index and replaced with a higher scoring security.

 

The equity securities included in the Index are typically foreign and domestic equity securities of companies with capitalization of $5 billion or more. Under normal market conditions, the Fund will invest at least 40% of its net assets in securities of companies in at least 3 countries outside the U.S.

 

The Adviser may use a representative sampling indexing strategy in an attempt to track the Large Cap Index. “Representative sampling” is an indexing strategy that involves investing in a representative sample of securities that collectively has an investment profile similar to that of an applicable underlying index. The securities selected are expected to have, in the aggregate, investment characteristics, fundamental characteristics and liquidity measures similar to those of an underlying index. The Fund may or may not hold all of the securities in the Index.

 

The Fund may concentrate its investments in a particular industry or group of industries to the extent that the Index concentrates in an industry or group of industries.

 

Inspire Small/Mid Cap ETF

 

The Fund generally invests at least 80% of its total assets in the component securities of the Inspire Small/Mid Cap Impact Equal Weight Index. The Index Provider selects securities from a universe of publicly traded, domestic small and mid capitalization equity securities of companies with market capitalizations between $1 billion and $3.5 billion and which have an Inspire Impact Score of zero or higher. The Inspire Impact Score® is a proprietary selection methodology that is designed to assign a score to a particular security based on the security’s alignment with biblical values and the positive impact the issuing company has on its customers, communities, workplace and the world. Under normal circumstances, 50% of the index will be comprised of equities of companies with market capitalizations between $1 billion and $2 billion, and 50% of the index will be comprised of equities of companies with market capitalizations between $2 billion and $3.5 billion.

 

The 500 securities with the highest Inspire Impact Scores® are included in the Small/Mid Cap Index and are equally weighted. The Inspire Impact Scores® of the securities in the Small/Mid Cap Index are reviewed periodically (at least annually), and the Small/Mid Cap Index is rebalanced quarterly. If, upon review, the Inspire Impact Score® of a security falls below an acceptable level, the security is removed from the Index and replaced with a higher scoring security.

 

Under normal market conditions, the Fund invests at least 80% of its assets (defined as net assets plus borrowing for investment purposes) in domestic small and mid capitalization equity securities. The Index Provider defines small and mid capitalization companies to be those with a market cap of less than $10 billion, and particularly seeks to invest in companies with market capitalizations between $1 billion and $3.5 billion.

 

The Adviser may use a representative sampling indexing strategy in an attempt to track the Small/Mid Cap Index. “Representative sampling” is an indexing strategy that involves investing in a representative sample of securities that collectively has an investment profile similar to that of an applicable underlying index. The securities selected are expected to have, in the aggregate, investment characteristics, fundamental characteristics and liquidity measures similar to those of an underlying index. The Fund may or may not hold all of the securities in the Index.

 

The Fund may concentrate its investments in a particular industry or group of industries to the extent that the Small/Mid Cap Index concentrates in an industry or group of industries.

 

Inspire Corporate Bond ETF

 

The Fund generally invests at least 80% of its total assets in the component securities of the Inspire Corporate Bond Impact Equal Weight Index. The Index Provider selects domestic corporate bonds issued by companies that have market capitalizations of $5 billion or more, have credit ratings of BBB- or higher from Standard and Poor’s or Baa3 or higher from Moody’s and which have an Inspire Impact Score of zero or higher. The Inspire Impact Score® is a proprietary selection methodology that is designed to assign a score to a particular security based on the security’s alignment with biblical values and the positive impact that company has on its customers, communities, workplace and the world.

 

Two hundred fifty (250) bonds from the top 200 issuers with the highest Inspire Impact Scores® are included in the Corporate Bond Index and are equally weighted. The Inspire Impact Scores of the securities in the Corporate Bond Index are reviewed periodically (at least annually), and the Corporate Bond Index is rebalanced quarterly. If, upon review, the Inspire Impact Score of a security falls below an acceptable level, the security is removed from the Corporate Bond Index and replaced with a higher scoring security.

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Under normal market conditions, the Fund invests at least 80% of its assets (defined as net assets plus borrowing for investment purposes) in domestic corporate bonds. The Index Provider defines large capitalization companies to be those with a market cap of $10 billion or higher at the time of purchase.

 

The Adviser may use a representative sampling indexing strategy in an attempt to track the Corporate Bond Index. “Representative sampling” is an indexing strategy that involves investing in a representative sample of securities that collectively has an investment profile similar to that of an applicable underlying index. The securities selected are expected to have, in the aggregate, investment characteristics, fundamental characteristics and liquidity measures similar to those of an underlying index. The Fund may or may not hold all of the securities in the Index.

 

The Fund may concentrate its investments in a particular industry or group of industries to the extent that the Corporate Bond Index concentrates in an industry or group of industries.

 

Inspire 100 ETF

 

The Fund generally invests at least 80% of its total assets in the component securities of the Inspire 100 Index. The Index Provider selects domestic large capitalization equity securities (capitalizations of $20 billion or more) using the Index Provider’s Inspire Impact Score®, a proprietary selection methodology that is designed to assign a score to a particular security based on the security’s alignment with biblical values and the positive impact that company has on its customers, communities, workplace and the world.

 

The 100 securities with the highest Inspire Impact Scores are included in the 100 Index and are market capitalization weighted. The Inspire Impact Scores of the securities in the Index are reviewed semi-annually for activities that would cause it to be removed from the investment universe due to participation in the activities described above that do not align with biblical values, and the 100 Index is rebalanced annually. If, upon review, the Inspire Impact Score® of a security falls below the threshold level for inclusion in the Index, the security is removed from the 100 Index and replaced with a higher scoring security.

 

The Adviser may use a representative sampling indexing strategy in an attempt to track the 100 Index. “Representative sampling” is an indexing strategy that involves investing in a representative sample of securities that collectively has an investment profile similar to that of an applicable underlying index. The securities selected are expected to have, in the aggregate, investment characteristics, fundamental characteristics and liquidity measures similar to those of an underlying index. The Fund may or may not hold all of the securities in the 100 Index.

 

The Fund may concentrate its investments in a particular industry or group of industries to the extent that the 100 Index concentrates in an industry or group of industries.

 

Inspire International ETF

 

The Fund generally invests at least 80% of its total assets in the component securities of the Inspire Global Hope ex-US Index, a rules-based index. The Index Provider selects foreign (including emerging markets) and domestic large capitalization equity securities from all publicly traded international and emerging market large cap companies using the Index Provider’s Inspire Impact Score®, a proprietary selection methodology that is designed to assign a score to a particular security based on the security’s alignment with biblical values and the positive impact that the company has on its customers, communities, workplace and the world. The Fund holds a representative sample of the securities that make up the Global Hope ex-US Index.

 

The Index Provider uses software that analyzes publicly available data relating to the primary business activities, products and services, philanthropy, legal activities, policies and practices when assigning Inspire Impact Scores® to a company. The screening process looks through a company to its parents, subsidiaries, and affiliates in determining whether a company has any degree of participation in these activities. The 200 securities with the highest Inspire Impact Scores® are included in the Global Hope ex-US Index and are equally weighted. The Global Hope ex-US Index will typically be comprised of 80% in developed foreign securities and 20% in emerging market securities. The Inspire Impact Scores® of the securities in the Index are reviewed periodically (at least annually), and the Index is rebalanced quarterly. If, upon review, the Inspire Impact Score® of a security is negative, the security is removed from the Index and replaced with a positive scoring security.

 

The equity securities included in the Index are foreign equity securities of companies with capitalization of $5 billion US Dollars or more. The Fund may concentrate its investments in a particular industry or group of industries to the extent that the Global Hope ex-US Index concentrates in an industry or group of industries.

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Principal Investment Risks:

 

The following describes the risks born by each Fund with respect to its investments.

 

Asset Class Risk. Securities in the index or in the Fund’s portfolio may underperform in comparison to the general securities markets or other asset classes.

 

Authorized Participant Risk. Only an Authorized Participant may engage in creation or redemption transactions directly with the Fund. The Fund has a limited number of institutions that may act as Authorized Participants on an agency basis (i.e., on behalf of other market participants). To the extent that APs exit the business or are unable to proceed with creation or redemption orders with respect to the Fund and no other Authorized Participant is able to step forward to create or redeem Creation Units, Fund shares may be more likely to trade at a premium or discount to NAV and possibly face trading halts or delisting. Authorized Participant concentration risk may be heightened for ETFs that invest in non-U.S. securities or other securities or instruments that have lower trading volumes.

 

Biblically Responsible Investment Risk. The Fund invests at least 80% of its assets in the component securities of the Index which uses the Inspire Impact Score® and related biblical values screening criteria in selecting its component securities. As a result of its strategy, the Index’s exclusion of securities of certain issuers for nonfinancial reasons may cause the Fund to forgo some market opportunities available to funds that do not use these criteria. This could be due to biblically responsible companies falling out of favor with investors or failing to perform as well as companies that do not receive a favorable Inspire Impact Score®.

 

Concentration Risk. Sector risk is the possibility that securities within the same group of industries will decline in price due to sector-specific market or economic developments. If the Fund invests more heavily in a particular industry, the value of its shares may be especially sensitive to factors and economic risks that specifically affect that industry. As a result, the Fund’s share price may fluctuate more widely than the value of shares of a mutual fund that invests in a broader range of industries. Additionally, some industries could be subject to greater government regulation than other sectors. Therefore, changes in regulatory policies for those industries may have a material effect on the value of securities issued by companies in those industries. The industries in which the Fund may invest, directly or indirectly, will vary based on the investments of the Index.

 

Early Close/Trading Halt Risk. An exchange or market may close or impose a market trading halt or issue trading halts on specific securities, or the ability to buy or sell certain securities or financial instruments may be restricted, which may prevent the Fund from buying or selling certain securities or financial instruments. In these circumstances, the Fund may be unable to rebalance its portfolio, may be unable to accurately price its investments and may incur substantial trading losses.

 

Emerging Markets Risk (Inspire Global Hope and Inspire International Only). The Fund may invest in countries with newly organized or less developed securities markets. There are typically greater risks involved in investing in emerging markets securities. Generally, economic structures in these countries are less diverse and mature than those in developed countries and their political systems tend to be less stable. Emerging market economies may be based on only a few industries, therefore security issuers, including governments, may be more susceptible to economic weakness and more likely to default. Emerging market countries also may have relatively unstable governments, weaker economies, and less-developed legal systems with fewer security holder rights. Investments in emerging markets countries may be affected by government policies that restrict foreign investment in certain issuers or industries. The potentially smaller size of their securities markets and lower trading volumes can make investments relatively illiquid and potentially more volatile than investments in developed countries, and such securities may be subject to abrupt and severe price declines. Due to this relative lack of liquidity, the Fund may have to accept a lower price or may not be able to sell a portfolio security at all. An inability to sell a portfolio position can adversely affect the Fund’s value or prevent the Fund from being able to meet cash obligations or take advantage of other investment opportunities.

 

Equity Securities Risk (Inspire Global Hope, Inspire Small/Mid Cap, Inspire 100 and Inspire International Only). Fluctuations in the value of equity securities held by the Fund will cause the net asset value (“NAV”) of the Fund and the price of its shares (“Shares”) to fluctuate.

 

Common Stock Risk. Common stock of an issuer in the Fund’s portfolio may decline in price if the issuer fails to make anticipated dividend payments. Common stock will be subject to greater dividend risk than preferred stocks or debt instruments of the same issuer. In addition, common stocks have experienced significantly more volatility in returns than other asset classes.

 

Preferred Stock Risk. Generally, preferred stockholders (such as the Fund) have no voting rights with respect to the issuing company unless certain events occur. In addition, preferred stock will be subject to greater credit risk than debt instruments of an issuer, and could be subject to interest rate risk like fixed income securities, as described below. An issuer’s board of directors is generally not under any obligation to pay a dividend (even if dividends have accrued), and may suspend payment of dividends on preferred stock at any time. There is also a risk that the issuer of any of the Fund’s holdings will default and fail to make scheduled dividend payments on the preferred stock held by the Fund).

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ETF Structure Risk. The Fund is structured as an ETF and as a result is subject to the special risks, including:

 

Not Individually Redeemable. Shares are not redeemable by retail investors and may be redeemed only by the Authorized Participants at NAV and only in Creation Units. A retail investor generally incurs brokerage costs when selling shares.

 

Trading Issues. Trading in Shares on the Exchange may be halted due to market conditions or for reasons that, in the view of the Exchange, make trading in Shares inadvisable, such as extraordinary market volatility. There can be no assurance that Shares will continue to meet the listing requirements of the Exchange, which may result in the trading of the Shares being suspended or the Shares being delisted. An active trading market for the Shares may not be developed or maintained. If the Shares are traded outside a collateralized settlement system, the number of financial institutions that can act as Authorized Participant that can post collateral on an agency basis is limited, which may limit the market for the Shares.

 

Market Price Variance Risk. Individual Shares of the Fund that are listed for trading on the Exchange can be bought and sold in the secondary market at market prices. The market prices of Shares will fluctuate in response to changes in NAV and supply and demand for Shares. There may be times when the market price and the NAV vary significantly and you may pay more than NAV when buying Shares on the secondary market, and you may receive less than NAV when you sell those Shares. The market price of Shares, like the price of any exchange-traded security, includes a “bid-ask spread” charged by the exchange specialists, market makers or other participants that trade the particular security. In times of severe market disruption, the bid-ask spread often increases significantly. This means that Shares may trade at a discount to NAV and the discount is likely to be greatest when the price of Shares is falling fastest, which may be the time that you most want to sell your Shares. The Fund’s investment results are measured based upon the daily NAV of the Fund over a period of time. Investors purchasing and selling Shares in the secondary market may not experience investment results consistent with those experienced by those Authorized Participants creating and redeeming directly with the Fund.

 

o In times of market stress, market makers may step away from their role market making in shares of ETFs and in executing trades, which can lead to differences between the market value of Shares and the Fund’s NAV.

 

o The market price for the Shares may deviate from the Fund’s NAV, particularly during times of market stress, with the result that investors may pay significantly more or significantly less for Shares than the Fund’s NAV, which is reflected in the bid and ask price for Fund shares or in the closing price.

 

o When all or a portion of a Fund’s underlying securities trade in a market that is closed when the market for the Shares is open, there may be changes from the last quote of the closed market and the quote from the Fund’s domestic trading day, which could lead to differences between the market value of the Shares and the Fund’s NAV.

 

o In stressed market conditions, the market for the Shares may become less liquid in response to the deteriorating liquidity of the Fund’s portfolio. This adverse effect on the liquidity of the Shares may, in turn, lead to differences between the market value of the Shares and the Fund’s NAV.

 

Fixed Income Risk (Inspire Corporate Bond Only). Fixed income risk factors include credit risk (the debtor may default) and prepayment risk (the debtor may pay its obligation early or later than expected, potentially reducing the amount of interest payments or extending time to principal repayment). These risks could affect the value of a particular investment possibly causing the Fund’s share price and total return to be reduced and fluctuate more than other types of investments. When the Fund invests in fixed income securities the value of your investment in the Fund will fluctuate with changes in interest rates. Typically, a rise in interest rates causes a decline in the value of fixed income securities. In general, the market price of debt securities with longer maturities will increase or decrease more in response to changes in interest rates than shorter-term securities. If the U.S. Federal Reserve’s Federal Open Market Committee (“FOMC”) raises the federal funds interest rate target, interest rates across the U.S. financial system may rise. However, the magnitude of rate changes across maturities and borrower sectors is uncertain. Rising rates may decrease liquidity and increase volatility, which may make portfolio management more difficult and costly to the Fund and its shareholders. Additionally, default risk increases if issuers must borrow at higher rates. Generally, these changing market conditions may cause the Fund’s share price to fluctuate or decline more than other types of equity investments.

 

Foreign Securities Risk (Inspire Global Hope and Inspire International Only). To the extent the Fund invest in foreign securities, the Fund could be subject to greater risks because the Fund’s performance may depend on issues other than the performance of a particular company or U.S. market sector. Changes in foreign economies and political climates are more likely to affect the Fund than a mutual fund that invests exclusively in U.S. companies. The value of foreign securities is also affected by the value of the local currency relative to the U.S. dollar. There may also be less government supervision of foreign markets, resulting in non-uniform accounting practices and less publicly available information. The values of foreign investments may be affected by changes in exchange control regulations, application of foreign tax laws (including withholding tax), changes in governmental administration or economic or monetary policy (in this country or abroad) or changed circumstances in dealings between nations. In addition, foreign brokerage commissions, custody fees and other costs of investing in foreign securities are generally higher than in the United States. Investments in foreign issues could be affected by other factors not present in the United States, including expropriation, armed conflict, confiscatory taxation, and potential difficulties in enforcing contractual obligations. As a result, the Fund may be exposed to greater risk and will be more dependent on the adviser’s ability to assess such risk than if the Fund invested solely in more developed countries.

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Market and Geopolitical Risk. The increasing interconnectivity between global economies and financial markets increases the likelihood that events or conditions in one region or financial market may adversely impact issuers in a different country, region or financial market. Securities in the Fund’s portfolio may underperform due to inflation (or expectations for inflation), interest rates, global demand for particular products or resources, natural disasters, climate-change and climate-related events, pandemics, epidemics, terrorism, regulatory events and governmental or quasi-governmental actions. The occurrence of global events similar to those in recent years, such as terrorist attacks around the world, natural disasters, social and political discord or debt crises and downgrades, among others, may result in market volatility and may have long term effects on both the U.S. and global financial markets. It is difficult to predict when similar events affecting the U.S. or global financial markets may occur, the effects that such events may have and the duration of those effects. Any such event(s) could have a significant adverse impact on the value and risk profile of the Fund’s portfolio. The current novel coronavirus (COVID-19) global pandemic and the aggressive responses taken by many governments, including closing borders, restricting international and domestic travel, and the imposition of prolonged quarantines or similar restrictions, as well as the forced or voluntary closure of, or operational changes to, many retail and other businesses, has had negative impacts, and in many cases severe negative impacts, on markets worldwide. It is not known how long such impacts, or any future impacts of other significant events described above, will or would last, but there could be a prolonged period of global economic slowdown, which may impact your Fund investment. Therefore, the Fund could lose money over short periods due to short-term market movements and over longer periods during more prolonged market downturns. During a general market downturn, multiple asset classes may be negatively affected. Changes in market conditions and interest rates can have the same impact on all types of securities and instruments. In times of severe market disruptions, you could lose your entire investment.

 

Passive Investment Risk. The Fund is not actively managed and may be affected by a general decline in market segments related to the Index. The Fund invests in securities included in, or representative of securities included in, the Index, regardless of their investment merits. The Fund does not take defensive positions under any market conditions, including conditions that are adverse to the performance of the Fund, unless such defensive positions are also taken by the Index.

 

Sampling Risk. The Fund’s use of a representative sampling approach, if used, could result in its holding a smaller number of securities than are in the Index. As a result, an adverse development with an issuer of securities held by the Fund could result in a greater decline in NAV than would be the case if the Fund held all of the securities in the Index. To the extent the assets in the Fund are smaller, these risks will be greater.

 

Small and Medium Capitalization Risk (Inspire Small/Mid Cap Only). The stocks of small and medium capitalization companies involve substantial risk. These companies may have limited product lines, markets or financial resources, and they may be dependent on a limited management group. Stocks of these companies may be subject to more abrupt or erratic market movements than those of larger, more established companies or the market averages in general.

 

Tracking Error Risk. Tracking error is the divergence of the Fund’s performance from that of the Index. Tracking error may occur because of imperfect correlation between the Fund’s holdings of portfolio securities and those in the index, pricing differences, the Fund’s holding of cash, differences on timing of the accrual of dividends, changes to the index or the need to meet various regulatory requirements. This risk may be heightened during times of increased market volatility or other unusual market conditions. Tracking error also may result because the Fund incurs fees and expenses, while the Index does not.

 

SECURITIES LENDING: To generate additional income, each Fund may lend its portfolio securities to qualified banks, broker-dealers and other financial institutions (referred to as “borrowers”), provided that: (i) the loan is continuously secured by collateral in cash, cash equivalents, bank letters of credit or U.S. government securities equal to at least 100% of the value of the loaned securities, and such collateral is valued, or “marked to market,” daily (borrowers are required to furnish additional collateral to a Fund as necessary to fully cover its obligations); (ii) the loan may be recalled at any time by the Fund and the loaned securities returned; (iii) a Fund will receive any interest, dividends or other distributions paid on the loaned securities; and (iv) the aggregate value of the loaned securities will not exceed 33 1/3% of a Fund’s total assets. A Fund generally retains part or all of the interest received on investment of the cash collateral or receives a fee from the borrower. While this practice will not impact any Fund’s principal investment strategy, it does subject a Fund to the securities lending risk described in this Prospectus.

 

Loans of securities involve a risk that the borrower may fail to return the securities or may fail to maintain the proper amount of collateral, which may result in a loss of money by a Fund or a delay in recovering the loaned securities. In addition, in the event of bankruptcy of the borrower, a Fund could experience delays in recovering the loaned securities or only recover cash or a security of equivalent value. Therefore, a Fund will only enter into portfolio loans after a review of all pertinent factors by the Adviser under the oversight of the Board of Trustees, including the creditworthiness of the borrower and then only if the consideration to be received from such loans would justify the risk. Creditworthiness will be monitored on an ongoing basis by the adviser. An attempt may be made to recall a loan in time to vote proxies if fund management has knowledge of a material vote respect to the loaned securities and the matter involved would have a material effect on a Fund’s investment in the security. The costs of securities lending are not reflected in each Fund’s “Annual Fund Operating Expenses” table or “Example” above.

 

Securities Lending Risk. A Fund may lend its portfolio securities to financial institutions under guidelines adopted by the Board of Trustees, including a requirement that the Fund receive cash collateral from the borrower equal to no less than 100% of the market value of the securities loaned. A Fund may invest this cash collateral in high quality short-term debt obligations, government obligations, bank guarantees or money market mutual funds. Securities lending involves two primary risks: “investment risk” and “borrower default risk.” Investment risk is the risk that a Fund will lose money from the investment of the cash collateral. Borrower default risk is the risk that a Fund will lose money due to the failure of a borrower to return a borrowed security in a timely manner.

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PORTFOLIO HOLDINGS DISCLOSURE: The Fund’s portfolio holdings is disclosed every day on its website at www.inspireetf.com. A description of the Funds’ policies and procedures regarding the release of portfolio holdings information is available in the Funds’ Statement of Additional Information (“SAI”).

 

OPERATIONAL AND CYBERSECURITY RISK: Fund operations, including business, financial, accounting, data processing systems or other operating systems and facilities may be disrupted, disabled or damaged as a result of a number of factors, including events that are wholly or partially beyond our control. For example, there could be electrical or telecommunications outages; degradation or loss of internet or web services; natural disasters, such as earthquakes, tornados and hurricanes; climate-change and climate-related events; disease pandemics; or events arising from local or larger scale political or social events, as well as terrorist acts.

 

The Funds are also subject to the risk of potential cyber incidents, which may include, but are not limited to, the harming of or unauthorized access to digital systems (for example, through “hacking” or infection by computer viruses or other malicious software code), denial-of-service attacks on websites, and the inadvertent or intentional release of confidential or proprietary information. Cyber incidents may, among other things, harm Fund operations, result in financial losses to a Fund and its shareholders, cause the release of confidential or highly restricted information, and result in regulatory penalties, reputational damage, and/or increased compliance, reimbursement or other compensation costs. Fund operations that may be disrupted or halted due to a cyber incident include trading, the processing of shareholder transactions, and the calculation of a Fund’s net asset value.

 

Issues affecting operating systems and facilities through cyber incidents, any of the scenarios described above, or other factors, may harm the Funds by affecting the Adviser, or other service providers, or issuers of securities in which a Fund invests. Although the Funds have business continuity plans and other safeguards in place, including what the Funds believe to be robust information security procedures and controls, there is no guarantee that these measures will prevent cyber incidents or prevent or ameliorate the effects of significant and widespread disruption to our physical infrastructure or operating systems. Furthermore, the Funds cannot directly control the security or other measures taken by unaffiliated service providers or the issuers of securities in which the Funds invest. Such risks at issuers of securities in which the Funds invest could result in material adverse consequences for such issuers and may cause a Fund’s investment in such securities to lose value.

 

MANAGEMENT
 

INVESTMENT ADVISER AND INDEX PROVIDERS: Inspire Investing, LLC, located at 3597 E Monarch Sky Lane, Suite 330, Meridian Idaho, 83646, serves as each Fund’s investment adviser. The Adviser is registered with the SEC as an investment adviser under the Investment Advisers Act of 1940, as amended. The Adviser manages accounts for individuals and institutions as well as the Funds. As of December 31, 2021, it had approximately $1.985 billion in assets under management. The Adviser is also each Fund’s index provider.

 

Subject to the oversight of the Board of Trustees, the Adviser is responsible for managing each Fund’s investments, placing trade orders and providing related administrative services and facilities under an advisory agreement between each Fund and the Adviser (the “Investment Advisory Agreement”).

 

The management fee set forth in the Investment Advisory Agreement is 0.30% for Inspire Global Hope ETF, Inspire Small/Mid Cap ETF, Inspire Corporate Bond ETF, and Inspire 100 ETF, and 0.45% for Inspire International ETF, annually to be paid on a monthly basis. In addition to investment advisory fees, each Fund pays other expenses including costs incurred in connection with the maintenance of securities law registration, printing and mailing prospectuses and statements of additional information to shareholders, certain financial accounting services, taxes or governmental fees, custodial, transfer and shareholder servicing agent costs, expenses of outside counsel and independent accountants, preparation of shareholder reports and expenses of trustee and shareholders meetings. A discussion regarding the basis for the Board of Trustees’ renewal of the Investment Advisory Agreement is available in the Funds’ semi-annual report to shareholders May 31, 2021.

 

The Adviser has contractually agreed to reduce its fees and/or absorb expenses of the Funds, until at least March 31, 2023, to ensure that total annual fund operating expenses after fee waiver and/or reimbursement excluding (i) any front-end or contingent deferred loads; (ii) brokerage fees and commissions, (iii) acquired fund fees and expenses; (iv) fees and expenses associated with investments in other collective investment vehicles or derivative instruments (including for example option and swap fees and expenses); (v) borrowing costs (such as interest and dividend expense on securities sold short); (vi) taxes; and (vii) extraordinary expenses, such as litigation expenses (which may include indemnification of Fund officers and Trustees, contractual indemnification of Fund service providers (other than the Adviser) will not exceed 0.35% of the average daily net assets for Inspire 100 ETF. subject to possible recoupment from the relevant Fund in future years within the three years after the fees have been waived or reimbursed if such recoupment can be achieved within the lesser of the expense limitations in place at the time of waiver and the expense limitation in place at the time of recapture. The expense limit arrangement may not be terminated during this time period without prior approval of the Board of Trustees on 60 days’ written notice to the Adviser.

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Portfolio Managers

 

Darrell Jayroe, CFA, CKA®, CFP® has been Portfolio Manager with the Adviser since 2016. Mr. Jayroe previously held the position of Senior Portfolio Manager at Bank of Oklahoma from 2004 to 2016. Prior to that, he held management positions at Southwest Securities (2003 to 2004) and at UBS Paine Weber (1994 to 2003).

 

Robert Netzly has been the founder and CEO of the Adviser since 2015. Mr. Netzly is a nationally recognized expert in Biblically Responsible Investing (BRI) and leader in the BRI movement. He has also served as founder and CEO of Christian Wealth Management since 2011. Mr. Netzly was a registered representative at Wells Fargo Investments, Private Client Service, serving the bank’s high net worth clientele from 2008 to 2011.

 

Tim Schwarzenberger, CFA® has been Portfolio Manager with the Adviser since September 2021. Mr. Schwarzenberger previously held the positions of Managing Director (2018 to 2021), Sr. Director – Client Services (2014 to 2018), and Investment Advisor (2005 to 2014) at Christian Brothers Investment Services (CBIS), Prior to that, he was an investment analyst with Willis Towers Watson (2004 to 2005).

 

The SAI provides additional information about the Portfolio Managers’ compensation, other accounts managed and ownership of Fund shares.

 

HOW SHARES ARE PRICED
 

Shares of each Fund are bought and sold at a price in two different ways depending upon the type of investor.

 

All investors including retail investors and Authorized Participants may buy and sell Shares in secondary market transactions through brokers at market prices and the Shares will trade at market prices.

 

Only Authorized Participants may buy and redeem Shares from a Fund directly and those transactions are effected at the Fund’s NAV.

 

The NAV of each Fund is determined at close of regular trading (normally 4:00 p.m. Eastern Time) on each day the Exchange is open for business. NAV is computed by determining, the aggregate market value of all assets of the applicable Fund, less its liabilities, divided by the total number of shares outstanding ((assets-liabilities)/number of shares = NAV). The Exchange is closed on weekends and New Year’s Day, Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, Presidents’ Day, Good Friday, Memorial Day, Juneteenth, Independence Day, Labor Day, Thanksgiving Day and Christmas Day (“Exchange Close”). The NAV takes into account, the expenses and fees of each Fund, including management, administration, and distribution fees, which are accrued daily. The determination of NAV for each Fund for a particular day is applicable to all applications for the purchase of shares, as well as all requests for the redemption of shares, received by each Fund (or an authorized broker or agent, or its authorized designee) before the close of trading on the Exchange on that day.

 

Generally, each Fund’s portfolio securities, including securities issued by ETFs, are valued each day at the last quoted sales price on each security’s primary exchange. Securities traded or dealt in upon one or more securities exchanges (whether domestic or foreign) for which market quotations are readily available and not subject to restrictions against resale shall be valued at the last quoted sales price on the primary exchange or, in the absence of a sale on the primary exchange, at the mean between the current bid and ask prices on such exchange. Securities primarily traded in the National Association of Securities Dealers’ Automated Quotation System (“NASDAQ”) National Market System for which market quotations are readily available shall be valued using the NASDAQ Official Closing Price. Securities that are not traded on any securities exchange (whether domestic or foreign) and for which over-the-counter market quotations are readily available generally shall be valued at the last sale price or, in the absence of a sale, at the mean between the current bid and ask price on such over-the-counter market. Debt securities not traded on an exchange may be valued at prices supplied by a pricing agent(s) based on broker or dealer supplied valuations or matrix pricing, a method of valuing securities by reference to the value of other securities with similar characteristics, such as rating, interest rate and maturity.

 

If market quotations are not readily available, securities will be valued at their fair market value as determined using the “fair value” procedures approved by the Board. Fair value pricing involves subjective judgments and it is possible that the fair value determined for a security may be materially different than the value that could be realized upon the sale of that security. The fair value prices can differ from market prices when they become available or when a price becomes available. The Board of Trustees has delegated execution of these procedures to a fair value committee composed of one or more representatives from each of the (i) Trust, (ii) administrator, and (iii) Adviser. The committee may also enlist third party consultants such as an audit firm or financial officer of a security issuer on an as-needed basis to assist in determining a security-specific fair value. The Board of Trustees reviews and ratifies the execution of this process and the resultant fair value prices at least quarterly to assure the process produces reliable results.

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Each Fund may use independent pricing services to assist in calculating the value of its’ portfolio securities. In addition, market prices for foreign securities are not determined at the same time of day as the NAV for the Funds. Because the Funds may invest in underlying ETFs which hold portfolio securities primarily listed on foreign exchanges, and these exchanges may trade on weekends or other days when the underlying ETFs do not price their shares, the value of some of the Funds’ portfolio securities may change on days when you may not be able to buy or sell Funds shares.

 

In computing the NAV, each Fund values its foreign securities at the latest closing price on the exchange in which they are traded immediately prior to closing of the Exchange. Prices of foreign securities quoted in foreign currencies are translated into U.S. dollars at current rates. If events materially affecting the value of a security in a Fund’s portfolio, particularly foreign securities, occur after the close of trading on a foreign market but before a Fund prices its shares, the security will be valued at fair value. For example, if trading in a portfolio security is halted and does not resume before a Fund calculates its NAV, the Adviser may need to price the security using the Funds’ fair value pricing guidelines. Without a fair value price, short-term traders could take advantage of the arbitrage opportunity and dilute the NAV of long-term investors. Fair valuation of a Fund’s portfolio securities can serve to reduce arbitrage opportunities available to short-term traders, but there is no assurance that fair value pricing policies will prevent dilution of a Fund’s NAV by short term traders. The determination of fair value involves subjective judgments. As a result, using fair value to price a security may result in a price materially different from the prices used by other mutual funds to determine NAV, or from the price that may be realized upon the actual sale of the security.

 

With respect to any portion of a Fund’s assets that are invested in one or more open-end management investment companies registered under the 1940 Act, a Fund’s NAV is calculated based upon the NAVs of those open-end management investment companies, and the prospectuses for these companies explain the circumstances under which those companies will use fair value pricing and the effects of using fair value pricing.

 

HOW TO BUY AND SELL SHARES
 

Shares of the Funds are listed for trading on the Exchange under the symbols BLES, ISMD, IBD, BIBL and WWJD. Share prices are reported in dollars and cents per Share. Shares can be bought and sold on the secondary market throughout the trading day like other publicly traded shares and Shares typically trade in blocks of less than a Creation Unit. There is no minimum investment required. Shares may only be purchased and sold on the secondary market when the Exchange is open for trading. The Exchange is open for trading Monday through Friday and is closed on weekends and the following holidays, as observed: New Year’s Day, Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, Presidents’ Day, Good Friday, Memorial Day, Juneteenth, Independence Day, Labor Day, Thanksgiving Day and Christmas Day.

 

When buying or selling Shares through a broker, you will incur customary brokerage commissions and charges, and you may pay some or all of the spread between the bid and the offered price in the secondary market on each leg of a round trip (purchase and sale) transaction.

 

Authorized Participants may acquire Shares directly from the Funds, and Authorized Participants may tender their Shares for redemption directly to the Fund, at NAV per Share only in large blocks, or Creation Units of 50,000 Shares for Inspire Global Hope ETF, Inspire Small/Mid Cap ETF, Inspire 100 ETF, and Inspire International ETF, and 100,000 Shares for Inspire Corporate Bond ETF. Purchases and redemptions made directly with a Fund must follow the Fund’s procedures, which are described in the SAI.

 

Each Fund may liquidate and terminate at any time without shareholder approval.

 

Premium/Discount Information

 

Retail investors will buy and sell Shares in secondary market transactions through brokers at market prices and the Shares will trade at market prices. The market price of Shares may be greater than, equal to, or less than NAV. Market forces of supply and demand, economic conditions and other factors may affect the trading prices of Shares.

 

Book Entry

 

Shares are held in book entry form, which means that no stock certificates are issued. The Depository Trust Company (“DTC”) or its nominee is the record owner of all outstanding Shares and is recognized as the owner of all Shares for all purposes.

 

Investors owning Shares are beneficial owners as shown on the records of DTC or its participants. DTC serves as the securities depository for all Shares. Participants in DTC include securities brokers and dealers, banks, trust companies, clearing corporations and other institutions that directly or indirectly maintain a custodial relationship with DTC. As a beneficial owner of Shares, you are not entitled to receive physical delivery of stock certificates or to have Shares registered in your name, and you are not considered a registered owner of Shares. Therefore, to exercise any right as an owner of Shares, you must rely upon the procedures of DTC and its participants. These procedures are the same as those that apply to any other securities that you hold in book entry or “street name” form.

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FREQUENT PURCHASES AND REDEMPTIONS OF FUND SHARES
 

The Board of Trustees has not adopted a policy of monitoring for other frequent trading activity because shares of the Funds are listed for trading on a national securities exchange.

 

DISTRIBUTION AND SERVICE PLAN
 

The Funds have adopted a distribution and service plan (“Plan”) pursuant to Rule 12b-1 under the 1940 Act. Under the Plan, the Funds are authorized to pay distribution fees to the distributor and other firms that provide distribution and shareholder services (“Service Providers”). If a Service Provider provides these services, the Fund may pay fees at an annual rate not to exceed 0.25% of average daily net assets, pursuant to Rule 12b-1 under the 1940 Act.

 

No distribution or service fees are currently paid by the Funds and will not be paid by the Funds unless authorized by the Board of Trustees. There are no current plans to impose these fees. In the event Rule 12b-1 fees were charged, over time they would increase the cost of an investment in the Funds.

 

DIVIDENDS, OTHER DISTRIBUTIONS AND TAXES
 

Shares are traded throughout the day in the secondary market on a national securities exchange on an intra-day basis and are created and redeemed in-kind and/or for cash in Creation Units at each day’s next calculated NAV. In-kind arrangements are designed to protect ongoing shareholders from the adverse effects on a Fund’s portfolio that could arise from frequent cash redemption transactions. In a conventional mutual fund, redemptions can have an adverse tax impact on taxable shareholders if the mutual fund needs to sell portfolio securities to obtain cash to meet net fund redemptions. These sales may generate taxable gains for the ongoing shareholders of the mutual fund, whereas the Shares’ in-kind redemption mechanism generally will not lead to a tax event for the Funds or its ongoing shareholders.

 

Ordinarily, dividends from net investment income, if any, are declared and paid quarterly by the Inspire Global Hope ETF, Inspire Small/Cap ETF, Inspire 100 ETF and Inspire International ETF; and monthly by Inspire Corporate Bond ETF. The Funds distribute their net realized capital gains, if any, to shareholders annually. The Funds may also pay a special distribution at the end of a calendar year to comply with federal tax requirements.

 

No dividend reinvestment service is provided by the Funds. Broker-dealers may make available the DTC book-entry Dividend Reinvestment Service for use by beneficial owners of the Funds for reinvestment of their dividend distributions. Beneficial owners should contact their broker to determine the availability and costs of the service and the details of participation therein. Brokers may require beneficial owners to adhere to specific procedures and timetables. If this service is available and used, dividend distributions of both income and realized gains will be automatically reinvested in additional whole shares of the Funds purchased in the secondary market.

 

Distributions in cash may be reinvested automatically in additional whole Shares only if the broker through whom you purchased Shares makes such option available.

 

Taxes

 

As with any investment, you should consider how your investment in Shares will be taxed. The tax information in this Prospectus is provided as general information. You should consult your own tax professional about the tax consequences of an investment in Shares.

 

Unless your investment in Shares is made through a tax-exempt entity or tax-deferred retirement account, such as an individual retirement account, you need to be aware of the possible tax consequences when:

 

a Fund makes distributions,

 

you sell your Shares listed on the Exchange, and

 

you purchase or redeem Creation Units.

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Taxes on Distributions

 

Distributions from each Fund’s net investment income, including net short-term capital gains, if any, are taxable to you as ordinary income, except that each Fund’s dividends attributable to its “qualified dividend income” (i.e., dividends received on stock of most domestic and certain foreign corporations with respect to which the Fund satisfies certain holding period and other restrictions), if any, generally are subject to federal income tax for non-corporate shareholders who satisfy those restrictions with respect to their Shares at the rate for net capital gain. A part of each Fund’s dividends also may be eligible for the dividends-received deduction allowed to corporations — the eligible portion may not exceed the aggregate dividends each Fund receives from domestic corporations subject to federal income tax (excluding REITs) and excludes dividends from foreign corporations — subject to similar restrictions. However, dividends a corporate shareholder deducts pursuant to that deduction are subject indirectly to the federal alternative minimum tax.

 

In general, your distributions are subject to federal income tax when they are paid, whether you take them in cash or reinvest them in the Funds (if that option is available). Distributions reinvested in additional Shares through the means of a dividend reinvestment service, if available, will be taxable to shareholders acquiring the additional Shares to the same extent as if such distributions had been received in cash. Distributions of net long-term capital gains, if any, in excess of net short-term capital losses are taxable as long-term capital gains, regardless of how long you have held the Shares.

 

Distributions in excess of a Fund’s current and accumulated earnings and profits are treated as a tax-free return of capital to the extent of your basis in the Shares and as capital gain thereafter. A distribution will reduce a Fund’s NAV per Share and may be taxable to you as ordinary income or capital gain (as described above) even though, from an investment standpoint, the distribution may constitute a return of capital.

 

By law, a Fund is required to withhold 28% of your distributions and redemption proceeds if you have not provided the Fund with a correct Social Security number or other taxpayer identification number and in certain other situations.

 

Taxes on Exchange-Listed Share Sales

 

Any capital gain or loss realized upon a sale of Shares is generally treated as long-term capital gain or loss if the Shares have been held for more than one year and as short-term capital gain or loss if the Shares have been held for one year or less. The ability to deduct capital losses from sales of Shares may be limited.

 

Taxes on Purchase and Redemption of Creation Units

 

An Authorized Participants who exchanges securities for Creation Units generally will recognize a gain or a loss equal to the difference between the market value of the Creation Units at the time of the exchange and the sum of the exchanger’s aggregate basis in the securities surrendered plus any Cash Component it pays. An Authorized Participants who exchanges Creation Units for securities will generally recognize a gain or loss equal to the difference between the exchanger’s basis in the Creation Units and the sum of the aggregate market value of the securities received plus any cash equal to the difference between the NAV of the Shares being redeemed and the value of the securities. The Internal Revenue Service (“Service”), however, may assert that a loss realized upon an exchange of securities for Creation Units cannot be deducted currently under the rules governing “wash sales” or for other reasons. Persons exchanging securities should consult their own tax advisor with respect to whether wash sale rules apply and when a loss might be deductible.

 

Any capital gain or loss realized upon redemption of Creation Units is generally treated as long-term capital gain or loss if the Shares have been held for more than one year and as short-term capital gain or loss if the Shares have been held for one year or less.

 

If you purchase or redeem Creation Units, you will be sent a confirmation statement showing how many Shares you purchased or sold and at what price. See “Tax Status” in the SAI for a description of the newly effective requirement regarding basis determination methods applicable to Share redemptions and each Fund’s obligation to report basis information to the Service.

 

The foregoing discussion summarizes some of the possible consequences under current federal tax law of an investment in the Funds. It is not a substitute for personal tax advice. Consult your personal tax advisor about the potential tax consequences of an investment in the Shares under all applicable tax laws. See “Tax Status” in the SAI for more information.

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FUND SERVICE PROVIDERS
 

Ultimus Fund Solutions, LLC is the Funds’ administrator and fund accountant. It has its principal office at 225 Pictoria Drive, Suite 450, Cincinnati, OH 45246, and is primarily in the business of providing administrative, fund accounting and transfer agent services to retail and institutional mutual funds.

 

Brown Brothers Harriman & Co., 50 Post Office Square, Boston, MA 02110, is the Funds’ transfer agent and custodian.

 

Foreside Financial Services, LLC (the “Distributor”), Three Canal Plaza, Suite 100, Portland, ME 04101, is the distributor for the shares of the Funds. The Distributor is a registered broker-dealer and member of the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority, Inc. (“FINRA”).

 

Thompson Hine LLP, 41 South High Street, 17th Floor, Columbus, OH 43215, serves as legal counsel to the Trust.

 

BBD, LLP, 1835 Market Street, 3rd Floor, Philadelphia, PA 19103, serves as the Funds’ independent registered public accounting firm. The independent registered public accounting firm is responsible for auditing the annual financial statements of the Funds.

 

OTHER INFORMATION
 

Continuous Offering

 

The method by which Creation Units of Shares are created and traded may raise certain issues under applicable securities laws. Because new Creation Units of Shares are issued and sold by the Funds on an ongoing basis, a “distribution,” as such term is used in the Securities Act of 1933, as amended (the “Securities Act”), may occur at any point. Broker-dealers and other persons are cautioned that some activities on their part may, depending on the circumstances, result in their being deemed participants in a distribution in a manner which could render them statutory underwriters and subject them to the prospectus delivery requirement and liability provisions of the Securities Act.

 

For example, a broker-dealer firm or its client may be deemed a statutory underwriter if it takes Creation Units after placing an order with the Distributor, breaks them down into constituent Shares and sells the Shares directly to customers or if it chooses to couple the creation of a supply of new Shares with an active selling effort involving solicitation of secondary market demand for Shares.
A determination of whether one is an underwriter for purposes of the Securities Act must take into account all the facts and circumstances pertaining to the activities of the broker-dealer or its client in the particular case, and the examples mentioned above should not be considered a complete description of all the activities that could lead to a characterization as an underwriter.

 

Broker-dealer firms should also note that dealers who are not “underwriters” but are effecting transactions in Shares, whether or not participating in the distribution of Shares, are generally required to deliver a prospectus. This is because the prospectus delivery exemption in Section 4(3) of the Securities Act is not available in respect of such transactions as a result of Section 24(d) of the 1940 Act. As a result, broker-dealer firms should note that dealers who are not “underwriters” but are participating in a distribution (as contrasted with engaging in ordinary secondary market transactions) and thus dealing with the Shares that are part of an overallotment within the meaning of Section 4(3)(C) of the Securities Act, will be unable to take advantage of the prospectus delivery exemption provided by Section 4(3) of the Securities Act. For delivery of prospectuses to exchange members, the prospectus delivery mechanism of Rule 153 under the Securities Act is only available with respect to transactions on a national exchange.

 

Dealers effecting transactions in the Shares, whether or not participating in this distribution, are generally required to deliver a Prospectus. This is in addition to any obligation of dealers to deliver a Prospectus when acting as underwriters.

60

 

FINANCIAL HIGHLIGHTS

 

The following table is intended to help you better understand each Fund’s financial performance since its inception. Certain information reflects financial results for a single Fund share. Total return represents the rate you would have earned (or lost) on an investment in the Funds, assuming reinvestment of all dividends and distributions. This information has been audited by BBD, LLP, an independent registered public accounting firm, whose report, along with the Funds’ financial statements, is included in the annual report, which is available upon request.

 

Inspire Global Hope ETF

FINANCIAL HIGHLIGHTS

 

Per Share Data and Ratios for a Share of Beneficial Interest Outstanding Throughout Each Year or Period Presented

 

    Year Ended     Year Ended     Year Ended     Year Ended     Period Ended  
    November 30,
2021
    November 30,
2020
    November 30,
2019
    November 30,
2018
    November 30,
2017 (1)
 
Net asset value, beginning of period   $ 32.12     $ 29.21     $ 26.20     $ 27.86     $ 25.00  
Activity from investment operations:                                        
Net investment income (2)     0.78       0.50       0.67       0.48       0.36  
Net realized and unrealized gain (loss) on investments     6.46       2.96       3.08       (1.49 )     2.78  
Total from investment operations     7.24       3.46       3.75       (1.01 )     3.14  
Less distributions from:                                        
Net investment income     (0.68 )     (0.52 )     (0.58 )     (0.49 )     (0.28 )
Net realized gains           (0.03 )     (0.16 )     (0.16 )      
Total distributions     (0.68 )     (0.55 )     (0.74 )     (0.65 )     (0.28 )
Net asset value, end of period   $ 38.68     $ 32.12     $ 29.21     $ 26.20     $ 27.86  
Total return (6)     22.63 %     12.35 %     14.60 %     (3.74 )%     12.63 (4)
Net assets, at end of period (000s)   $ 137,329     $ 120,453     $ 160,673     $ 87,770     $ 52,929  
Ratio of gross expenses to average net assets (3)     0.49 %     0.61 %     0.52 (8)     0.62 %     0.75 %
Ratio of net expenses to average net assets (3)     0.49 %     0.61 %     0.54 % (7)     0.62 %     0.65 %
Ratio of net investment income to average net assets (3)     2.08 %     1.82 %     2.42 %     1.71 %     1.80 %
Portfolio Turnover Rate (5)     94 %     36 %     22 %     22 %     15 (4)

 

 
(1) The Inspire Global Hope ETF commenced operations on February 27, 2017.

 

(2) Per share amounts calculated using the average shares method, which more appropriately presents the per share data for the period.

 

(3) Annualized for periods less than one year.

 

(4) Not annualized.

 

(5) Portfolio turnover rate excludes portfolio securities received or delivered as a result of processing capital share transactions in Creation Units.

 

(6) Total return is calculated assuming a purchase of shares at net asset value on the first day and a sale at net asset value on the last day of the period. Distributions are assumed, for the purpose of this calculation, to be reinvested at the ex-dividend date net asset value per share on their respective payment dates.

 

(7) Represents the ratio of expenses to average net assets after adviser recapture of waived/reimbursed fees from prior periods.

 

(8) Represents the ratio of expenses to average net assets before adviser recapture of waived/reimbursed fees from prior periods.

61

 

 

Inspire Small/Mid Cap ETF

FINANCIAL HIGHLIGHTS

 

Per Share Data and Ratios for a Share of Beneficial Interest Outstanding Throughout Each Year or Period Presented

 

    Year Ended     Year Ended     Year Ended     Year Ended     Period Ended  
    November 30,
2021
    November 30,
2020
    November 30,
2019
    November 30,
2018
    November 30,
2017 (1)
 
Net asset value, beginning of period   $ 27.74     $ 27.56     $ 26.73     $ 26.82     $ 25.00  
Activity from investment operations:                                        
Net investment income (2)     0.38       0.37       0.32       0.30       0.20  
Net realized and unrealized gain on investments     8.32       0.13  (7)     1.29       0.20  (7)     1.73  
Total from investment operations     8.70       0.50       1.61       0.50       1.93  
Less distributions from:                                        
Net investment income     (0.31 )     (0.31 )     (0.22 )     (0.21 )     (0.11 )
Net realized gains           (0.01 )     (0.56 )     (0.38 )      
Total distributions     (0.31 )     (0.32 )     (0.78 )     (0.59 )     (0.11 )
Net asset value, end of period   $ 36.13     $ 27.74     $ 27.56     $ 26.73     $ 26.82  
Total return (6)     31.44 %     2.12 %     6.42 %     1.89 %     7.75 (4)
Net assets, at end of period (000s)   $ 124,658     $ 85,988     $ 99,226     $ 50,788     $ 29,499  
Ratio of gross expenses to average net assets (3)     0.48 (9)     0.57 (9)     0.64 %     0.71 %     0.94 %
Ratio of net expenses to average net assets (3)     0.52 (8)     0.60 (8)     0.60 %     0.62 %     0.65 %
Ratio of net investment income to average net assets (3)     1.08 %     1.53 %     1.24 %     1.07 %     1.06 %
Portfolio Turnover Rate (5)     168 %     92 %     42 %     24 %     16 (4)

 

 
(1) The Inspire Small/Mid Cap Impact ETF commenced operations on February 27, 2017.

 

(2) Per share amounts calculated using the average shares method, which more appropriately presents the per share data for the period.

 

(3) Annualized for periods less than one year.

 

(4) Not annualized.

 

(5) Portfolio turnover rate excludes portfolio securities received or delivered as a result of processing capital share transactions in Creation Units.

 

(6) Total return is calculated assuming a purchase of shares at net asset value on the first day and a sale at net asset value on the last day of the period. Distributions are assumed, for the purpose of this calculation, to be reinvested at the ex-dividend date net asset value per share on their respective payment dates.

 

(7) The amount of net realized and unrealized gain on investments per share does not accord with the amounts in the Statements of Operations due to the timing of shareholder subscriptions and redemptions relative to fluctuating net asset values during the year.

 

(8) Represents the ratio of expenses to average net assets after adviser recapture of waived/reimbursed fees from prior periods.

 

(9) Represents the ratio of expenses to average net assets before adviser recapture of waived/reimbursed fees from prior periods.

62

 

Inspire Corporate Bond ETF

FINANCIAL HIGHLIGHTS

 

Per Share Data and Ratios for a Share of Beneficial Interest Outstanding Throughout Each Year or Period Presented

 

    Year Ended     Year Ended     Year Ended     Year Ended     Period Ended  
    November 30,
2021
    November 30,
2020
    November 30,
2019
    November 30,
2018
    November 30,
2017 (1)
 
Net asset value, beginning of period   $ 26.48     $ 25.69     $ 24.18     $ 24.95     $ 25.00  
Activity from investment operations:                                        
Net investment income (2)     0.27       0.45       0.64       0.56       0.18  
Net realized and unrealized gain (loss) on investments     (0.57 )     0.86       1.49       (0.81 )     (0.09 )
Total from investment operations     (0.30 )     1.31       2.13       (0.25 )     0.09  
Less distributions from:                                        
Net investment income     (0.29 )     (0.44 )     (0.62 )     (0.52 )     (0.14 )
Net realized gains           (0.08 )           (0.00 ) (7)      
Total distributions     (0.29 )     (0.52 )     (0.62 )     (0.52 )     (0.14 )
Net asset value, end of period   $ 25.89     $ 26.48     $ 25.69     $ 24.18     $ 24.95  
Total return (6)     (1.15 )%     5.16 %     8.91 %     (0.99 )%     0.37 (4)
Net assets, at end of period (000s)   $ 238,225     $ 166,829     $ 138,723     $ 58,031     $ 22,453  
Ratio of gross expenses to average net assets (3)     0.44 %     0.49 %     0.50 (9)     0.68 %     1.51 %
Ratio of net expenses to average net assets (3)     0.44 %     0.49 %     0.58 (8)     0.62 %     0.65 %
Ratio of net investment income to average net assets (3)     1.04 %     1.75 %     2.52 %     2.27 %     1.81 %
Portfolio Turnover Rate (5)     126 %     35 %     18 %     5 %     6 % (4)

 

 
(1) The Inspire Corporate Bond Impact ETF commenced operations on July 10, 2017.

 

(2) Per share amounts calculated using the average shares method, which more appropriately presents the per share data for the period.

 

(3) Annualized for periods less than one year.

 

(4) Not annualized.

 

(5) Portfolio turnover rate excludes portfolio securities received or delivered as a result of processing capital share transactions in Creation Units.

 

(6) Total return is calculated assuming a purchase of shares at net asset value on the first day and a sale at net asset value on the last day of the period. Distributions are assumed, for the purpose of this calculation, to be reinvested at the ex-dividend date net asset value per share on their respective payment dates.

 

(7) Represents less than $0.005.

 

(8) Represents the ratio of expenses to average net assets after adviser recapture of waived/reimbursed fees from prior periods.

 

(9) Represents the ratio of expenses to average net assets before adviser recapture of waived/reimbursed fees from prior periods.

63

 

Inspire 100 ETF

FINANCIAL HIGHLIGHTS

 

Per Share Data and Ratios for a Share of Beneficial Interest Outstanding Throughout Each Year or Period Presented

 

    Year Ended     Year Ended     Year Ended     Year Ended     Period Ended  
    November 30,
2021
    November 30,
2020
    November 30,
2019
    November 30,
2018
    November 30,
2017 (1)
 
Net asset value, beginning of period   $ 35.98     $ 29.52     $ 26.06     $ 25.69     $ 25.00  
Activity from investment operations:                                        
Net investment income (2)     0.43       0.41       0.43       0.61       0.05  
Net realized and unrealized gain on investments     8.39       6.43       3.35       0.19  (7)     0.64  
Total from investment operations     8.82       6.84       3.78       0.80       0.69  
Less distributions from:                                        
Net investment income     (0.43 )     (0.38 )     (0.31 )     (0.42 )      
Net realized gains     (0.20 )           (0.01 )            
Return of capital                       (0.01 )      
Total distributions     (0.63 )     (0.38 )     (0.32 )     (0.43 )      
Net asset value, end of period   $ 44.17     $ 35.98     $ 29.52     $ 26.06     $ 25.69  
Total return (6)     24.79 %     23.50 %     14.64 %     3.09 %     2.76 (4)
Net assets, at end of period (000s)   $ 295,962     $ 149,320     $ 92,986     $ 39,085     $ 6,423  
Ratio of gross expenses to average net assets (3)     0.42 %     0.48 %     0.57 %     0.84 %     3.78 %
Ratio of net expenses to average net assets (3)     0.35 %     0.35 %     0.35 %     0.35 %     0.35 %
Ratio of net investment income to average net assets (3)     1.04 %     1.31 %     1.59 %     2.27 %     2.41 %
Portfolio Turnover Rate (5)     100 %     60 %     23 %     8 %     0 (4)

 

 
(1) The Inspire 100 ETF commenced operations on October 30, 2017.

 

(2) Per share amounts calculated using the average shares method, which more appropriately presents the per share data for the period.

 

(3) Annualized for periods less than one year.

 

(4) Not annualized.

 

(5) Portfolio turnover rate excludes portfolio securities received or delivered as a result of processing capital share transactions in Creation Units.

 

(6) Total return is calculated assuming a purchase of shares at net asset value on the first day and a sale at net asset value on the last day of the period. Distributions are assumed, for the purpose of this calculation, to be reinvested at the ex-dividend date net asset value per share on their respective payment dates.

 

(7) The amount of net realized and unrealized gain on investments per share does not accord with the amounts in the Statements of Operations due to the timing of shareholder subscriptions and redemptions relative to fluctuating net asset values during the year.

64

 

Inspire International ETF

FINANCIAL HIGHLIGHTS

 

Per Share Data and Ratios for a Share of Beneficial Interest Outstanding Throughout Each Year or Period Presented

 

    Year Ended     Year Ended     Period Ended  
    November 30,
2021
    November 30,
2020
    November 30,
2019 (1)
 
Net asset value, beginning of period   $ 29.40     $ 26.51     $ 25.00  
Activity from investment operations:                        
Net investment income (loss) (2)     0.81       0.36       (0.05 )
Net realized and unrealized gain on investments     4.22       2.81       1.56  
Total from investment operations     5.03       3.17       1.51  
Less distributions from:                        
Net investment income     (0.79 )     (0.28 )      
Total distributions     (0.79 )     (0.28 )      
Net asset value, end of period   $ 33.64     $ 29.40     $ 26.51  
Total return (6)     17.11 %     12.29 %     6.04 (4)
Net assets, at end of period (000s)   $ 111,009     $ 77,902     $ 11,930  
Ratio of net expenses to average net assets (3)     0.69 %     0.94 %     2.44 %
Ratio of net investment income (loss) to average net assets (3)     2.38 %     1.44 %     (1.16 )%
Portfolio Turnover Rate(5)     106 %     27 %     0 (4)

 

 
(1) The Inspire International ETF commenced operations on September 30, 2019.

 

(2) Per share amounts calculated using the average shares method, which more appropriately presents the per share data for the period.

 

(3) Annualized for periods less than one year.

 

(4) Not annualized.

 

(5) Portfolio turnover rate excludes portfolio securities received or delivered as a result of processing capital share transactions in Creation Units.

 

(6) Total return is calculated assuming a purchase of shares at net asset value on the first day and a sale at net asset value on the last day of the period. Distributions are assumed, for the purpose of this calculation, to be reinvested at the ex-dividend date net asset value per share on their respective payment dates.

65

 

Privacy Notice

 

Northern Lights Fund Trust IV

 

Rev. August 2015

 

FACTS WHAT DOES NORTHERN LIGHTS FUND TRUST IV DO WITH YOUR PERSONAL INFORMATION?

 

Why? Financial companies choose how they share your personal information. Federal law gives consumers the right to limit some, but not all sharing. Federal law also requires us to tell you how we collect, share, and protect your personal information. Please read this notice carefully to understand what we do.

 

What?

The types of personal information we collect and share depends on the product or service that you have with us. This information can include:

 

●    Social Security number and wire transfer instructions

 

●    account transactions and transaction history

 

●    investment experience and purchase history

 

When you are no longer our customer, we continue to share your information as described in this notice.

 

How? All financial companies need to share customers’ personal information to run their everyday business. In the section below, we list the reasons financial companies can share their customers’ personal information; the reasons Northern Lights Fund Trust IV chooses to share; and whether you can limit this sharing.

 

Reasons we can share
your personal information:
Does Northern Lights
Fund Trust IV
share information?
Can you limit this
sharing?
For our everyday business purposes - such as to process your transactions, maintain your account(s), respond to court orders and legal investigations, or report to credit bureaus. YES NO
For our marketing purposes - to offer our products and services to you. NO We don’t share
For joint marketing with other financial companies. NO We don’t share
For our affiliates’ everyday business purposes - information about your transactions and records. NO We don’t share
For our affiliates’ everyday business purposes - information about your credit worthiness. NO We don’t share
For nonaffiliates to market to you NO We don’t share

 

QUESTIONS? Call 1-631-490-4300

66

 

PRIVACY NOTICE

 

Northern Lights Fund Trust IV

 

Page 2  

 

What we do:

How does Northern Lights Fund Trust IV protect my personal information?

 

To protect your personal information from unauthorized access and use, we use security measures that comply with federal law. These measures include computer safeguards and secured files and buildings.

 

Our service providers are held accountable for adhering to strict policies and procedures to prevent any misuse of your nonpublic personal information.

How does Northern Lights Fund Trust IV collect my personal information?

 

We collect your personal information, for example, when you

 

● open an account or deposit money

 

● direct us to buy securities or direct us to sell your securities

 

● seek advice about your investments

 

We also collect your personal information from others, such as credit bureaus, affiliates, or other companies.

Why can’t I limit all sharing?

 

Federal law gives you the right to limit only:

 

● sharing for affiliates’ everyday business purposes – information about your creditworthiness.

 

● affiliates from using your information to market to you.

 

● sharing for nonaffiliates to market to you.

 

State laws and individual companies may give you additional rights to limit sharing.

Definitions  
Affiliates

Companies related by common ownership or control. They can be financial and nonfinancial companies.

 

Northern Lights Fund Trust IV has no affiliates.

Nonaffiliates

Companies not related by common ownership or control. They can be financial and nonfinancial companies.

 

Northern Lights Fund Trust IV does not share with nonaffiliates so they can market to you.

Joint marketing

A formal agreement between nonaffiliated financial companies that together market financial products or services to you.

 

Northern Lights Fund Trust IV does not jointly market.

     

67

 

Inspire Global Hope ETF

Inspire Small/Mid Cap ETF

Inspire Corporate Bond ETF

Inspire 100 ETF

Inspire International ETF

 

Adviser Inspire Investing, LLC
3597 E Monarch Sky Lane, Suite 330,
Meridian, ID 83646
Distributor Foreside Financial Services, LLC
Three Canal Plaza, Suite 100
Portland, ME 04101
Custodian &
Transfer Agent
Brown Brothers Harriman & Co.
50 Post Office Square
Boston, MA 02110
Legal
Counsel
Thompson Hine LLP
41 South High Street, Suite 1700
Columbus, OH 43215
Administrator Ultimus Fund Solutions, LLC
4221 North 203rd Street, Suite 100
Elkhorn, NE 68022-3474
Independent
Registered Public
Accountant
BBD, LLP
1835 Market Street, 3rd Floor
Philadelphia, PA 19103

 

 

Additional information about the Funds is included in the Funds’ SAI dated October 14 , 2022. The SAI is incorporated into this Prospectus by reference (i.e., legally made a part of this Prospectus). The SAI provides more details about the Funds’ policies and management. Additional information about the Funds’ investments will also be available in the Funds’ Annual and Semi-Annual Reports to Shareholders. In the Funds’ Annual Report, you will find a discussion of the market conditions and investment strategies that significantly affected the Funds’ performance during the last fiscal year.

 

To obtain a free copy of the SAI and the Annual and Semi-Annual Reports to Shareholders, or other information about the Funds, or to make shareholder inquiries about the Funds, please call toll free 877.658.9473. Information relating to the Fund can be found on the website at www.inspireetf.com. You may also write to:

 

Inspire Global Hope ETF

Inspire Small/Mid Cap ETF

Inspire Corporate Bond ETF

Inspire 100 ETF

Inspire International ETF

c/o Ultimus Fund Solutions, LLC

P.O. Box 541150

Omaha, Nebraska 68154

 

Reports and other information about the Funds are available on the EDGAR Database on the SEC’s Internet site at http://www.sec.gov. Copies of the information may be obtained, after paying a duplicating fee, by electronic request at the following E-mail address: [email protected].

 

Investment Company Act File # 811-23066