Westmont Magazine Building a Stronger Community

“You don’t want your investments to create the problems your philanthropy is trying to solve,” says Kiah Jordan ’06. “For example, you may invest in oil but give all your money to Greenpeace. I have clients who really care about that. They want to manage their money in a way that does good in the world.”

Kiah equips wealthy families to help their communities in meaningful ways. In 2014, he founded Impact Family Office, where he serves as a professional fiduciary and trustee. He is passionate about helping clients align their investment, spending and philanthropy with their values to build a legacy in their community.

He engages deeply with his community through social entrepreneurship. His time at Westmont fueled this passion. Kiah studied abroad twice with the new Westmont in Mexico program. He lived with the same host family both years and played soccer on local teams. “Westmont in Mexico was such a formative experience,” he says. Engaging with poverty made a profound impact on how he saw the world. “It gives you an ability to look at your own community and recognize inequity,” he says.

James 1:27, “Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world,” has guided Kiah and his wife, Anna Chase Jordan ’07. She is involved in the Parent Teacher Association at their children’s elementary school and also teaches as an adjunct English professor at Westmont.

Their four children smile contagiously from a picture on Kiah’s desk. The Jordans adopted a son through Angels Foster Care and have a foster baby. One Friday afternoon in 2011, the agency called, asking if they could take a baby right now. “We became parents with an hour’s notice,” he says. They officially adopted Mason two years later. In 2022, they hope to adopt their foster baby.

In 2011, Kiah joined the board of the Santa Barbara Rescue Mission, which supports homeless guests who may struggle with mental health or drug or alcohol addiction. “The Rescue Mission has been a very important place for me and our family to be engaged,” he says.

A passion for community fueled Kiah’s work as chair of the Santa Barbara County Food Action Network, formed to address the issues, insecurities and inequalities in the food systems of Santa Barbara County. The network seeks to create a vibrant, thriving, healthy, just and sustainable community around food.

Kiah earned a master’s degree in social entrepreneurship from USC. The program focused on helping for-profit companies develop purpose and nonprofit organizations become financially sustainable.

In 2016, Kiah joined the founding board for the Sustainable Change Alliance, a nonprofit that focuses on building community through investing for impact and promoting local entrepreneurs. He also serves on the board of Leading from Within, a nonprofit focused on leadership.

Kiah has witnessed how successful, sustainable businesses shape the community in powerful ways. After graduating from Westmont, he worked for two Westmont alums, David Grotenhuis ’63 and Wayne Siemens ’62, as an investment manager with Santa Barbara Capital. He started Jordan Advisors in 2007 to provide financial advice to clients and small businesses.

He helped two clients plant a vineyard in 2008 and managed Jalama Cañon Ranch and Vineyard for 13 years. A picture of the sprawling vineyard hangs on the wall behind his desk. White Buffalo Land Trust, an organization focused on regenerative agriculture, purchased the vineyard in April. Kiah is passionate about their mission to improve the quality of the land by changing farming practices.

His passion for creating businesses that transform the community extends beyond Santa Barbara. He serves as the chief financial officer for Parker Clay, a leather company that employs 200 women in Ethiopia and works with a nonprofit that develops relationships with women in prostitution, helping them leave the streets. Through a rehab program, the women learn skills and begin recovering and becoming whole again. Parker Clay has committed to hiring every graduate from the program.

Kiah wants to equip Westmont students to influence their communities as social entrepreneurs. He has been involved with the Westmont Downtown program since it started in 2015, co-directing it in fall 2019 and designing and teaching a course, Launching an Impact Venture, for two semesters. He consults with students on their social entrepreneurship projects that implement their one big idea and turn it into a viable business.

Loving God means building a stronger community. “This kind of deep community engagement is so important to us,” Kiah says. “Everything I do is linked to this idea.” It fuels his passion for adoption and foster care, homeless ministry at the rescue mission, sustainable food systems and equipping wealthy clients to invest in their communities.