A Guide to Gender Lens Investing
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MOVING MONEY FOR IMPACT A GUIDE TO GENDER LENS INVESTING TUTI B. SCOTT WITH LEX SCHROEDER IN ASSOCIATION WITH THE WOMEN’S FUNDING NETWORK table of contents About Tides 5 / Conclusion 1 / Introduction 6 / Resources Ten Questions for Getting Started, Adapted from Tides’ “Choose Your 2 / What is Gender Lens Investing? Own Impact Adventure: A Guide for Impact Investors” 64 An Evolving Landscape and Definition 15 “How to Find the Right Financial Advisor (and the Questions They 68 A Shift Toward Values-Based Investing 25 Should Ask You),” by Kathleen McQuiggan, Artemis Financial Advisors “Own the Conversation: How to Speak with Your Financial Advisor About 71 3 / Transformative Ideas and Frameworks Gender Lens Investing,” by Suneela Jain, Chief Legal & Ethics Officer, Tides Lessons from Feminist Philanthropy 31 Portfolio Fact Sheet, by Nia Impact Capital 73 An Integrated Approach To Investing with a Gender Lens 36 The Research: Leadership and Gender Diversity, by Nia Impact Capital 75 Think Beyond Asset Allocation 42 Impact-Focused Measurement Tools 77 Reach Broader Markets Through a Gender Lens 45 7 / Appendix Gender Lens Investing as a Tool for Systems Change 47 Notes on Sources 78 Glossary 84 4 / Put Your Resources to Work A Rapidly Expanding Ecosystem of Investment Opportunities 51 8 / About the Creators of this Guide This document is not an offer to sell, or solicitation of any offer to buy, securities. Any investment entails financial risk and may result in a total Track Investment Results While Evaluating Impact 55 loss of investment capital. Examples provided in this report are for illustrative purposes only and are not intended to be recommendations or endorsements of the companies or organizations identified. Tides encourages you to seek advice regarding any potential investment recommendation or other investment decision from appropriate independent professional advisors. Creative Commons License: Selected License. Attribution-NonCommercial. No Derivatives 4.0 International https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/ This is not a Free Culture License. https://creativecommons.org/share-your-work/public-domain/freeworks 1 TIDES | MOVING MONEY FOR IMPACT: A GUIDE TO GENDER LENS INVESTING 2 environmental protection, quality education As you read this guide, know that you’ve and healthy communities for all. already taken the first step toward creating a world that validates and invests in the Today, more than ever, we know that lasting undeniable value of women and girls—as about tides impact requires individual and collective leaders and changemakers across all action. Accelerating social change requires sectors and in all spheres of life, and us to look at the key assumptions we want as powerful voices in our participatory to challenge while crafting and executing democracy. Money and power are often on bold solutions that will drive superior intertwined. By bringing a gender and outcomes. At Tides, we seek to shift and racial lens to your money by examining expand policies, practices, and resources how and where you invest in leaders, towards people who have been historically organizations, and companies, you are consistently marginalized by oppression. standing up and speaking out for a just, Moving Money For Impact; A Guide to sustainable, and equitable world. There Gender Lens Investing does just that: is nothing more important. As the impact investing world continues to beyond. For those seeking guidance and challenges our assumptions of how money expand and evolve, and more opportunities support on how to move money in a manner gets invested and dispersed into the world. Thank you for your commitment to arise to invest with intention and purpose that aligns with values, creates direct and This guide demands action and solutions advancing social change. towards impact, we stand firmly in the belief immediate impact, and makes the benefits from each of us—asking that we each do our On behalf of The Tides Team, that directing resources to women, girls, and of lifting up women and girls highly visible. part to be a force for change by building a women-led initiatives, particularly ventures world of shared humanity. Jason Wingard, Chair and Since 1976, Tides has been a philanthropic led by those who are Black, Indigenous, Janiece Evans-Page, CEO People of Color, is critical to transforming and nonprofit partner to thousands of our society into an equitable world for all. mission-aligned donors, social change actors, investors, organizations and This is why Tides is proud to publish Moving companies, providing them with the Money For Impact; A Guide to Gender Lens A strategic advice, operational tools and Investing, by Tuti B. Scott, former Chair of the Board and former Interim CEO of Tides, expertise needed to execute on their and an intersectional feminist leader and charitable strategies and drive positive coach with decades of experience educating change in the world. Tides has managed and energizing bold change makers. project and grantmaking activities totaling more than $3.5 billion. Today, we continue At Tides, we believe investing with a gender to seek ways to innovate, collaborate and and racial lens is a necessary component lead the collective impact of our network. to driving systems change. This guide is We believe collaboration and partnership an instrument for activism as well as a is fundamental to addressing society’s most reference for those in the philanthropy entrenched problems, and creating a world and the impacting investing space and that elevates social justice, human rights, 3 TIDES | MOVING MONEY FOR IMPACT: A GUIDE TO GENDER LENS INVESTING 4 women—will start to ask questions about how they can fully activate their resources for social good. This, I believe, will enable a collective shift toward a more equitable and, therefore, a more humane society. The companies mentioned in this guide are all part of a rapidly expanding ecosystem. acknowledgements There are many companies and funds I could have easily included but have omitted for space. I am grateful to my editor and colleague Lex Schroeder for helping to shape this piece and steer it to fruition. Finally, I want to acknowledge my love, the activist and writer Liz Wolfson, for always believing in me and providing such astute insights to improve my writings and work in the world. Onward, I am grateful to everyone who has useful impact investing guide, “Choose Your Tuti B. Scott contributed their wisdom and resources to Own Impact Adventure: A Guide for Impact January, 2021 this guide and to the many field-builders Investors,” (2018) by J. Alexander Sloan in gender lens philanthropy and investing, and Georgina Rubens, that inspired the including Joy Anderson, Suzanne Biegel, creation of this guide. Luisamaria Ruiz Carlile, Aaron Dorfman, Patricia Farrar-Rivas, Willy Foote, Catherine I have learned so much in recent years Gill, Tracy Gray, Kristin Hull, Maria Jobin- about impact investing, and now gender Leeds, Deb Jones, Kathleen McQuiggan, lens investing, through serving 10 years Casey Morgan, Cynthia Nimmo, Katherine on the Board of Tides, participating in IPease, Maya Philipson, Alison Pyott, Ellen and producing convenings with gender lens Remmer, Rachel Robasciotti, Vicki Saunders, investing movement leaders, and serving Ruth Shaber, Roslyn Dawson Thompson, as a leader in the larger feminist social Jackie VanderBrug, Gwendolyn VanSant, justice philanthropic arena. These Casey Verbeck, Marjorie Winfrey, Rye Young, experiences have made it clear to me that and Jacki Zehner. I am grateful as well to the I have an opportunity and responsibility leadership teams of Tides, a philanthropic to distill and share all that I’ve learned partner and nonprofit accelerator, and the with others. In working to be a “translator” Women’s Funding Network, the largest of gender lens investing concepts for the philanthropic network in the world devoted philanthropic community and new learners to women and girls. It was Tides’ incredibly in the gender lens investing space, my hope is that more people—especially, but not only, 5 TIDES | MOVING MONEY FOR IMPACT: A GUIDE TO GENDER LENS INVESTING 6 of repeatedly coming out as a lesbian, as about the future of the field and how they Introduction well as grappling with shameful feelings saw philanthropy and investing aligning to 1 that accompany “jumping class,” which was change people’s lives and transform systems. especially challenging as I navigated major These conversations centered around gender gift fundraising inside philanthropy. To this lens investing as a strategy for gender day, like so many people, I have many layers justice and womxn’s economic power while of feelings about money. I also crave more capturing what resources people would vulnerable and practical conversations about need to activate their investments. I gained money, which is one reason I wrote this guide. powerful insight into what people wanted to learn about gender lens investing. This guide also germinated from three key professional experiences: In Fall 2019, in the spirit of wanting to create more learning opportunities, I produced Who is this guide for? than words.” My experience as a point * listening and working with leaders “Women and Money: Making Money Moves guard in high school and college basketball and donors in the women’s funding that Matter,” an intentional convening Moving Money for Impact is a guide gave me the confidence to take risks, push movement for decades; of leaders in social impact philanthropy, for