Reports and Resources
Investing to improve the lives of women and girls is a powerful catalyst for positive social change. Another way to get involved is to support and participate in the larger ecosystem of networks and organizations that engage investors, the business community, and leaders in gender lens philanthropy, investing, and social justice work.
Selected Resources
Criterion Institute: Introducing
Standards of Practice
October 3, 2023 / Download
Gender lens investing is moving beyond basic metrics like women-led businesses or board representation, focusing instead on achieving transformative outcomes. However, implementation remains challenging, with long-term impact metrics often leaving investors uncertain about progress. Addressing power, privilege, and bias in financial practices is crucial to driving meaningful change and creating equitable investment strategies.
Our latest paper offers practical guidance for asset owners, foundations, and governments to rethink their approach and push for measurable, gender-transformative results. Developed through years of collaboration under the ARISE project funded by Global Affairs Canada, this resource empowers stakeholders to make investments that truly advance gender equality.
Veris: Investing in Diversity, Equity,
Inclusion & Belonging (DEIB)
2023 / Download
Investing in historically excluded communities presents a significant opportunity to drive both social and economic progress. Citigroup’s 2020 report, Closing The Racial Inequality Gaps, highlights that racial disparities have cost the U.S. economy up to $16 trillion over the past 20 years, and closing these gaps could add $5 trillion to GDP in just five years.
At Veris, we believe investors can play a transformative role in building equitable systems by integrating diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging (DEIB) into their strategies. Through our multi-faceted and intersectional investment approach, we aim to create wealth and opportunity in under-resourced communities, proving that positive impact and financial returns can go hand in hand.
March 2023 / Download
The Investor Blueprint, created by PolicyLink in collaboration with CapEQ and FSG, provides a comprehensive guide for investors aiming to integrate racial and economic equity into their practices. It underscores the idea that all investments impact society and calls for equitable investing to become a standard approach. The Blueprint outlines two core components: the imperative, which highlights the urgent need to center equity in investment strategies and build stakeholder alignment, and the framework for action, which offers a practical roadmap with actionable steps, resources, and measurable indicators to drive equitable outcomes. By adopting this Blueprint, investors can actively contribute to reducing systemic inequalities and promoting shared prosperity.
Criterion Institute: Disrupting Fields: Addressing Power Dynamics in the Fields of Climate Finance and Gender Lens Investing
February 2, 2021 / Download
Innovators in finance are challenging entrenched norms and reshaping systems to address social and environmental inequities. This paper explores the power dynamics behind the development of climate finance and gender lens investing, highlighting how field builders navigate within and disrupt these systems to advance justice and equity.
Funded by the Wallace Global Fund and UNICEF, the paper provides a framework to analyze power dynamics, from cultural norms and leadership legitimacy to resourcing patterns and structural barriers. It calls on field builders and their supporters to use their influence boldly, ensuring that financial systems evolve to drive meaningful and inclusive change.
Women’s Philanthropy Institute: Measuring Giving to Women’s and Girls’ Causes
2024 / Download / Press Release
“Women’s and girls’ issues have received increased attention in recent years, but for a number of reasons, quantifying charitable giving to these causes has been challenging.
Until now. With the creation of the Women & Girls Index, which identifies 45,000+ organizations in the United States dedicated to women and girls, the Women’s Philanthropy Institute can measure giving to these organizations from individuals, foundations and corporations.”
Diverse Corporate Leadership Outperforms
Gender lens investing (GLI) is the direction of investment resources toward the achievement of gender equality. Broadly defined, GLI describes investment funds and portfolios in private and public capital markets segments. A breadth of studies spanning two decades has repeatedly shown connections between higher levels of women in leadership (WIL) and superior financial and operational performance. This includes superior share price returns, return on equity (ROE) and profitability, as well as lower incidences of fraud, better environmental decision-making, and improved risk management. These studies serve to demonstrate the rewards of gender diversity to companies and their investors – and clarify the costs to companies and economies of the persistent gaps in corporate gender diversity: lost profits, foregone EBITDA margins and ROE, lower revenue growth, dampened credit ratings, and lower earnings for women and their households.
The Gender Finance Ecosystem Map
The Gender Finance Ecosystem Map presents an overview of the multi-faceted field of gender finance. Designed by Suzanne Beigel and her team, it was built to advance the awareness and practice of Gender-Smart Investing, and to promote the engagement of stakeholders across the Investment community and beyond.
Streamlined Map | Tuti Scott & Lex Schroeder
Gender Equality Global Report & Ranking: 2024 Edition
February 2024 / Download Report
Equileap‘s report on gender equality presents the world’s top 100 companies and key findings per theme, country and sector. These rankings are used by many including investors wanting to align their capital with their values. Through their data, Equileap seeks to close the gender gap by promoting corporate transparency and investment in gender equality.
Gender Equality Funds
The Gender Equality Funds tool by grantee As You Sow enables individual and institutional investors to apply a gender lens to mutual fund and ETF investments. It screens about 5,000 of the most commonly held U.S. mutual funds – including financial giants like Vanguard, BlackRock, and State Street – against a database detailing individual company performance on 12 key gender equality performance indicators.
Project Sage: Tracking Venture Capital with a Gender Lens
December 2021 / Download Report
The Project Sage: Tracking Venture Capital with a Gender Lens report by grantee Wharton Social Impact Initiative maps the landscape of private equity and debt funds that have taken a gender lens investment approach. The field of gender lens impact investing has grown significantly in the past several years. With increased funding pouring into the space, there are now more options for venture capital and debt that aim to put funding behind products and companies that benefit women and girls. Also, read Project Sage 2.0, a landscape survey completed one year later and 7 Takeaways from this follow-up report.
The XX Factor: A Comprehensive Framework for Improving the Lives of Women and Girls
2017 / Download Report
The XX Factor examines the inequalities and opportunities experienced by women and girls, providing the first comprehensive and evidence-based framework to help funders take action. It was created by the University of Pennsylvania’s Center for High Impact Philanthropy (CHIP) with the support of Tara Health. The report identifies the five dimensions of a woman’s life that are critical to her flourishing, and identifies ways to measure progress in the lives and well-being of women: Economic Empowerment, Education, Health, Legal Rights, and Personal Safety.
Women’s Philanthropy Institute’s Women Give 2019: Gender and Giving Across Communities of Color
March 2019 / Download
“The first study to explore the intersection of race, giving and gender. The report finds that generosity is a value shared by all communities, and that women across race and ethnicity are leading through philanthropy.
As communities of color grow in wealth and influence, the study demonstrates the unique perspectives women of color bring to philanthropy and underscores the importance of understanding and engaging donors from diverse backgrounds.”