Investing in children offers an incredible opportunity for transformative impact. And yet, while it has been the focus of billions of development and investor dollars to date, the field of investing in children hasn’t yet been formalized, making it difficult to bridge silos and work at a systemic level. This stream of work, launched in partnership with UNICEF, is designed to build the field of child lens investing and help connect the dots between finance and child wellbeing.
In this report, the Global Alliance for Improved Nutrition (GAIN) and Criterion Institute have partnered to highlight the critical opportunities that child-lens investors can unlock by embedding a strong nutrition focus within their work.
Coralus' non-traditional approach to selection and allocation demonstrate how power can be shifted within investment approaches. Below, we identify six of these, with an evaluation of how they disrupt traditional power dynamics.
Our mission is to broaden what matters in our economic decisions by expanding who has power and influence in the work of reinventing the economy.
This overview of a recent Criterion report provides guidance about the power dynamics that underlie field-building.
Criterion is developing over 200 Standards of Practice. This short set on Translation represents ways investors can shift how gender expertise is valued within certain financial processes, structures, and analyses.
Not every congregation will have the same access to capital, the same financial savvy, or the same investment goals. Congregations will be drawn to a range of mission priorities. We have identified ten areas of social concern that are relevant cultural and social issues, and influenced by economic structures.
Criterion Institute is making a long-term commitment to addressing gender-based violence, directing one third of our resources over the next five years toward re-imagining possibilities for using finance as a tool to effect change on this critical issue.
Since our founding, we have partnered with churches because they inspire a large number of people to imagine greater possibilities.
This issue of Criterion Connections, featuring Oxfam America’s Laté Lawson-Lartego, is adapted from a Conversation for Change led by Criterion Institute’s Director of Engagement, Christina Madden, at Opportunity Collaboration.
Building on years of existing work and partnerships, Criterion Institute launched the Power of Policy Program this February of 2020.
This poem was inspired by a wonderful quote used by both Martin Luther King Jr., and President Barack Obama in their speeches: “the arc of the moral universe — of history — is long but it bends toward justice…”
From the beginning, Criterion has played a significant role in establishing the field of gender lens investing. We began with (re)Value Gender, which built key research methodology that bridges gender expertise and finance expertise and creates a space for leaders to practice, build insight, and produce evidence. We looked for examples of bias in investments, where gender patterns were undervalued and, as a result, risks and opportunities missed.
The State of the Field of Gender Lens Investing report was published in October 2015. This groundbreaking piece of research culminated from Criterion’s many years of field building and relationship cultivation through sixteen innovative Convergence gatherings.
The "Gender Lens Investing" champions a holistic approach towards integrating gender equality into financial systems, underpinning the belief that finance can and should be a force for social good.
The purpose of Criterion Institute is to expand who sees themselves as able to use finance as a tool for social change. At the core, we are changing “how” social change happens. As a result, over the past 20 years, Criterion has had a significant focus on our “how.”
In recent years, a variety of financial innovations enabled by Web3 and blockchain technology have emerged as transformative forces, aiming to challenge the status quo and address the systemic inequities ingrained in traditional financial systems.
Criterion Institute, in partnership with UNICEF, created a guide for investors to understand the risk their investments are exposed to as a result of gender-based violence, and to incorporate that risk assessment into their existing due diligence process.
The Values-Aligned approach is primarily for investors in public markets.
The Thematic Strategies approach is for impact investors in private markets who aim to generate positive environmental and social impact while also generating market-rate returns.
The ESG-integrated approach is for investors in public equities and fixed income who are integrating ESG considerations to help identify risks and opportunities that would impact the financial return of the investment.
The Catalytic Strategies approach is for investors in private markets who are willing to apply patient, flexible, risk-tolerant, and appropriately termed capital in pursuit of positive outcomes.
Criterion Institute, in partnership with the Australian Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, created a guide for investors in the Pacific region to understand the risk their investments are exposed to as a result of gender-based violence, and to incorporate that risk assessment into their existing due diligence process.
Joy Anderson, Dolika Banda, and Hiro Mizuno discuss what it would take to 100X gender-smart investing at the 2021 GenderSmart Investing Summit. Moderated by Laurie Spengler.
Investments in climate mitigation and adaptation continue to increase, but the impact of these investments on children – both positive and negative – is not being systematically considered.
The Blueprint is a document about social change, written for change makers. The focus of the Blueprint is to show how individuals working within grassroots organizations can use finance as a tool in their work
Meet Rev. Philip Waite, a new friend of Criterion Institute, who has a passion for connecting faith and finance to do God’s work in the world. Rev. Waite is pastoral team leader of College Mennonite Church on the campus of Goshen College in Goshen, Indiana.
Now in our third year of interest-free lending to small businesses in greater Austin, University United Methodist’s most valuable “dividend” is our relationships with our neighbors providing the “sweat equity” to start or grow those businesses.
Hope was the first word spoken. Members of the 1K Churches team at Napa Valley Lutheran Church (Napa, California) had been asked to use one word to express what they were feeling now -- four years since they first began with the Bible study.
In God’s economy, members of the human family work together for the common good – producing, growing, building, trading, serving and caring for one another.
Suva, Fiji — How can finance be a tool for social change? Fifteen women’s rights leaders wrestled with this question on a floating restaurant outside of Fiji’s capital city.
Following four years of engagement with Grand Challenges Canada, an initiative funded by the Canadian government, Criterion is excited to share insights and learning in "Implementing Grand Challenges Canada's Gender Strategy.
This re-cap of the gender lens investing field-building event hosted in February by Investing in Women partners was contributed by ANGIN (Angel Investment Network Indonesia).
More than two years ago, The Church of the Good Shepherd (Episcopal) in Ruxton, Maryland, launched its Micro-Lending Program. To date they have made 11 loans totaling $34,750. How did they do it?
Pacific RISE is using an investment thesis to engage with investors and broaden the sense of possibilities about what types of opportunities exist in the Pacific.
The State of the Field of Gender Lens Investing in Asia was published in September 2015. This report is a summary of a year-long collaboration between USAID’s Patty Alleman and Criterion’s Joy Anderson, during which they engaged 200 leaders working on gender lens investing in Asia.
Criterion Institute’s President, Joy Anderson, and Katherine Miles authored the State of the Field of Gender Lens Investing report documenting a comprehensive history of the field and strategies for the road ahead.
This is a season of gifts. A gift is most wonderful when it is wrapped in a moment of grace and new sense of possibility.
Criterion Institute's develops congregational guides and support in an initiative to build a base of congregations and individuals committed to discovering God’s Economy and transforming our own.
Since 2016, Criterion Institute has been delivering our signature workshop, TOOLKIT for Using Finance for Social Change to audiences throughout the globe.
As an intern with Criterion this semester, I’ve gotten the chance to listen to some pretty powerful conversations with some pretty amazing men and women.
“We’d love to have a gender lens, but we’d have nothing to invest in.” I rocked back on my heels, absorbing this statement from the head of the Africa division of a large social investment fund.
One of the most inspiring speakers during the opening session of SOCAP 12, an annual event that brings together investors, philanthropists, nonprofits, and social entrepreneurs, was Jackie VanderBrug.
Joy Anderson, President and Founder of Criterion Ventures, spoke to fellows at the Unreasonable Institute in June
Within the Women Effect Investments initiative, we bump up against the same question all the time.
Upon retirement in July 2010, a certain part of my brain became free and clear of the clutter associated with a normal 60-hour week business environment
We are at a moment of great growth and innovation in the social capital markets, as we begin to apply investment capital toward solving some of the world’s most pressing social and environmental problems while also generating financial returns for investors.
“Though religion and money aren’t usually what motivates 25 people into an engaging, insightful, and inspiring conversation on a Wednesday night
Gender norms and their associated power dynamics are shaped during childhood through a complex interplay of factors.
While there have been notable positive social impacts from blended finance to date, these initiatives tend to be limited by assumptions of what finance should be and how it historically operates.
Child lens investing is an emerging field that intentionally integrates considerations of child rights and wellbeing into investment processes.
The Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) offers a comprehensive grounding that outlines the rights and entitlements of every child
Criterion Institute will hold an interactive discussion in November 2023 about our work expanding what is possible for using finance as a tool for transformative social change.
A feminist financial imagination is a solutions-oriented mindset that facilitates the formation of new ideas, visioning of alternate futures, and uncovering of possibilities
Criterion Institute held a quarterly dialogue series on key issues impacting the field of gender lens investing on Monday, March 13, 2023.
In March 2023, Criterion Institute hosted a virtual training on "Using Finance as a Tool for Social Change.”
Over the last 21 years, Criterion Institute has been a sustained experiment in systems change, particularly systems change in and through market systems and systems of finance and investment.
In January 2023, Criterion Institute hosted a virtual training on “Using Finance as a Tool for Social Change.”
We examine the quality of the gender lens investing field’s underlying gender analysis to assess how a field built to redress marginalization analyzes that marginalization.
The Criterion Institute worked with Capital 4 Development (C4D) Partners to examine their approach to investment processes for their portfolio in India.
Criterion Institute held an interactive discussion in November 2022 about our work expanding what is possible for using finance as a tool for transformative social change.
This Roadmap lays out strategies for development finance institutions (DFIs) to incorporate gender-based violence (GBV) risk assessment and mitigation
The Taliban’s take-over of Afghanistan in August 2021 marked a devastating blow for women’s rights and a reversal of recent progress the country has made toward advancing gender equality.
This innovative GBV Risk Score methodology and tool, created in partnership with Equilo and with support from UNICEF
By Joy Anderson, President and Founder of Criterion Institute and Teresa Wells, Managing Director and Partner at Tiedemann Advisors More than 29,000 acts of rape or sexual assault are committed against women in the U.S. while at work each year.
Criterion Institute invites you to an interactive conversation with our network about what we have achieved and what we have learned in our work on systems change over the past two decades.
Observing the chaos caused by the recent polarization of news and obfuscation of “facts,” we are reminded of the power held by the legitimation and amplification of information.
Over the last few decades, there have been significant innovations in faith-based investing. However, social investment strategies by Christian denominations have not yet extended to the issue of gender-based violence.
Analyzing a market’s political stability and volatility is core to investment risk analysis and decision-making about where and how to invest.
Pacific RISE was established by the Australian Government’s Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade in 2016 to promote the development of an impact investing market across the Pacific.
Pacific Readiness for Investment in Social Enterprise (Pacific RISE) is a pilot initiative of the Australian Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT).
Since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, reports have emerged about the gendered aspects of its impacts in Kenya.
As the world’s political leaders come together in Paris this week for the Generation Equality Forum, Criterion Institute is proud to be joining our partners UNICEF and Ford Foundation
Gender lens investing has become increasingly dominant within sustainable and impact investment approaches in Australia and globally over the last few years.
The success of the field of gender lens investing is dependent on the elevation of translators and translation: individuals, organizations, and processes that facilitate understanding between gender and finance expertise.
In the world, there is a small, but mighty, cadre of people working to innovate in finance. They may not be doing deals every day, but they are shaping the activity, the ideas and the connections between people that form the field.
Impact investors, development finance institutions, and grassroots gender-basedviolence organizations co-creating solutions for how investment can shift exploitativepower dynamics in supply chains
Gender-based violence has significant consequences for the health and well-being of individuals, families, communities, businesses, states, and countries.
Investing in research on norms change can help investors better predict when gender-based violence moves from a chronic to an acute market risk
Developing and testing a methodology that values violence against women as an early indicator of state instability
Empowering impact investors to structure targeted gender-based violence informed investments and encouraging the coordination of their efforts to reduce gender-based violence in Kenya.
Leveraging finance to increase the political will of the Victorian governmentto achieve its policy goal of ending family violence by 2027.
Influencing development finance institutions and multilateral development banks to recognize gender-based violence as material to their infrastructure investments’ processes and investment decision-making.
Making direct investments into growth companies addressing gender-based violence in the safety sector to drive innovation.
Identifying alternative structures to finance the reduction of gender-based violence
Increasing the cultural power and influence of media and entertainment companies addressing the root causes of violence.
Creating standards and a framework that private market investors can use to reward and influence practices that mitigate violence and enable survivors to thrive.
Inviting private investors to imagine how to shift power dynamics within financial systems to finance the reduce the reduction of gender-based violence
Using a gender-based violence lens to analyze existing datasets to better understand a company’s practices and culture
Creating standards and an investment framework that enables public investors to screen companies for potential operational upside and reputational risk related to gender-based violence.
Building on a collaboration between Criterion Institute and SheEO in the Money & Power podcast series, our team is partnering with SheEO to produce a set of unique process metrics that analyze power dynamics for the organization.
Criterion Institute, in partnership with Christian Super, has developed a framework for how gender-based violence poses an investment risk—and a draft tool for assessing the investment risk to public equity portfolios as a result of gender-based violence.
In this issue of Criterion Connections, Erin Puglia, Project Manager of the Power of Policy Program at the Criterion Institute, speaks with Amy Haddad
A new report identifies 10 economic patterns related to gender and demonstrates how they are material to investors making COVID-19 response and recovery investments.Criterion Institute
Criterion Institute has created a guide for Australia-based investors to understand the risk their investments are exposed to as a result of gender-based violence, and to incorporate that risk assessment into their existing due diligence process.
As governments around the world respond to the COVID-19 pandemic, there has been a growing recognition of the need for public investment to spur economic recovery.
COVID-19 has upended most projections of what the economy – and our daily lives – will look like over the next several years.
The incarceration rate of women in the United States is at an all-time high, and most incarcerated women have experienced some form of gender-based violence whether before they were detained
A feminist financial imagination is a solutions-oriented mindset that facilitates the formation of new ideas, visioning of alternate futures...
See CampaignCriterion is developing a translation function within the system of finance to close the capacity gap that currently exists exists between gender and finance...
See CampaignRoadmaps are intended to outline pathways to action that represent the breadth of possibilities for financing the reduction of gender-based violence...
See CampaignProcess standards for investing aims to acknowledge, analyze, and address unequal dynamics of power in gender lens investing, impact investing, and innovative finance...
See CampaignIn the context of finance, Localization is shifting the point of decision making to the closest point where that decision has implications, i.e. where the investment...
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The Blueprints demonstrate how a variety of social change organizations can design strategies that use systems of finance as tools to create positive social change.
These roadmaps lay out insights for how finance can be used to address gender-based violence in a range of sectors, asset classes, geographies, and investor types.
The TOOLKIT is designed to support your journey as you explore how finance can be used as a tool to create social change.
1K Churches was launched in 2012 to galvanize a movement in the faith-based community and engage US churches to invest in the local economy.
These gender-based violence due diligence tools analyze existing due diligence categories – including political, regulatory, operational, and reputational risks – and show how they can be affected by gender-based violence.
Gender-based violence is ubiquitous. More than 1 in 3 women worldwide experiences physical or sexual violence, and millions of men, boys, and gender-diverse individuals are affected by physical, sexual, and emotional abuse daily.
Our work depends on an ever-expanding community of team members, advisors, donors, and other partners who help us demonstrate our theory of change and ultimately achieve our mission. Learn more about how you can become more engaged in our work.
Invitations to Engage
