Since our founding in 2002, we’ve created various tools and resources focused on transforming relationships of power in finance. We connect with social change leaders across different sectors, to bring people together to reframe and demonstrate new ways to shape our financial systems.
Below we’ve highlighted some of these and we will continue to add to this as new resources are created.
We hope you find these useful in your work and encourage you to reach out to share your thoughts at info@criterioninstitute.org.
Featured Resources
Show resources for:
EveryoneSocial Change LeadersGender ExpertsCongregationsInvestors
Child Lens Investing – Intersection with gender lens investing
Gender norms and their associated power dynamics are shaped during childhood through a complex interplay of factors. Understanding these factors and intentionally investing in opportunities that promote gender equality and empowerment early in life could have a transformative impact on gender lens investing. In this first report, we...
Community-Centered Blended Finance: Towards a Transformative Approach
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. In “Community-Centered Blended Finance: Towards a Transformative Approach” we raise the bar and explore the transformative potential...
Using Finance as a Tool to Promote and Protect Child Rights
The Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) offers a comprehensive grounding that outlines the rights and entitlements of every child, covering their right to survival, protection, development, and participation. In an ideal scenario, these principles would guide each country’s sectors and systems. However, children’s rights continue to...
Investing in the Future of Children: A Field Building Report
Child lens investing is an emerging field that intentionally integrates considerations of child rights and wellbeing into investment processes. Building this field is critical to addressing the roots of injustice and gender inequality and providing a much-needed pathway to peace, social cohesion, and sustainable development for generations to...
Fostering a Feminist Financial Imagination
A feminist financial imagination is a solutions-oriented mindset that facilitates the formation of new ideas, visioning of alternate futures, and uncovering of possibilities that would ensure the power and tools of financial systems are channeled toward advancing gender equality and justice in transformative ways. Our latest publication, “Fostering...
Addressing Power Dynamics in Investment Processes
The Criterion Institute worked with Capital 4 Development (C4D) Partners to examine their approach to investment processes for their portfolio in India. C4D’s investment thesis integrates an intersectional gender lens that responds to the local context, addressing regionalism, caste and ableism, along with gender, that is unique to...
Roadmap for Development Finance Institutions: Strategies to Address Gender-based Violence
This Roadmap lays out strategies for development finance institutions (DFIs) to incorporate gender-based violence (GBV) risk assessment and mitigation as well as GBV prevention and survivor support lenses into their investments. In addition to being a barrier to sustainable development, GBV also poses investment risks at the operational, reputational,...
Gender-Based Violence Risk Score
This innovative GBV Risk Score methodology and tool, created in partnership with Equilo and with support from UNICEF, enables investors to more accurately assess the risk gender-based violence (GBV) poses to their investments and to identify strategies that both mitigate the risks and make an impact on GBV on...
Evolving the gender analysis in gender lens investing: moving from counting women to valuing gendered experience
By Tia Subramanian, Arianna Muirow & Joy Anderson Published in the Journal of Sustainable Finance & Investment Volume 12, 2022 Issue 3; Published online Nov 30, 2021 We examine the quality of the gender lens investing field’s underlying gender analysis to assess how a field built to redress...
The Framing Makes the Field – How we research gender lens investing matters
The Framing Makes the Field – How we research gender lens investing matters By Arianna Muirow 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. Even among allies driven...
A Roadmap for Private Investors: Investing to Address Gender-based Violence
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. Gender-based violence has enormous costs, both to...
Roadmap for Christian Denominations to Use Finance to Reduce Gender-based Violence
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. Criterion Institute, drawing upon longstanding partnerships with faith-based organizations, has developed a roadmap that provides a starting point for...
Gender-Based Violence: A Hidden Indicator of Political Risk
Analyzing a market’s political stability and volatility is core to investment risk analysis and decision-making about where and how to invest. A growing body of research shows that gender-based violence is actually a better predictor of state stability than traditionally used measures such as wealth and the strength of...
Pacific Possibilities: Designing Better Financial Vehicles for the Pacific
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. The program has a focus on social enterprise and women’s economic empowerment through gender lens investing. Through its work with Pacific...
10 Points Why Gender is Material to Investments in Kenya’s COVID-19 Recovery
Since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, reports have emerged about the gendered aspects of its impacts in Kenya. From spikes in gender-based violence to increasing childcare duties falling on girls and women to the economic fallout in sectors dominated by women workers, this pandemic – like all global...
Pacific RISE as a Case Study of Gender Lens Investing: Influences on the Field
Pacific Readiness for Investment in Social Enterprise (Pacific RISE) is a pilot initiative of the Australian Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT). The program was designed to facilitate and grow the social impact investment market in the Pacific and ran from October 2019 through July 2021. Pacific...
A Blueprint for Faith-Based Organizations on using Finance as a Tool for Social Change
The Blueprint is a document about social change, written for change makers. The focus of this Blueprint is to show how faith-based organizations can use finance as a tool in their work, whether by disrupting or influencing current systems, forging new alliances or partnerships with individuals and organizations that...
Translation at the intersection of gender and finance: Recommendations for improving analysis in gender lens investing
Gender lens investing has become increasingly dominant within sustainable and impact investment approaches in Australia and globally over the last few years. The demand from asset owners for gender lens investing products has increased pressure on fund managers to build them. Finance organizations and intermediaries often lack the...
Translation Between Gender and Finance
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. The accumulation of a wider variety of voices in decision-making is needed to improve both the financial returns and...
Disrupting Fields: Addressing Power Dynamics in the Fields of Climate Finance and Gender Lens Investing
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. These leaders are braving new territory, standing...
How to Engage Finance to Enable Survivors of Violence to Build Economic and Financial Freedom
How to Engage Finance to Enable Survivors of Violence to Build Economic and Financial Freedom By Tia Subramanian and Erin Puglia Introduction Gender-based violence has significant consequences for the health and well-being of individuals, families, communities, businesses, states, and countries. While violence prevention and response have often...
A Framework for Screening Portfolios for Risks Posed by Gender-Based Violence
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. Our research on how to track the investment risk of gender-based violence...
Q&A with Gender Equality & Social Inclusion Specialist, Amy Haddad: Analyzing Power and Opportunities for Influence
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 Gender Equality and Social Inclusion Specialist and the Chair of Criterion’s Power of Policy Advisory Committee, about systems of power, opportunities for influence in...
10 Points Why Gender is Material to Investments in the Recovery
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, in partnership with leaders in gender lens investing, has identified 10 economic patterns related to gender that are material to investors as they...
October Highlights from the Power of Policy Program
OCTOBER 2020 Partnering with SheEO to Advance Process Metrics 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. SheEO is a...
Mitigating the Risks of Gender-Based Violence: A Due Diligence Guide for Australian Investors
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. Australia has high rates of gender-based violence: a third of all women in...
Mitigating the Risk of GBV in Infrastructure Investment
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. Infrastructure projects are seen as attractive in this time of crisis because they are generally long-term, present employment opportunities for people with a...
Reimagining the Future of Work
Reimagining the Future of Work COVID-19 has upended most projections of what the economy – and our daily lives – will look like over the next several years. As economists, banks, and consulting firms scramble to predict economic trends “after COVID,” and “Build Back Better” becomes a theme in...
Beyond Divestment: How Investors Can Disrupt Injustice in the US Criminal Justice System
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, while in prison, or both. As the prison industry divestment movement gains momentum in the United States, is it...
Reframing Resilience in the Time of COVID: Challenging the Status Quo and Transforming Power
In an aptly named recent NY Times article, Is Resilience Overrated?, Jami Attenberg wrote: “I want people to be proud of themselves for being resilient. It is an act of triumph to surpass challenges and traumas. I just don’t want it to have to be the only way of life.” This quote, and the...
Attention to Gender and Power in Rebuilding Economies
Women historically experience significant challenges to accessing capital and resources in pursuit of starting and maintaining businesses. This reality has forced women-led businesses, or family businesses where the primary borrower is a woman, to adapt and take flexible and creative approaches in order to survive and thrive. In the...
Gender as Material to Infrastructure Projects: Reaching Better Outcomes by Applying a Gender Lens from Project Inception
This paper argues for the application of a gender lens at the earliest stage of developing better infrastructure projects, both in terms of development outcomes and risk-adjusted returns for investors. Gender is material throughout the project lifecycle, as it influences long-term stability at both a project level and in...
Introducing the Power of Policy Program
Building on years of existing work and partnerships, Criterion Institute launched the Power of Policy Program this February of 2020. Through a combination of training, research, institutional engagement, field building, and communications, the Power of Policy program works with government agencies and their partners around the globe to ensure...
Responding to the COVID-19 Crisis with a Gender Lens: An Opportunity for Gender Lens Investors in Southeast Asia
The COVID-19 health crisis has caused unprecedented impact on global supply chains and capital flows. These changes are having, and will continue to have, a negative impact on SMEs and microbusinesses, particularly in developing countries. Women and other marginalized communities who are disproportionately impacted by shocks are most at...
Q&A with Candide Group’s Jasmine Rashid: Bringing a Social Justice Lens to Finance and Investment
In this issue of Criterion Connections, Tia Subramanian of the Criterion Institute speaks with Jasmine Rashid, Director of Advocacy and Strategic Partnerships at Candide Group, about investing for social change, from creative and collaborative approaches to structuring deals to her work disrupting the financing behind private prisons and detention...
Q&A with SEIU’s Secretary-Treasurer Gerry Hudson: Valuing Worker Health and Safety in the COVID-19 Recovery
In this issue of Criterion Connections, Christina Madden of the Criterion Institute speaks with Gerry Hudson, Secretary-Treasurer of the Service Employees International Union about his work advocating for essential workers, the investment risks of valuing efficiency over worker safety and rights, and his views on what the future of...
Q&A with Level Forward’s Adrienne Becker: Shifting Gender and Social Norms through Investments in Entertainment
In this issue of Criterion Connections, Christina Madden of the Criterion Institute speaks with Adrienne Becker, CEO and Co-founder of Level Forward, about her approach to investing for social change, what investors can do to combat harmful gender and social norms, and the impact social movements like #MeToo and...
Q&A with The 22 Fund’s Tracy Gray: Catalyzing Systemic Change in Impact Investing and Venture Capital
In this issue of Criterion Connections, Christina Madden of the Criterion Institute speaks with Tracy Gray, Founder and Managing Partner of The 22 Fund, about her approach to investing in quality US manufacturing jobs, what impact investors can do to address gender and racial injustice, and why she no...
Process Metrics that Analyze Power Dynamics in Investing
Process metrics are indicators that allow an examination of progress on gender or social equity overall. They allow thinking beyond “counting” that moves toward valuing. For example, process metrics could allow us to move beyond counting the number of marginalized people in leadership at an investment firm and instead...
Investing with an LGBTQI Lens: Rethinking Gender Analysis Across Investing Fields
Criterion Institute, with the generous support of Dreilinden, has released “Investing with an LGBTQI Lens: Rethinking Gender Analysis Across Investing Fields,” a new guide on investing to further the rights and empowerment of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, and intersex (LGBTQI) individuals. We live in a moment where cultural...
Economic RecovHERy: Designing An Inclusive Marketplace in a post-COVID World
As COVID-19 has laid bare the inequities that have long plagued our nation’s economy, it is no surprise that women, especially women of color, have disproportionately borne the brunt of these disparities in the current crisis. How do we seize the opportunity to confront persisting inequities and build a...
Expanding Our Financial Imagination in Times of Crisis
The Tipping Point Our world has been turned upside down. In a few short months, the COVID-19 pandemic has changed the rhythms of our lives and caused vast human suffering – physical, social, economic, spiritual. Hardest hit by the disease and its financial fall-out are those who have long experienced economic and social inequality. The...
Recovery Investing to Reimagine the Gender-Based Violence Pandemic
By Catherine Poulton, UNICEF, and Tia Subramanian, Criterion Institute Criterion Institute and UNICEF have partnered to create a due diligence tool for investors to identify and mitigate the investment risks gender-based violence poses. It is well documented that rates of gender-based violence (GBV) have risen around the world as a consequence of the COVID-19 pandemic. As we wrote in a blog post in...
Learning Group for Leaders Discovering God’s Economy
Entrenched systems of power, including financial systems, tip the scales in ways that perpetuate inequality and deny many the resources they need to thrive. Many of us know this. We know this is not God’s will for the world. And we want to work on God’s side to bring...
The material risks of gender-based violence in emergency settings
Finance is one of the most powerful systems on earth. This opportunity brief from UNICEF and Criterion Institute explores how gender-based violence (GBV) in emergencies can be understood as material to investment decision-making. Through a series of research literature reviews and expert interviews, UNICEF and Criterion Institute identify...
Civil Society and Impact Investing Brief
Civil society plays a crucial role in bridging gaps between systems of finance and social impacts. Traditionally, civil society is seen as separate from the market but, in reality, civil society actors are already impacting market systems. Civil society actors engage in grassroots community endeavors which have the potential...
Milwaukee Methodists Motivated by 1K Churches
Solomon Community Temple United Methodist Church is a small black congregation that sits amid Milwaukee’s north side. What Solomon lacks in size, it makes up for in spirit! On any given Sunday, its members gather in its culturally decorated sanctuary to lift spirited praises to God for being safely...
Why not just make it a gift?
Congregations considering the 1K Churches Bible study and micro-lending program often ask: “Why not just make it a gift?” Churches are good at giving. Our gifts reflect God’s free love for us. Churches know how to serve people who are sick or hungry or down on their luck. Churches...
My Resolution for the New Year and New Decade
On December 31st, when you’re with family and friends, reflecting on your new year’s resolution for this coming decade, I invite you to join with Criterion Institute and name that our collective resolution is to direct every ounce of our power to be a positive force against systemic injustice....
The Stars are Aligned
In late September, I fell in love with a congregation. It’s easy to do. Like many small urban churches, Westminster Presbyterian Church in Trenton, New Jersey, punches way above its weight. With fifty or sixty people at worship on Sunday, they manage to serve many more people in their community...
SheEO Podcast: Using finance as a tool to create social change with Joy Anderson
In this podcast episode, SheEO Founder Vicki Saunders sits down with Joy Anderson to talk about what’s broken with the current VC funding model, how finance can be used to transform structural inequities and shifting the conversation from gender to power. Listen using the link below: “We talk...
A Blueprint for Grassroots Organizations on Using Finance for Social Change
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, whether by disrupting or influencing current systems, forging new alliances or partnerships with individuals...
Faith and Finance: One Pastor’s Reflections
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. If you are interested in...
Congregational Stories: Relationships and Microlending’s Best Dividend
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. Our loan partners include the ride-share driver from Sudan who used his loan...
Congregational Resources: Stories and Testimonials
Swapping stories is how we make friends. It is also how we learn from one another and build community. Hearing stories about what others have done often gives us courage and confidence to try something new. We have put together a collection of these stories that you can access...
Unlocking the Opportunity in the Pacific Menstrual Health Market
In September 2018 the Criterion Institute, supported by Australia’s Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade and Pacific RISE, facilitated a four-day workshop in Melbourne, Australia. The workshop brought together a diverse range of social and business actors focused on improving menstrual health management in the Asia-Pacific region to understand...
Congregation Stories: It’s All About Relationships
The Union Church in Waban, Massachusetts, extended its first 1K Churches loan in October, 2017 to Sandra Okiror-Njoroge, owner of Wham’s Café in Lowell, MA. The loan was needed to expand the restaurant’s food prep area, repair equipment, purchase new equipment, and boost marketing. The Union Church’s1K Committee member...
Key Concepts in Gender: A Primer for Investors
Interest is swelling in gender lens investing across the globe. With this swell is an increased use of gender-related terms and concepts. Similar to many fields, the terms we use and the way we use them when we talk about gender is important and meaningful. When terms are misused,...
Reflection: Beyond Borders Forum – Building the Runway for Young Women to Enter the Global Workforce
By Amy Chen Last month, I had the privilege of attending the second annual Beyond Borders Forum, hosted by Women’s Education Project (WEP), in New York City. The Forum focused on two compelling issues: preparing young women for fulfilling careers in the global economy and creating a corporate climate...
Gender Lens Investing Tool: Designing an Action Plan
Gender lens investing is the incorporation of a gender analysis into the systems of investing to make better decisions. A gender analysis is a disciplined approach to understanding how differences in power impact the advantages or oppression people experience based on their gender. An intersectional gender analysis considers how ethnicity, socio-economic status,...
Criterion Connections: Building the Field of Gender Lens Investing with Oxfam America’s Laté Lawson-Lartego
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. Oxfam America partnered with Criterion on the recently released Blueprint for INGOs on Using Finance for Social Change. The Blueprint provides...
Congregations Stories: Emmanuel Lutheran’s Micro-lending Initiative Part II
From Mountaintop through the Valley of Implementation Emmanuel Lutheran Church in Naples, FL conducted its first 1K micro-lending retreat in April, 2018. The retreat lasted 7 hours on a Saturday at the church. Although we had never done any project like the IK micro-lending initiative, especially using a one-day retreat...
Implementation Guide: Lending Through a Group of Small Business Owners
Most 1K Churches choose the simplest, most direct pathway for their loan to a small business. We call it the Angel Investor pathway. It is a simple agreement between the church and the business owner to invest and repay a small loan according to certain terms. Other congregations have...
Hope and Grace Abound
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. It was also two years since...
Transforming Power
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. Everyone contributes and everyone shares in the benefits. Everyone has a place at the table. Power is shared. Abundance is God’s gift to us....
Congregational Stories: Youth and Adults Combine to Complete 1K Bible Study in a One-Day Retreat
Leaders from Emmanuel Lutheran Church in Naples, Florida, report this month on their highly successful intergenerational retreat, during which they completed the entire five-session 1K Bible study on a single Saturday, engaged significantly across generations and cultures, and planned how to move forward with two micro-loans in their community....
Video: A Spiral Of Change: Understanding The Investment Impact Of Sexual And Gender-Based Violence
From Cornerstone Capital: Recently, Cornerstone Capital’s Head of Impact Strategy, Katherine Pease, sat down for an in-depth discussion with two leading figures in the field of gender-focused investment and philanthropy, to discuss the role that investors and finance can play in addressing gender-based violence in companies and society....
Reflection: Finance and Gender Experts in Vietnam Shape a Growing Community of Practice in Gender Lens Investing Across Southeast Asia
Over 40 gender and finance experts came together with community leaders in Ho Chi Minh City for a two-day workshop on gender lens investing. This event provided an opportunity to frame, identify and debate a shared vision for how to include gender in investment decisions. As investments across Southeast...
Nascent? No way! Southeast Asia is Worthy of the Global Gender Lens Investing Stage
Now is a critical moment to shape the terms of capital in Southeast Asia. More than ever, investments are being made in Southeast Asia by actors in and outside the region. With this increased capital in and attention on Southeast Asia, now is the time to push to make...
Document: Framing Gender Lens Investing
Conversations about the intersection of finance and gender are gaining traction and generating exciting momentum for the field of gender lens investing. However, these conversations can be fraught with fear, including the fear of offending or saying the wrong thing. The language that surrounds gender is powerful. Therefore, how...
Congregational Stories: When we Hold Hands Together, Magic Can Happen
In October 2017, after nearly two years of study, prayer and planning, the Union Church in Waban, Massachusetts, officially became a 1K Church when they extended a $2,500 loan at 1% interest to Sandra Okiror-Njoroge, who is the owner of Wham’s Café in nearby Lowell. This small business is...
Reflection: Making Gender-Based Violence Material to the World of Finance
“But I’m not sure how that’s truly material.” This is a refrain we hear constantly when we talk to people in finance about gender. Discussing whether or not something is “material” is a short-handed insult meant to dismiss and undermine. It suggests that, while we might think including a...
Implementing A Gender Strategy: Grand Challenges Canada’s Story
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.” The white paper demonstrates how a thorough gender analysis—one that documents patterns in how gender and its relationship with other factors like race, ethnicity,...
Growing the Field: Finance and gender experts brought together in Indonesia
Jakarta, Indonesia, 2 February 2018 – Over 70 investors, business and finance leaders, and gender experts from Southeast Asia came together at the Australian Embassy for two days to identify, and debate opportunities for success in gender lens investing – the practice of using capital to advance gender equality and...
Reflection: Gender Lens Investing Field-Building Event in Jakarta
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). Gender Lens Investing Field-Building Event in Jakarta contributed by ANGIN (Angel Investment Network in Indonesia) Criterion Institute held a two-day Gender Lens Investing workshop...
Reflection: Finance as a Tool to Address Gender-Based Violence Workshop, January 22-23, 2018
This was contributed by Nina Weissberg. Nina Weissberg, CEO of Weissberg Investment Corp (WIC), guides a diverse portfolio of long-term real estate commitments in the Greater Washington, DC community. In 2017, she joined the board of the Criterion Institute to focus energy on gender and social change through capital markets. Last...
Congregational Stories: Lending, Learning, Leading
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?
Audio: Interviews on Gender Lens Investing and Public Equities
As part of our ongoing sponsored research project into gender lens investing and public equities, we interviewed two of our generous sponsors, GCC and Calvert Foundation. These interviews look beyond public equities to understand how two investment funds far along in their gender lens investing journey have learned to see...
Video: Why Develop an Investment Thesis?
Criterion Institute’s Joy Anderson, Pacific RISE impact investing lead, shares why Pacific RISE is developing an investment thesis.
Video: Pacific RISE and Gender Lens Investing
Pacific RISE will use gender lens investing to incorporate gender into financial analysis to improve investments and promote equitable social change. For more information visit: www.pacificrise.org/
Video: Resilience and Climate Change in the Pacific
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Congregational Stories: Extending Healing in East Baltimore
The following is a story of Amazing Grace Lutheran Church in East Baltimore and its 1K Churches ministry of micro-lending, as told by Pastor Gary Dittman. When I was called to Amazing Grace 8 years ago, I had no idea how idea how this small urban congregation would be...
A Blueprint for Women’s Funds Using Finance as a Tool for Social Change
As we continue to face challenges to achieving gender equality, we need to deploy all the strategies at our disposal to create the social change we seek. Finance is one strategy, along with media, policy, community activism and corporate engagement. Investing with a gender lens is an extension of...
Video: Ideas to Action: Accelerating Gender Lens Investing – Joy Anderson
On November 28-29, 2017, Wharton Social Impact Initiative presented an invitation-only event convening for investors and advisors who are moving capital with a gender lens in Philadelphia for a day and a half of highly interactive action-oriented workshops, discussion, and collaboration. Wharton Social Impact Initiative and Suzanne Biegel presented a generous group...
Congregational Stories: Micro-loan Curriculum by University United Methodist Church
In 2016, University United Methodist began offering interest-free micro-loans of up to $1,000 to existing small businesses and start-ups in greater Austin, Texas. Through their experience, they developed this two-Sunday curriculum and PowerPoint to introduce church members to church-based micro-lending. They’ve made these resources publicly available congregations. Here is their...
Demonstrating New Possibilities: The Pacific RISE Investment Thesis
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. Pacific RISE is focusing on particular trends and ideas for the future which will entice investors into thinking differently about the Pacific. The...
Design Session: Finance as a Tool to Address Gender-Based Violence
In July 2017, we partnered with InFaith Community Foundation and Futures without Violence to bring together a group of over 30 leaders from women’s rights organizations, philanthropy, and finance to think together about strategies to affect gender-based violence. The session was inspired by our partners at InFaith Community Foundation’s recent announcement of a...
Video: Understanding Gender and Finance in the Pacific
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Congregational Resources: Getting Started with a Bible Study
The Bible Study is a resource to support congregations and individuals committed to discovering God’s Economy and transforming our own. Through participating in a Bible study and investing in a community business, church members explore their call as economic actors. Here is how it works. A small group from...
2016 Recap: Notable Gender Lens Investing Resources
The resources below, represent a collection of notable resources on gender lens investing published in 2016. Jackie VanderBrug wrote the book, Gender Lens Investing: Uncovering Opportunities for Growth, Returns, and Impact. During the eight years Jackie spent working at Criterion she played a vital role in our gender lens investing program and...
Congregational Stories: This is What Discovering God’s Economy Looks Like
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. The idea is that a congregation or small group becomes engaged by starting a process of Bible study and discernment that helps...
Poem: Alice Through the Gender Investing Lens
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…” I’ve titled my poem “We are Alice.” My poem also...
Reflection: Experiencing TOOLKIT
Since 2016, Criterion Institute has been delivering our signature workshop, TOOLKIT for Using Finance for Social Change to audiences throughout the globe. Participants come from a wide variety of backgrounds and sectors, including foundations working to end domestic poverty, women’s rights organization promoting gender equality in government policy, t...
Blog Series: Gender Lens Investing in Focus – Insights from Asia
USAID’s Patty Alleman, and our very own Joy Anderson co-authored a serious of blogs documenting their travels in Asia as they sought to map the landscape, meet the players, and build a foundation for gender equality by investing in women and girls. Read the four part series linked below. Building on the...
2015 Recap: Notable Gender Lens Investing Resources
The resources below, represent a collection of notable resources on gender lens investing published in 2015. 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. Here are a...
Report: State of the Field of Gender Lens Investing
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. The report, published in October 2015, narrates the history of Gender Lens Investing, offers several strategic road maps for the...
White Paper: How to Upgrade Your Due Diligence with a Gender Lens
In 2015, Joy Anderson and Suzanne Biegel documented possibilities for upgrading your due diligence with a gender lens. Below is an excerpt from this work as well as a link to the white paper they drafted. Definition: The core of gender lens investing is to incorporate gender analysis into...
Report: State of the Field of Gender Lens Investing in Asia
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. The report identifies leaders...
Reflection: Convergence Over the Years
The beauty of Convergence is its format. Convergence is not like other conferences. There are no speakers, no panels - just conversations designed carefully around the people who attend. We collect information about the passions, interests and experiences of each registrant before the conference and work carefully to design...
Framework: Gender Metrics in the Value Chain
Many investors and business managers would like to take a similar approach to improving their own organizations’ gender strategies. But how do you go about assessing an organization on how it integrates gender considerations into its business plan? And how do you measure progress as you implement changes? Following Convergence...
Reflection: Reframes as a Tool in a Social Movement
In 2013, intern Scott Elias reflected on 4 different reframes discussed at Convergence XII and considered the power of each reframe to bring about social change. His reflection and the reframes where documented in Reframes as a Tool in a Social Movement, which you can download here. His introduction...
Reframe: Gender & Women – Identity and Material Reality
In 2013, intern Scott Elias reflected on 4 different reframes discussed at Convergence XII and considered the power of each reframe to bring about social change. His reflection and the reframes where documented in Reframes as a Tool in a Social Movement, which you can download here. Below he focuses on the reframe...
Reframe: Gender as an Opportunity (Not a Screen) in Finance
In 2013, intern Scott Elias reflected on 4 different reframes discussed at Convergence XII and considered the power of each reframe to bring about social change. His reflection and the reframes where documented in Reframes as a Tool in a Social Movement, which you can download here. Below he focuses on the reframe...
Reframe: The Reframes of Impact Investing
In 2013, intern Scott Elias reflected on 4 different reframes discussed at Convergence XII and considered the power of each reframe to bring about social change. His reflection and the reframes where documented in Reframes as a Tool in a Social Movement, which you can download here. Below he focuses on “The Reframes...
Reframe: Finance as Opportunity to Transform (Gendered) Social Systems
In 2013, intern Scott Elias reflected on 4 different reframes discussed at Convergence XII and considered the power of each reframe to bring about social change. His reflection and the reframes where documented in Reframes as a Tool in a Social Movement, which you can download here. Below he focuses on the reframe...
Reflection: Gender Lens Investing – From Margins to Mainstream
In this article, Stephanie Marton, Associate Consultant at the Boston Consulting Group, presents a practical and strategical perspective to approach Gender-Lens Investment. Distinguishing the philanthropic cause of gender equality from pure market opportunities, Stephanie emphasizes that the message of gender-lens investing needs to be reframed in order to attract...
Reflection: Power Plays – Scenarios from “Stories of Power”
Below Hannah Lewis, former intern at Criterion Institute delves into some of the central themes from a 2013 Convergence conversation about stories of power with a gender lens in the finance world. She outlines basic scenarios that one might face related to gender and power dynamics, and then lets...
Reflection: Gender Lens Investing by Linda Scott of Double X Economy
After a conversation with Criterion’s Joy Anderson about gender lens investing, Linda Scott, the DP World Professor of Entrepreneurship and Innovation at the Saïd Business School at Oxford, wrote this compelling blog post about gender lens strategies in finance. In it, she discusses developing a system for valuing investments along gender dimensions. Check...
Reflection: System Changers Meeting in London
Inspired by a meeting in London with Criterion’s Joy Anderson and other leaders engaged with systems change, Linda Scott, the DP World Professor of Entrepreneurship and Innovation at the Saïd Business School at Oxford, wrote a blog post looking at women’s gendered role in economics throughout history. In her post, Scott examines the...
Demonstrating New Possibilities: Alternative Term Sheets as a Game Changer
Recently, social enterprise aficionado, Kerri Murphy, took the time to listen in on a call about a gender lens on alternative term sheets. Kerri works with us on a Gender Lens Investing Ecosystem Analysis project most of the time, but she had an interest in this conversation and took the time...
Gender Lens Investing: Notable Resources from 2012
We have compiled great articles from 2012 to help your understanding of gender lens investing. Goldman Sachs – Power of Purse As women gain more bargaining and consumer power, the way of household spending has been changing. This article goes deep into the changing pattern of household spending spurred...
Project Reflection: Reframing Healthcare
For five years from 2007 to 2012, Criterion, with Good Capital and the Access Project, examined the root causes of medical debt and designing an innovative approach to leverage financial systems to alleviate the burden. Initially we began this exploration by looking at the tip of an iceberg: medical...
Audio: A Panel Discussion with Root Capital and Calvert Foundation on Gender Lens Investing
In May of 2012, Root Capital and the Calvert Foundation joined a panel moderated by Jackie VanderBrug to discuss their experiences of incorporating a gender lens. Each organization now has a very clear initiative tied to mainstreaming gender lens investing considerations into their broader missions. We invite you to...
Reflection: Leaders Shaping Market Systems – London Dialogues
We launched the Leaders Shaping Markets initiative in 2012 and began by identifying the initial set of Community of Practice members. This group came together in Berkeley in May of 2012. Thanks to the generous efforts by See Change, Inc. and Melanie Moore, we have a video that captures...
Framework: Leverage Points – Places to Intervene in Systems
This pieces by Donella Meadows has been an extremely valuable tool across all of Criterion's market shaping initiatives. It explores the levers at our disposal for systemic change and assesses their relative effectiveness and impacts.
Report: The Landscape of Gender Metrics
Questions of social impact are central to the growth of impact investing. However, establishing impact standards and specific metrics has been one of the greatest challenges for the entire industry. As part of our mapping efforts, we examined the metrics within funds, standards bodies and various initiatives to understand...
Video: Criterion’s Clinton Global Initiative Commitment to Congregations
Criterion Institute and it’s President & Founder, Joy Anderson, were asked to join other social change leaders at the Clinton Global Initiative America conference June 7th and 8th, 2012 in Chicago and to commit to a project that would benefit American small businesses. Criterion’s CGI America commitment is to galvanize a movement in the...
Report: The Landscape of Social Investing in Women
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. A critical component of the first phase of...
Framework: Defining a Gender Lens
We treat a Gender Lens as a viewfinder that reveals opportunities for the world of investing. In this new space of Gender Lens Investing, we have already seen proven opportunities to hasten economic development, increase profitability, scale social impact, and cement lasting change. To help structure the use of...
Guide: The Gender Handbook for Investors
So what exactly is Gender Lens Investing? The “Gender Handbook” provides the Who, What, Where, and most importantly, WHY for incorporating a Gender Lens in your investment strategy.
Reflection: Deconstructing Expertise
In 2011, Joy attended a workshop by the OpEd Project on writing for influence. The first exercise was to fill in the following blanks: I am an expert in _____ because _____. The critiques that followed provided a brutal but useful study in how efficiently we make claims to...