We can’t innovate our way to a new future without addressing structural inequities in the design of any solution. And we can’t do this effectively without focusing on power: who has it, who doesn’t and why.
Our financial systems wield incredible power, yet they’re controlled by a relative few. Finance is also sustained by complex language and processes which stop those who would most benefit from understanding how they really work.
We work to radically expand which change makers see themselves using finance, paying particular attention to those typically left out.We craft meaningful invitations to engage and practice together, adapt our resources and tools to for new audiences, ground work in places to commit to and stay in difficult conversations on specific issues, build frameworks and practices that prioritize lived experiences, and amplify invitations and narratives to reach new audiences.
We work with partners breaking past boundaries of current approaches to address power, expertise, and bias in investment strategies.
We have made a long-term commitment to gender-based violence, directing one third of our resources over the next five years toward reimagining possibilities for using finance as a tool to effect change on the issue.
We are building a coalition of investors, engaging gender-based violence experts to design financial solutions, and working with fund managers to develop products that address gender-based violence. Through this work, our goal is to move US$10 billion in investment capital by 2026.
The five pillars of our 10-year strategic plan represent the systems change we seek to effect in the world.
We aim to expand how the field of innovative finance understands the ways power, bias, and privilege operate and impact systems of finance.
Our goal is for investors of all types to assign value in their investments based on a methodology that assumes a more just and equitable future.
We empower social change organizations to design and implement strategies that engage systems of finance as part of furthering equity.
We support social change organizations, governments, and investors to design and implement strategies that use finance to prevent and mitigate the effects of gender-based violence.
We partner with government agencies to support them in using their power to align their innovative finance programs with their social and gender policies, thereby influencing what is expected of organizations using finance to increase equality and justice.
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.” Criterion’s six areas of activity reflect our assumptions about how we think change happens. They are also a reflection to the world that this kind of change is possible. Our activities are not only accomplishing our goals; they are modeling a way of doing things.
Criterion has three values that have been the core of the organization since our founding: grace, hospitality, and the power of invitation. These values shape our priorities in how we implement our work. They inform the practices that translate our values into the day-to-day implementation of activities. Our work fundamentally challenges norms and assumptions about how things get done. We are attentive to how our practices allow us to either navigate systems of power effectively or disrupt them elegantly. Our distinctive Criterion practices incorporate our values and our commitment to reimagining power in how we go about our work. We approach our work rooted in our mission, our values, our theory of change, and our overriding commitment to transforming power relations.
Over the last 20 years, we have experimented with how to advance system change work. The six areas of activity that we outline in this document represent Criterion’s theory of how change happens in the world. These areas of activity follow a consistent thread throughout our history. While the categories and names may have shifted, the underlying practices are consistent and have been built over the past two decades.
Our work spans research, design, and field-building. Below is a sampling of some of our recent work.
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.
Explore our extensive library of resources on using finance as a tool for transformative social change. Browse by category and sub-categories to find the most relevant materials for your needs. Our library contains reports, case studies, toolkits, and other content aimed at investors, governments, civil society organizations, and anyone interested in harnessing capital for positive impact. Dive in and discover insights and guidance to help drive progress on critical issues.
Investors’ goals are reflected in a portfolio that is composed of a diversified set of asset classes. In order to build their portfolio, asset holders invest in financial products.
Finance has its own business model. A set of processes define how finance works and those processes have costs. Those processes are paid for by a set of revenue sources based on the functional role(s) played.
Intermediaries are institutions with a particular legal form that use instruments or vehicles to move capital. The instrument is defined by the terms written out in documents.
A power analysis serves as a critical tool to uncover imbalances in decision-making authority, resource distribution, and the prioritization of outcomes.
(Stanford Social Innovation Review; April 2021)
(UNICEF Connect; April 2020)
(Women Rule Newsletter (Politico); March 2020)
(Wired; March 2020)
(Next Billion (blog); July 2018)
(Impact Alpha; September 2017)
Pacific RISE partnered with femLINK to produce this video capturing the Criterion Institute TOOLKIT and the experience of the participants.
(Wharton University of Pennsylvania; July 2017)
Sian Rolls and Hannah Hicks speak to Joy Anderson, President of the Criterion Institute, and Kate Nethercott Wilson, gender specialist with Pacific Readiness for Investment in Social Enterprise (Pacific RISE), about a gender lens investment training we ran in Suva. Participants to the event are gender specialists from Fiji, Samoa and Vanuatu working in civil society, regional organisations and national governments. (June 2017)
(Huffington Post; February 2016)
(Huffington Post; November 2015)
(Bloomberg TV; April 2015)
(Harvard Business Review (blog); February 2015)
At the 2012 CGI America Meeting, Joy Anderson announces a new CGI America Commitment to Action by Criterion Ventures.
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