Podcast Episode 2
#002: Checking Our Power in the Work of Building Fields
In this episode, we’re going to look at some of the power dynamics in field building organizations. Think of the sociology, the medical profession or gender lens investing as fields. There are three ways to think about fields: a field of activities, a field of ideas and a field of people and organizations. The first segment looks at the context around being a field building organization in which it is ridiculously difficult to fundraise because you're not the ones doing, you're the ones connecting. So how do you raise money? The second segment looks at a very important practice in field building, naming. We'll look at a particular case study in Criterion’s history around medical debt and think about the power of names. How do we decide what to call things? As we change how we understand them, how do we rename them? The third segment looks at teaching and how so many of us who are building fields are in a position where we are teachers. We need permission to teach, though. We often confuse the act of teaching with influence. We go out and when we influence people to take up activities like gender lens investing, we ask that people come to training where we're not actually teaching because nobody wants to learn yet. It is expensive to spend time in a teaching mode when folks are not yet ready to learn.
Episode Segments
Relevant Links
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.