What We Believe

At the heart, we are an activist think tank.  Whether we’re spearheading an interdisciplinary research project, training finance professionals to understand gender lens investing, or collaborating with a seminary president to publish a book about God’s economy, we spend time in great conversations. We listen. We keep track of it all. We follow up. Great conversations create the ideas, the connections, and the human relationships required for action.

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.

Criterion focuses on finance because it is one of the most powerful systems in the economy.  We will only create an economy that works for all when people believe that they can influence our practices of finance. To accomplish this, we rely on the six pillars of our Theory of Change. These focus our attention on making connections visible so that individuals see finance and on reinventing the economy as a place where they can act, engage, and have influence.

We do our work by building bridges and creating contexts which push new thinking.  Criterion’s values of grace, hospitality, and the power of invitation have defined our work for the past fourteen years.  We know how to invite and welcome strangers with such radical hospitality that all can participate in imagining and creating new possibilities.

Joy Anderson: Social Innovation Rockstar from Yoxi on Vimeo.