The Women Effect – Intertwined Social and Financial Returns

Joy Anderson, President and Founder of Criterion Ventures, spoke to fellows at the Unreasonable Institute in June – eight women and one man about how the gender lens on their ventures means better business.

In this session, the women discussed the challenges of being a woman entrepreneur and the need to ‘put on different hats’ depending on their audience – one for talking return on equity with potential investors and one in conversations about social returns.

This conversation reaffirmed the need for an initiative like Women Effect Investments – the need to build a field in which investors understand that a gender lens can mean stronger business, fewer mistakes, an expanded customer base, and, in many cases, a better workforce.

The multiplied social and financial returns that result when gender is taken seriously – in investing (and impact investing), in business (and social business) – are inextricably tied. The time has come to do away with the different hats and, as Joy put it, “stand where we stand.”

Leveraging Women’s Roles - An Example

Using a gender lens on employment-generating social enterprises in order to create jobs for women can represent points of inflection to leverage financial returns and systems change, as Maria Rodriguez, founder of Worms for Change in Guatemala, clearly shows. Worms for Change integrates women living in vulnerable areas of Guatemala and Mexico to transform waste into organic fertilizer using vermiculture – yes, worms. She realized that Worms for Change could tap into the supply chain in an innovative way by transforming women into productive agents in this industry. In the communities where Maria is operating, women have access to waste, whereas men do not have direct access to the waste and would have had to purchase it. Maria treated ‘waste as capital,’ using women’s role in the household in order to cut middlemen and costs, thus increasing profits.

The Message

WEI Speakers Collective member and founder of First Power, Donna Morton said of her gender lens, “Despite the fact that I’m thinking about it all the time, I wasn’t as conscious of all of these channels.” In order to implement a gender lens effectively, thinking carefully about gender analysis and about the kind of lens can be very important.

The story is important. Getting the message across about gender making business stronger, with greater financial returns is crucial to the success of gender lens investing. Philanthropy has done so much for women and girls, but investors will never be able to see value of investing in women-led and women-focused businesses if those leading them do not own the business case – ‘standing where they stand’ to show that financial and social value are especially blended when it comes to the Women Effect. As one of the women said, it is about realizing “I am the perfect posterchild for my own venture.”

Anne Githuku-Shongwe, founder of Afroes Transformational Games, said to Joy at the end of this conversation that the “deliberateness of the gender lens hasn’t been as loud until I heard you put it on the table.” This movement and the changes it seeks to make are overdue. The time has come to create a conducive environment for entrepreneurs and investors to be loud about a gender lens.

The Next Step

This conversation was naturally forward-looking: Joy and the fellows discussed how fellowship programs and social enterprise competitions should have more explicit gender lenses with separate forms, processes, and pools of capital. We are excited to see Echoing Green taking a leadership role in increasing their number of women fellows – check out their webinar for female social entrepreneurs.

The conversation also turned to the real possibility of creating a space in social investing where entrepreneurs can come with their ideas and be listened to with a smart gender lens. The endgoal is to get more capital to women-led and women-focused businesses because investors are comprehending the significance of a woman entrepreneur or leadership team, or of products and services that improve the condition of women. Imagine a world where it is clear to all that a gender lens on investment dollars means an expanded set of opportunities… and a better world.

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