Section 6 - Investing and impact
Our toolkit navigator includes the following guiding symbols to guide audiences in prioritizing resources
ToolKit Navigator
⧫ Beginner: Entry-level tools and step-by-step guides for investors and financial institutions to get started on their gender mainstreaming journeys.
⧫⧫ Intermediate: Intermediate-level tools, strategies, guidelines, and manuals for investors and financial institutions already working with impact-investing frameworks and with a solid understanding of the concepts of gender, diversity, equity, and inclusion.
⧫⧫⧫ Advanced: Advanced-level intersectional frameworks and analytical gender lenses for investors and financial institutions with established GDE&I practices and a strong conceptual understanding of applying a gender lens across institutional activities.
☆Must read
*** Key resource for diversifying the gender perspective
Does your institution or investment fund consider gender-related impact in its investments, services or financial products?
Choose your answer
Adopting a gender lens can seem daunting in the beginning but moving capital toward women-led businesses and products that have an equity-lens is not only good for the business but the right thing to do. This Section 6 is meant to guide you through what it takes to incorporate a gender perspective across your institution or fund’s activities in a practical way.
Thinking about impact in a more general way? You can achieve greater impact and better alignment between your investment activities and your institution's mission or values by reading through the Total Portfolio Activation Framework. This framework provides a detailed account of the specific activities that can increase your potential for social and environmental impact both within and across asset classes (cash and cash equivalents; fixed income; public equities; private equity; and real property). Go directly to pages 5-14 or read the entire report to access exciting case studies from other institutional investors that share similar goals.
⧫⧫⧫ Advanced, English
The Section 6 below will guide you toward starting your journey as a social impact investor with a gender focus. Remaining critical (and curious!) about private financing is the first step toward generating real impact. Take a look at the indicators below and find the challenges that correspond the most to your current situation to see where your institution can start making a greater social impact by moving capital and investments toward diverse women and other under-represented groups.
Select the challenges you identify with and explore the resources
Challenge:
How to Invest with a Gender Lens? presents a set of practical recommendations to illustrate how investors can begin their gender lens investing journeys and introduces four lenses through which investors can evaluate the gender impact of their investments. This toolkit has a specific focus on emerging markets.
⧫ Beginner, English
To learn more about ESG/Gender indicators and to expand their incorporation in the development and management of the portfolio (or even in the institution as a whole!), we recommend you to review the CDC ESG Toolkit’s Gender-smart investing for FIs document.
⧫⧫ Intermediate, English
Are you an institutional or individual investor in need of a practical tool to screen investments? Look for options, sort and compare funds that fit your investing needs and values with the help of the Gender Equality Funds Toolkit.
⧫ Beginner, English, ☆Must read
We recommend browsing through the CDC Gender Toolkit, which provides you with key tools (such as the CDC Tip Sheet) to understand the importance of asking questions and the rationale behind integrating gender into investment decisions.
You can also read through their Gender Sector Brief: How to Apply a Gender Lens to the Evaluation of Financial Institutions Investments Financial Institutions of the CDC ESG Toolkit: a sector-specific diagnostic guide to support investors and fund managers to identify existing and future opportunities for ESG and gender-smart investing in the financial institutions sector.
⧫⧫ Intermediate, English ☆Must read
Need more information? Read the full IFC report "Investing in Women: New evidence for the business case" or choose the case study of your interest here.
Pages 12-13 in the How to Invest with a Gender Lens? are useful for any investor looking to choose which gender-related area to focus on and to think through which target populations they want to reach.
⧫ Beginner, English
Interested in moving the needle for under-represented groups? Check-out the resources from Funders for LGBTQ Issues here!
*** Key resource for diversifying the gender perspective
Are you a financial or banking institution interested in learning more about how to reach and develop new financial/non-financial products or services for vulnerable women/populations? Check out how the USAID funded Gender Mainstreaming project implemented by Pro Mujer and Acrux Partners helped Daviplata (Colombia) on this (Link to case study)!
Challenge:
How to Invest with a Gender Lens? explains the due diligence process at pages 22-23 and helps you and your investment team to develop your own gender scorecard for potential investees.
⧫ Beginner, English
Access to and control over financial and productive resources can provide pathways out of poverty for many women and girls. Catalyzing economic empowerment is the responsibility of anyone interested in creating new financial or nonfinancial products with a gender lens. For a quick read on why measuring empowerment matters, check out The Gender Equality Toolbox.
⧫ Beginner, English
Interested in deepening your knowledge in terms of output and outcome monitoring with a gender lens? The Gender in Practice toolkit constitutes an important and necessary database for analysis, discussion, (self-) evaluation and reporting. Pages 69-75 (Sheet 11) provides a starting point on how to begin measuring impact via key questions and indicators. This resource works for social enterprises, impact investors and intermediaries interested in asking specific and targeted questions from their target populations.
⧫⧫⧫ Advanced, English, ☆Must read
The standard metrics in the field of gender lens are binary and gender is mostly synonymous with women and a heteronormative understanding of relationships. Dive in deeper with this Criterion Institute’s Investing with an LGBTQI lens.
⧫ Beginner, English, ☆Must read, *** Key resource for diversifying the gender perspective
Need to look at metrics in a practical format? Download the Due Diligence Questionnaire and Diversity Metrics Template from ILPA here.
⧫⧫⧫ Advanced, English, *** Key resource for diversifying the gender perspective
Applying a gender perspective across portfolio activities is a process that needs to be intentional, evidence based and holistic. Mainstreaming gender requires tools and know-how, so it is both a technical and a personnel issue.
Section 6.3 can help you get started on understanding what are the effects of capital allocation and how to generate positive change by investing intentionally or devesting.
The Ilu Toolbox is an excellent resource for any company interested in deepening their gender-related practices and policies. It includes the four lenses often used in gender lens investing (Women in Leadership, Workplace Equity, Equity in the Value Chain and Products and Services for Women and Girls). To support your portfolio companies you can present this resource to help them activate all four gender lenses to increase investability and catalyze impact.
⧫ Beginner-Intermediate, English, Spanish
Section 3 in this toolkit provides excellent resources to help you advocate for gender equality and engage in intentional knowledge-dissemination and communication strategies.
Are you an individual investor? Big funds are not the only ones who can move the needle in terms of gender equality. The gender-lens investing action toolkit is an easy-to-read one-pager to get you moving your capital and advocating for gender-lens investments with your financial advisor and with your colleagues at work. It even has a simple letter format you can copy and send to your 401(k)-plan administrator.
⧫ Beginner, English, ☆Must read
Challenge:
Are you an institutional or individual investor and need a practical tool to screen investments? Look for options, sort and compare funds that fit your investing needs and values with the help of the Gender Equality Funds Toolkit.
⧫ Beginner, English, ☆Must read
Knowing what you own is the first step to aligning your investments with your values. Did you know that publicly traded companies can have harmful internal practices that directly affect women in the workplace? Take a look at Force the Issue’s list for companies who require arbitration for sexual harassment claims to remove those from your portfolio of active investments.
⧫ Beginner, English, ☆Must read
In the Screening and Categorisation section of the CDC ESG Toolkit, you will find key information about the objectives and benefits of early coverage of ESG and Gender Lens, as well as a very complete collection of activities that will help you in your ESG/Gender screening and categorization process.
⧫⧫ Intermediate, English
Want to dive deeper?
- Check for human rights violations and whether the companies you invest in profit from and support state violence here.
⧫ Beginner, English
- Want your investment to support racial justice? The Adasina Social Capital’s tool allows you to screen through those companies that exacerbate racial inequities to make permanent changes in your portfolio.
⧫ Beginner, English, *** Key resource for diversifying the gender perspective
Are you a financial institution with investments or operations in Latin America? The Gender Lens Investing Forum is an excellent annual event that connects investors, intermediaries and enterprises across the region with the common goal to articulate gender equality goals, bring together key players in the ecosystem and share best practices.
Challenge:
Interested in becoming the employer of choice for women? Check out this short but practical how-to guide from the CDC Gender Equality Toolkit on how to create an environment in which gender DE&I thrives.
⧫ Beginner, English ☆Must read
Don’t know how to make gender diversity work in private sector companies? Check out the International Labor Organization’s Gender Diversity Journey. Company Good Practices.
⧫⧫ Intermediate, English, ☆Must read
Not convinced on why gender identity or sexual orientation matters in objective fields such as science and technology? This is an excellent toolkit created by LGBTQ+ in STEM sciences that can help you get started.
Recognizing the homogeneity of our workplaces is a step forward in creating more diverse and inclusive spaces. Diversifying the team of decision-makers or the members of the investment committees helps knowing where to start by bringing diverse ideas and new perspectives on the table. No organization is gender neutral, so it is important to recognize how gender is taken on board institutionally to support a wider agenda of gender equality. The Gender in Practice toolkit (pages 55-59 (Sheet 9a)) offers a solid framework for a full organizational gender analysis.
⧫⧫⧫ Advanced, English, ☆Must read
Challenge:
Are you an investor interested in strengthening the women led businesses in your portfolio company's value chain? One of the main gender lenses for investors to evaluate portfolio companies gender commitments is sourcing and distribution. Want to learn more about how to influence companies into sourcing from women producers or to distribute their products through women-led companies or women sales agents? Check the How to Invest with a Gender Lens? guide on how to leverage value chain equity at p. 14-16.
⧫ Beginner, English
Section 9.2 in this toolkit provides excellent resources, such as the Ilu Toolbox, to better incorporate gender perspectives into the value chain of your company or organization. Check it out!
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