Women Effect Investments

From the streets of Los Angeles to the heart of Bogot‡, women are doing extraordinary things for their families, communities, the world. We seek to celebrate them. Empower them. Be them.

Women Effect Investments, led by Criterion Ventures (www.criterionventures.com), focuses impact investment to support the power of women in creating scalable solutions to global challenges. Impact Investing, also known as social investing or ethical investing, describes an investment strategy that seeks financial return and social good. WEI enables investments in women – in their entrepreneurship, training, housing, education and childcareŅinvestments not donation. WEI does this by:

• Engaging leaders in gender and in impact investing and creating new levels of exchange
• Mapping the activity of investing with a gender lens, highlighting opportunities and gaps
• Researching what motivates women to participate in impact investment
• Creating compelling messages and materials to engage people around investing in women and girls
• Catalyzing intermediaries to create compelling opportunities to invest in women and to bring a gender lens into the emerging impact measurement instruments.

We are doing this because when women are economic agents and leaders, social change accelerates and returns multiply. The returns of women-focused investing can be measured in our families, our neighborhoods, and on the other side of the world.

We connect the worlds of impact investing, women's capital and gender knowledge to create insights and collaborations which will compel investors and create new possibilities.

WEI is partnering with the Calvert Foundation and other collaborators to create an opportunity to invest in The Women Effect now. By linking a mainstream, proven community investment vehicle - Calvert Foundation's Social Investment Notes - with the profound returns generated by supporting women and girls, we not only create a strong investment vehicle, we also create the promise of a much larger sea change.

WEI's efforts are backed by a remarkable set of women who have joined its Founding Community. These individuals see the potential created by joining the power of a gender lens with the emerging vehicles of the social investing world. We need more people to join in this extraordinary opportunity to empower women through investments. WEI is seeking seed funders at $5,000-$25,000. If you are interested in providing philanthropic support to WEI or in investing in WEI at Calvert Foundation, call Jackie VanderBrug for more information or email: vanderbrug@criterionventures.com, and let us connect you with Women Effect Investments.