Gender Lens Investing Archives

Walker’s Legacy: Partnering to Launch Women of Color in Tech

Walker’s Legacy Foundation, the charitable arm of Walker’s Legacy, works to promote and support women of color entrepreneurs. (Photo Credit: Walker’s Legacy Foundation)

In recent years, foundations, corporations, and individuals alike have paid significant attention to closing the gender gap in the tech industry. We have made progress — but not as much as some may think. Female representation in the tech industry is staggeringly low, and this is especially true for women of color. To combat these statistics, Walker’s Legacy, Comcast, and the Thurgood Marshall College Fund are joining forces with the Women of Color in Tech event series.

The Women of Color in Tech tour is a new national event series that highlights multicultural women in technology. Sponsored by Walker’s Legacy, in partnership with Comcast and the Thurgood Marshall College Fund, this speaker series highlights the accomplishments and career paths of multicultural female entrepreneurs. Through the program, women of color will find new opportunities, resources, and programs that can bolster entrepreneurship around the country.

Women Funding Network’s Executive Director Cynthia Nimmo. (Photo Credit: WFN)

The Women’s Funding Network (WFN) recently opened registration for their September conference, Women Funded 2019: Leadership for a Changing World.

The event, held from September 11-13 at Hotel Kabuki in San Francisco’s Japantown neighborhood, is the next iteration in WFN’s successful conference series. You may remember last September’s Seattle takeover with Women Moving Millions and the Gates Foundation — WFN’s WOMEN+POWER conference was held in Seattle, Washington, in an incredible weekend for feminist thought leaders.

The San Francisco conference is gearing up to be WFN’s biggest event yet, featuring more than 80 speakers across more than 40 sessions. This year’s four themes — On The Frontlines, It’s Personal, The Power of Voice, and How Money Moves — focus on resolving complex social issues, leading with power across sectors, shaping stories, policy, and solution, and re-shaping philanthropy by redefining investment.

A new initiative that crosses public/private lines, The Equality Fund, has formed in Canada to address women’s rights in some of the world’s poorest countries. (Image Credit: Equality Fund)

The Canadian government recently pledged $300 CAD (about $225 million U.S.) toward improving women’s rights and economic security in the developing world. Maryam Monsef, who serves as Canada’s Minister of International Development and Minister for Women and Gender Equality, made the announcement on June 2 ahead of the Women Deliver Conference in Vancouver, where she is a speaker.

The Canadian government is partnering with the Equality Fund to administer the funds. The Equality Fund is a consortium of Canadian and international organizations that is funding efforts to improve outcomes for women and support gender equality globally.

Kiersten Marek, LICSW, editor and publisher of Philanthropy Women, discusses the past, present, and future of PW.

Quite a lot has happened in just a year’s time here at Philanthropy Women. We thought it would be helpful to let readers know about how this initiative in feminist giving media is changing and evolving.

The impact of Philanthropy Women has increased significantly. Now in our second year, our writers, including myself, are more experienced and able to explore subjects more deeply and make more connections. Our amplification of content on social media has also increased. We are receiving more requests for media coverage, and our content has been sought for republication on high visibility venues. We have been able to attract top talent for writers, including Julia Travers, Laura Dorwart, Maggie May, and Tim Lehnert.

feminist philanthropy — A feature story by Julia Travers from Inside Philanthropy explores the funders using participatory grantmaking with girls. (Image Credit: Inside Philanthropy)

“In every decision you make, in every strategy you make, ask yourself a question: Where are girls?” This is a statement from one of The With and For Girls Collective’s teenage activists, quoted in an article for Inside Philanthropy, and it rings true for philanthropic organizations around the world. It speaks to the way that feminist philanthropy is influencing the sector as a whole.

The growing influence of women on philanthropy is starting to draw attention, in the best possible ways. As more women work together to enact true social change, and as more female pioneers lead the way toward a more gender-equal future, mainstream media outlets are beginning to observe and comment on the trend.

Surina Khan, Executive Director of the Women’s Foundation California. (Image Credit: WFC)

“I recently went to the Legacy Museum and National Memorial for Peace and Justice, in Montgomery Alabama. It’s an incredibly powerful place, but the stories of women are not as prominent as they could be,” says Surina Khan, Executive Director of Women’s Foundation California (WFC), in a recent interview about the principles guiding her leadership.

The experience of visiting the Legacy Museum reinforced for Khan the importance of gender justice impact assessments — of organizations and institutions regularly assessing whether they are paying enough attention to gender issues. Since returning to the helm of WFC in 2014, Khan has taken an increasingly intentional approach to employing a gender lens to everything they do, meaning from caterers to banking services to program grantees, it’s all about doing business with partners who align with WFC’s values.

Teen girls are becoming movers and shakers across the globe in areas like gun violence, environmental activism, and gender equality, as well as advocacy for inclusiveness and systems change of all kinds.

And rather than simply accepting the hands they’ve been dealt, teen girls and young women are taking the lead to change their lives and the lives of those around them. A Swedish teen activist, Greta Thunberg, has recently made waves and garnered well-deserved media attention for her work around climate change. She has protested outside of the Swedish parliament and has spoken about the need to protect the environment for future generations at Davos and the United Nations. Thunberg has also inspired others her age, mobilizing school-based climate change protests in Sweden and worldwide. She was recently nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize, and stands to be the youngest recipient since Malala Yousafzai if she wins.

Increasing women’s participation in portfolio management and executive leadership is key not just to the financial world, but society as a whole. Investment professionals are charged with making major decisions on behalf of venture capital and private equity firms, as well as managing funds invested in by corporations, governments, pension funds, endowments, foundations and non-profits.

One organization heavily involved in correcting this problem is Girls Who Invest (GWI). GWI aims to increase the number of women in asset management and finance, fields where females are highly underrepresented. To help in its efforts to recruit more young women into the fund-management pipeline, GWI recently received $1.5 million in funding from the venture capital and private-equity firm Vista Equity Partners.

invest for better — Ellen Remmer, Senior Partner at The Philanthropic Institute, discusses the launch of Invest for Better, a new platform to help women lead the way in impact investing.

“The deeper I get into impact investing, the more I’m persuaded,” says Ellen Remmer, Senior Partner at the Philanthropic Institute (TPI), after a 25 year career in finance and philanthropy. “Personally, when I changed advisors and started doing impact investing, it connected me to my money in new and different ways, and it was so much more interesting. I was always bored by [traditional investing]. Now it was interesting, because it was about social and environmental change.”

Remmer is part of a minority of women in our culture who has pursued her interest in impact investing to the point of actually doing it. While more women are finally moving into impact investing now, Remmer wants to add to that momentum and make sure they are equipped with knowledge and guidance to do impact investing well.

The San Francisco Foundation is modeling a higher level of financial integrity as it announces a new $50 million for justice-lens investing, including hiring minority and women financial managers.

When you think of San Francisco, the first thing to come to mind is probably the Golden Gate Bridge, or the picturesque houses lining multi-million-dollar streets. You likely don’t immediately think of the wealth disparity that Silicon Valley brought to the city’s families, or the racial tensions that still crop up in a “dark blue region of a blue state.”

San Francisco faces the same problems that plague any city of its size. But what if that could change?

The San Francisco Foundation recently announced that it is committing $50 million to “investments that are aligned with its mission to building inclusive prosperity and racial equity in and around San Francisco.” In other words, the Foundation is committing 6.3% of its $800 million endowment to investment opportunities that will be good for the city of San Francisco — and they’re looking to invest with women- and minority-owned asset managers.

Category: Gender Lens Investing

Walker’s Legacy: Partnering to Launch Women of Color in Tech

#WomenFunded2019: WFN Opens Registration for Annual Conference

Canada and Equality Fund Commit $300 Mil CAD to Women’s Rights

Why Feminist Giving Matters: the Mission of Philanthropy Women

How Mainstream Media is Amplifying Feminist Philanthropy

Disrupting Philanthropy’s Status Quo by Convening on Gender

Teen Girls are Leading the Way. How Can Philanthropy Support Them?

Girls Who Invest: How Donor Support is Increasing Their Imprint

Invest for Better: Helping Women Impact Finance, and the World

Women Asset Managers: San Francisco Foundation Needs You

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Assistant Director, Institutional Giving