Gender-Smart Investing Journeys: Teresa Younger, Ms Foundation
Teresa C. Younger is the CEO and President of the Ms Foundation for Women, which is on a mission to build collective power by centering women and girls of colour. She explains how the Ms. values run through everything the Foundation does - from their investment policy statement to the make-up of the organisation, where three quarters of the leadership team and 70% of the staff are women of colour - and why institutions need to get intentional about being uncomfortable.
What were the needs and constraints you considered when you were crafting your gender strategy?
We intentionally and unapologetically centre women and girls of colour. That intersection of race and gender has also informed our investment. We also wanted to not get locked up in how many women were on boards, and be able to ask ourselves, where are real leadership decisions being made?
One of the things we kept hearing from other foundations was, gender lens is too risky, so we’re only allocating part of our investment. We pushed back and said, 100% of our endowed dollars (around $40m) are going to be aligned with our mission, our vision and our values. We want to make sure we have a rate of return. But isn't it more important for us to have a rate of return that is not extreme in order to stay with our values? Can we do something on a small scale that might show a larger foundation, organisation, or institution what’s possible?
It's been an expansive conversation, now written into a board education process.
Can you talk a little bit more about the process of educating the board and how to do that well, for others?
I needed to make sure that I was educating the board at the same time as the Investment Committee, so that when we were in a conversation about investment policy, we weren't just going along with what the IC wanted. The first thing I did at Ms. was an analysis of leadership within the board, and what diversity values I wanted to make sure got lifted up. When I recruit new board members, I have upfront conversations around our desire to centre women and girls of colour, and how our $40 million investment is as important as our operations.
“In asking a question about gender lens investing, we come from a much broader non-binary perspective: how is this inclusive?”
A key conversation has been engaging the board on what long term investment in women looks like. We've been talking about MRI - mission related investing - and had two training sessions about that. Now we're in a PRI (program-related investing); we made a very intentional move to have a private sleeve. One is management driven, the other is driven by the Investment Committee. One has closer relationships to our grant-making and is higher risk; we will write it off as a grant if it doesn't work. The other focuses on rate of return.
Everything we do puts our mission, vision and values in front of people in a very clear way. Our investment policy statement has our values in it. We believe in a safe and just world where power and possibility are not limited by gender, race, class, sexual orientation, gender identity, disability or age. We believe that equity and inclusion are the cornerstones of a true democracy, in which the worth and dignity of every person is valued. So it becomes a checkpoint: have we done this? It's not mandated. In asking a question about gender lens investing, we come from a much broader non-binary perspective: how is this inclusive for gender non-conforming and trans folks?
Are investees surprised by any of your due diligence questions?
No, because we’re clear about [our values]. We have questions like, if a firm is able to make a determination about healthcare packages for their staff, does their healthcare package include birth control and access to reproductive services? That's something most people aren’t thinking about. But for us, that's a matter of health and safety. And it ties directly into bodily autonomy, and the work that we're trying to do.
“This is about pivoting to those who have hurt for the longest period of time, and figuring out how to grow and invest in those strategies”
If you don't ask the question, you can't talk about the answers. What are the choices that you have on your forms? Is it a two-gender binary, male or female? What other boxes do you put on your form? I don't know how our investment firms are doing in terms of asking those questions. We've just started that relationship. At the end of the day, we may find that there's a change in the models, who knows?
What advice do you have for other foundations?
One, it takes time: the reason we've been able to move so quickly is because we're small. Set the goal really clearly for three years. Five years is too far out. Start with any one thing, and reinforce your values. And really try to figure out what a minimum rate of return needs to be, as opposed to the maximum. Anything over a 7% return should get pushed back out the door and not sit in the coffers; you shouldn't be able, as an institution, to generate more money than you move out. Once you have covered costs, the rest of those dollars should be going back out into the field. Foundations need to invest in their organisations long-term, the way they approach their endowments.
People are now starting to ask more questions about how to better integrate racial equity and other aspects of intersectionality, which has been a core part of your strategy from the beginning. What advice have you got for them?
Stop thinking you're going to get comfortable with it. This cannot be about how everybody feels. If people were comfortable discussing white supremacy, racism, sexism, misogyny, we would be in a very different conversation. People don't want to go there. Now is the time to ask what impact you want to have, move there, and then come up with a strategy that makes everybody feel good about it. Because otherwise, you're going to miss the opportunity to seize this moment. Somebody is going to hurt on one side, but somebody is going to gain on the other side. This is about pivoting to those who have hurt for the longest period of time, and figuring out how to grow and invest in those strategies.
So what's the next step in your investment journey?
There's a couple things. One is our campaign to increase our endowment, so that we have more dollars to leverage. I am adamant that our portfolio needs to be a minimum of 100 million dollars. Then as we recruit new board members, to actually engage them in what our investment strategies are, and why. And then lastly, is really to figure out how our retirement packages to our staff are as informed as the rest of what we're doing within the organisation.
What do you feel still needs to change either within the organisation or within the wider investing ecosystem?
Change takes time. These institutions didn't create their problematic structures overnight, and we can't expect them to change overnight. But I do think that being intentional about being uncomfortable is where the institutions need to go. They can’t just rely on a couple of women and people of colour: they need to be intentional about their recruitment mechanisms, and what they want their story to be.