From Morgan Stanley. Gender diversity, as a financial consideration for investors, is accelerating. This is driven by a growing body of research that shows increased diversity and a more inclusive workforce can be attributes of strong performance, as well as by a desire from asset managers to use their financial resources as a tool to drive social change and greater gender equality. Regardless of the original motivation for considering gender diversity, this primer seeks to clarify the range of approaches and opportunities available for investors to successfully integrate gender diversity criteria into an investment portfolio.

From Pitchbook. In 2019, female-founded companies in the US closed more venture deals than ever before, raking in more than $20 billion across thousands of deals—significant improvement from a decade prior, wherein just $2.5 billion was invested across just under 600 financings. However, as the latest edition of the All In report series shows, the pandemic's onset put an abrupt halt to this upward trajectory. Reviewing the latest venture data, the report finds that female-founded companies in the US have seen a disproportionate drop in capital invested relative to the country's broader venture space.

The full report unpacks this stark reversal in depth, pulling in datasets spanning exits, industry and regions for greater context and richer nuance. In addition, it features Q&As with key industry players from Microsoft for Startups and Beyond The Billion, addressing related issues such as overall representation and how diversity contributes to improved outcomes for both companies and investors.

From the Government of Canada. In 2013, the Government of Canada announced the Venture Capital Action Plan (VCAP). It is a market oriented approach to put Canada's VC industry on the path to sustainability, make it more globally competitive, and increase the availability of financing for innovative Canadian firms.

Under VCAP, the Government is deploying $390 million in new capital. In particular, VCAP has made available:

• $340 million to establish and recapitalize four large scale private sector-led funds of funds in partnership with institutional and corporate strategic investors, as well as interested provinces; and

• $50 million in four existing high-performing VC funds in Canada.

The four VCAP funds-of-funds attracted significant investments from a diverse set of investors that included pension funds, high-net-worth individuals, corporations, banks, and the governments of Ontario and Quebec. Including the federal government investment, the four funds-of-funds raised $1.356 billion. Of that, $904 million came from private sector investors.

From the Institutional Limited Partners Association (ILPA). The ILPA Diversity in Action initiative brings together limited partners and general partners who share a commitment to advancing diversity, equity and inclusion in the private equity industry. The goal of the initiative is to motivate market participants to engage in the journey towards becoming more diverse and inclusive and to build momentum around the adoption of specific actions that advance DEI over time.

GPs and LPs who join the Diversity in Action initiative commit to specific actions that advance diversity and inclusion, both within their organization and the industry more broadly. Diversity in Action signatories currently undertake four essential DEI actions and at least two additional actions (from an optional set of nine). The Diversity in Action framework includes a broad range of possible actions that span talent management, investment management and industry engagement.

From the Diverse Asset Managers Initiative (DAMI). This guide is designed for institutional investors (trustees and staff), primarily of public, corporate, faith, and labor union pension funds, as well as foundation and university endowments, who are interested in exploring the possibilities of investing institutional assets with diverse-owned asset management firms.

From the National Association of Investment Companies (NAIC). Diverse-owned private equity firms continue to outperform their benchmarks, according to Examining the Returns 2019: The Financial Returns of Diverse Private Equity Firms, a study released by NAIC. Despite delivering consistent returns, diverse- and women-owned firms collectively manage only 1.3 percent of the investment industry’s $69 trillion in assets under management.

By Tracy Gray & Emilie Cortes. Foundations and impact investors need to face the ways they are complicit in perpetuating inequality through their capital allocations, and upend five structural investment barriers to better serve women and people of color. Tracy Gray and Emilie Cortes set out five structural barriers that foundation investors and investment committees can easily upend today in their due diligence process to improve outcomes for people of color—especially underrepresented Black, Indigenous, and Latinx people—and women.

From ForcetheIssue.org. The Force the Issue project launched September 9, 2019 and is a joint effort between Grab Your Wallet Alliance, LedBetter Gender Equality Index, and the Adasina Community. Our goal is to get companies to end the harmful practice of requiring arbitration for sexual harassment claims. The project’s launch was accompanied by a statement of support from a broad array of institutional investor groups including the AFL-CIO, Trillium Asset Management, the president of Los Angeles City Employee Retirement System (LACERS), Walden Asset Management, Natural Investments, and Nia Impact Capital. The signers of the statement represent $54 billion of investor assets. The statement is also officially endorsed by Sharan Burrow as General Secretary of the International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC).

From Work and Opportunitites for Women (WOW). We know very little about the millions of women working in global value chains, who grow the food we eat, make the clothes we wear and contribute to products we use every day. Despite being at the heart of global value chains, these women are quite literally invisible; hidden in plain sight. This invisibility prevents women from fully contributing to and benefiting from their productive work. What’s more, the lack of knowledge about this population of workers directly inhibits companies’ ability to make informed business decisions about their supply chains.

This brief is written for companies or practitioners engaging in global value chains, in particular those such as garments, agriculture and personal care, which rely heavily on women workers. It is also aimed at anyone looking to create safe and fair working conditions for all men and women workers.

From the International Finance Corporation (IFC). This study explores the link between financial returns and gender diversity; the lack of women in the industry; and steps needed to achieve gender balance. One of the key findings of the report is that private equity and venture capital funds with gender-balanced senior investment teams generated 10 percent to 20 percent higher returns compared with funds that have a majority of male or female leaders.

The report draws on gender diversity and performance data from more than 700 funds and 500 portfolio companies; survey results from over 500 fund managers and institutional investors; interviews with more than 50 investors and gender diversity experts; and case studies of more than 10 private equity and venture capital funds and institutional investors that are addressing the gender-imbalance in their own work. The report also gathers recommendations for fund managers and institutional investors to help move the industry towards gender balance.

From Stardust Equity. Stardust Equity believes that the best performing investment firms will be those that are approaching gender equality as they would any other business priority. In an effort to fully use the levers investors have at their disposal, Stardust Equity compiled the Gender Smart Due Diligence Questionnaire: a diligence tool assessing firms’ commitments to gender analysis and toward gender equality.

From Power Africa. Women represent half of the world’s employment potential, yet they make up only 32 percent of the renewable energy sector workforce worldwide. In Africa’s off-grid energy sector, this discrepancy is especially acute, and problematic, as companies race to meet the workforce needs of a rapidly growing sector. PEG Africa (PEG) is a fast-growing, 400+ person company that provides solar-powered electricity solutions, called solar home systems (SHS), to customers in rural and remote parts of West Africa where the electricity grid does not reach. Small off-grid companies in Africa, such as PEG, must tackle an array of business-related challenges, and gender equality and women’s empowerment are not often prioritized. However, integrating gender-inclusive practices can both benefit business performance and increase social impact. Power Africa supports projects, programs and policies that strive to reduce gender inequalities and promote the effective engagement of both men and women in the energy sector. As part of its ongoing businessrelated support to PEG, Power Africa identified the opportunity to help the company implement strategic measures to increase internal gender equality and strengthen women’s economic opportunities.

From G-SEARCh: Investors often ask for information on how to kickstart their GLI journey. Many useful resources are available to do this. However, this brief addresses a gap in information on the tools and approaches used to design and implement gender-smart technical assistance for small and medium enterprises (SMEs) to improve their social and financial performance. G-SEARCh also shares reflections from their collective experience to date.

From Criterion Institute. The research behind this paper examined power dynamics in the development of two fields, climate finance and gender lens investing. It provides a deeper analysis of the dynamics that have shaped the development of these fields and asks whether the fields have been disruptive enough. Developing field building strategies requires ongoing analysis of power dynamics in the systems that the field touches. How ideas develop and how fields advance are not neutral. Changing systems requires operating within the targeted system and engaging with the power dynamics of that system. There is no way to avoid this fully. To operate within the system and create changes requires engaging with the logic of the system itself and what drives it.

The thesis of this paper is that the awareness of power dynamics will lead to a more intentional design of field building efforts within gender lens investing and climate finance, thereby ensuring that these efforts are addressing and not needlessly calcifying and replicating existing dynamics and inequities in systems of finance.

From Convergence. Blended finance is the use of catalytic capital from public or philanthropic sources to increase private sector investment in sustainable development. This blended finance primer leverages Convergence's database of historical blended finance transactions to generate unique insights about the blended finance market to date.

From Criterion Institute. Process metrics are indicators that allow an examination of progress on gender or social equity overall. They allow thinking beyond “counting” that moves toward valuing. For example, process metrics could allow us to move beyond counting the number of marginalized people in leadership at an investment firm and instead ask about the firm’s gender practices throughout the investment process. Process metrics are particularly important in designing a transformative investment model that seeks to promote equity, as social equity stems not only from improved access to resources and decision making but control over these aspects.

These process metrics, developed in collaboration with key branches of the Australian and Canadian governments, are designed to analyze power structures across a variety of investment processes and can be leveraged to varying degrees in assessing the power dynamics of capital flow across asset classes and the expected return spectrum.

From Bamboo Capital Partners. The International Trade Center, CARE Enterprises and Bamboo Capital Partners have joined forces in their mission to help achieve gender equality with the CARE-SheTrades Fund. The Fund was launched in June 2018 by Bamboo and CARE to drive progress towards gender justice in South and Southeast Asia. The ITC, a joint agency of the World Trade Organization and the United Nations, has now joined the Fund. The ITC will leverage its extensive SheTrades network connecting export-ready women entrepreneurs and women-owned businesses to markets around the world, to identify pipeline companies for investments.

By Erin L. Thomas, PhD, VP, Head of Diversity, Inclusion & Belonging at Upwork. “At Upwork, we stand firmly against racial injustice and are working to create a safe environment for honest conversations about race, including how we can effectively upend the chronic racism that many of our team members experience every day. We recognize that we also have much progress to make within Upwork, and we have committed to take action toward building a more diverse and inclusive workplace.“

From CDP. Part of the CDP Toolkit on Funding and Financing Climate Action, including Relevant Projects and Initiatives, Capital Type, Top Funding and Finance Pathways, Resources or Partners, and Case Examples.

From CDP. This toolkit originates from a yearlong initiative of CDP through its Matchmaker Program. Matchmaker aims to bridge the divides among infrastructure ideas, interdepartmental communication and funding. By working directly with cities, CDP highlights sustainable urban infrastructure projects to the investment community.

The intention of this document is not to serve as a template, but to ignite ideas on how to ideate, pilot, implement, and facilitate projects that equitably benefit people and respond responsibly to the causes and impacts of anthropogenic climate change. This toolkit is developed, written, and designed within a North American context, using a lexicon and concepts most familiar in the North American region. Moreover, the target audience for this toolkit is individuals working with a government (whether city, municipal, or state), regional consortia, academic institutions, or other organizations to develop climate interventions in their communities. The concepts, however, just as easily apply to organizers, community leaders, or other individuals with an interest in developing community-centered solutions to mitigate or adapt to the impacts of climate change.