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The Ariadne Podcast


Feb 24, 2021

You want your investments to support gender equality and wider social change – whether you are a small saver or responsible for a large endowment or fund: how do you actually make it happen, and where do you start? Diane Isenberg, who heads a family office gives this advice: get on and do it, learn as you go, find allies and be really clear about what you are trying to achieve.

In this fourth episode of Ariadne’s podcast series on Gender Lens Investing, we look at how to make these ethical investments, whether you are part of a family office, a grant-making foundation, an NGO or just an ordinary individual with your own small funds. It’s possible to make a difference in every case if you’re prepared to give it a go. But there are hurdles.

Diane Isenberg uses family wealth to improve the lives and future economic prospects of very poor rural communities around the world. “I would argue if you want to work in these kind of communities and make a lasting difference, you have to have gender lens as part of your work.”

For Dorri McWhorter, director of Metropolitan Chicago YWCA, using the markets to overcome the ills of capitalism makes sense. “The fact is that corporations have the opportunity to impact millions if not billions of lives of women by how they employ them and treat them.”

This series of podcasts from Ariadne – the European Funders Network for Social Change and Human Rights takes you through the field of gender lens investing, explaining what it is, why it matters, at how data is being used to create new products and extend the principles of gender lens investing to new fields like racial justice. In other episodes we also look at how upheavals like COVID and Black Lives Matter are changing the possibilities in this growing field.

These podcasts were supported by funds from the European Commission. They were written and presented by Jo Andrews, founder and former director of Ariadne and co-founder of the gender lens data research specialist, Equileap. The podcasts were produced and edited by Bill Taylor of The Lark Rise Partnership.

Ariadne’s Learning Series on Gender Lens Investing was funded by the European Union’s Rights, Equality and Citizenship Programme (2014-2020). Project title: INGENDER. Project number: 831633.

The content of this podcast series represents the views of the author only and is his/her sole responsibility. The European Commission does not accept any responsibility for use that may be made of the information it contains.