Lenses – like a gender lens - do not change reality. They just allow us to see what’s happening more clearly. They simply show us patterns, and then allow us to use those patterns to do a more careful, more appropriate, more comprehensive analysis to see what might happen - including unintended consequences. In this episode, we look at two examples of unintended consequences in the field of innovative finance, in which seeing more clearly would lead to better outcomes. The first segment focuses on the classic example of microfinance, which is often talked about in gender lens investing as one of the areas which could have benefited from a more thoughtful approach - how might we see the unintended consequences in microfinance? The second segment features Joy in conversation with Criterion’s Tia Subramanian, on the hidden consequences of passport requirements.    Episode Segments: Intro Microfinance Succeeded in Putting More Women in Debt Passport requirementsRelevant Links:Criterion Institute website and LinkedInJoy’s LinkedInTia Subramanian’s LinkedIn  

Criterion is a systems change organization. We’ve been working with governments, investors, and civil society for over two decades to create systems change that reduces inequities, by using or changing systems of finance and investments. We have figured out a lot about how to do systems change works. But undergirding that is the assumption that systems can change. Even finance. Markets and monetary flows are often naturalized, described as if they happen with out any interventions… but the reality is these are systems that humans operate.  A gentle but important reminder that humans like us made this system up, so we can change it. We just need to believe it’s possible, and be willing to use our own power in the process.  On this episode, we start by looking back to what teaching high school in Brooklyn New York taught Joy about systems change and continues to inform her 'Why’ at Criterion. Then, Joy unpacks why, in order to be able to reimagine systems of finance, you need to begin by breaking it down into its component parts – and a few places you might start. Finally, some reflections on a recent workshop Criterion did with WUSC in Kenya and who sees themselves as able (or unable) to change those systems.  0:29 - Intro 2:45 - Survive vs Change the System  5:14 - Breaking into component pieces  11:58 - Power and Parking Lots (referencing WUSC)  Relevant Links: Criterion Institute website and LinkedIn Joy’s Linkedin  

A few years ago, Criterion launched a ten-year strategic plan, which solidified our commitment to direct the power of the financial system to be a positive force against systemic injustice. This is part two of a five-part series on the core pillars of our 2020-2030 strategic plan. Each episode will give our listeners an inside look at how these pillars came into focus for Criterion, why it’s so important for us to do this work now and over the long-term, key partners who are working with us, and highlights of our impact to-date.  This week, our host Joy Anderson talks about “Unleashing the Power of Policy,” the pillar of our work that deals with government partners and supports them in utilizing their existing social policies to raise the bar for innovative finance initiatives. First, Joy will talk through the history of our work in this space and how we expand the imagination of governments to see that they can use their power and influence to improve gender and other social outcomes in both public and private finance. Then she will discuss a common misperception that a lot of innovative finance programs have taken on – that women-led businesses need to be de-risked. Finally, Joy ponders the need for a translation function within donor agencies to facilitate coordination between innovative finance and the departments working on gender and other social policies.  Episode Highlights:  00:28 - Intro 02:18 - About the Pillar: Unleashing the Power of Policy  13:30 - Paying to de-risk what isn’t risky  16:55 - The need for translation inside donor agencies  Relevant Links: Criterion Institute website and LinkedInJoy’s Linkedin

A few years ago, Criterion launched a ten-year strategic plan, which solidified the organization’s commitment to direct the power of the financial system to be a positive force against systemic injustice. This episode kicks off a series on the five core pillars of Criterion's 2020-2030 strategic plan. Our host Joy Anderson will give listeners an inside look into how these pillars came into focus for Criterion, the importance of the work now and over the long-term, the key partners Criterion works with to accomplish our goals, and highlights of our impact to-date.  This week centers on the pillar, “Reframing Narratives in Innovative Finance.” It represents a long-term commitment to Criterion and something the organization views as a central tenet of field building. When we’re trying to shape perceptions and norms – and ultimately inspire investors to act differently – language matters. Joy talks about the kinds of work Criterion undertakes to reframe narratives in innovative finance. Then she digs into one of Criterion’s most prominent reframes: that finance is not just about moving money, but fundamentally about transforming power. Finally, she discusses what’s in a name, with a history of how the term “gender lens investing” came about. Episode Highlights: 00:28 - Intro 02:18 - About the Pillar 11:36 - Finance Is Not Just About Money, It's About Power 13:50 - Naming Gender Lens Investing Relevant Links: Criterion Institute website and LinkedInJoy’s LinkedIn 

Today’s episode explores the power of relationships. Having relationships with people from different sectors, different disciplines, different countries, and different cultures can help us make sense of things we haven’t experienced ourselves. Hearing other’s experiences helps us to understand other worlds and the systems that drive them, and to make connections between ideas we may not see on our own.  Our host, Joy Anderson, begins today’s episode with a discussion of how all relationships begin with an invitation. Then she shares stories of a long-time friend, colleague, and master of relationships, Suzanne Biegel, and how she uses her power to tell the stories of diverse entrepreneurs and fund managers, ensuring those stories reflect the extraordinary value those actors bring to the finance sector and the world at large. The episode ends with a reflection on how we all have the power to choose the stories we tell.  Episode Segments Intro  Relationships begin with an invitation Suzanne Biegel’s hospitality Choosing what story you tell   Relevant Links: Criterion Institute website and LinkedIn Joy’s LinkedIn Suzanne Biegel’s LinkedIn 

It’s no secret that the finance sector tends to undervalue and even demean non-financial expertise, in particular expertise on gender equality, social justice issues, and local context. This failure to embrace the value of diverse expertise reinforces biases in financial decision-making and has a direct impact on the outcomes of investments. This leads to overlooked opportunities, unseen and therefore unmitigated risks, and a wide range of unintended consequences.   In this episode, Joy begins with a first-hand experience with this bias against gender expertise. She then interviews a very special guest, Dorothy Nyambi, CEO of Mennonite Economic Development Associates, about the value she brings to her role as an investor. Finally, she discusses Criterion’s approach to building bridges into the world of finance so that we can expand who sees themselves has having the power – and the extraordinarily valuable expertise – to truly change the financial system as we know it.  Episode Segments Intro  Layer Cake Constructing an investor with Dr. Dorothy Nyambi Building bridges and the power of invitation  Relevant Links: Criterion Institute website and LinkedIn Joy’s LinkedIn Dorothy Nyambi’s LinkedIn MEDA’s website 

What if, when we think about finance for social change, we didn’t think solely about the amount of money we can move to a certain impact goal? What if we focused instead on HOW that money moves and who holds the power to influence financial design and decision-making processes?   This episode discusses five strategies Criterion has developed to equip social change leaders across sectors and industries to better understand the role they can play in using or changing the financial system to create transformative social change.    These strategies form the basis of Criterion signature TOOLKIT training, which over the years we’ve delivered to thousands of social change leaders across six continents. The strategies also appear in our Blueprints for Using Finance for Social Change and our recent report on “Fostering a Feminist Financial Imagination.” Future episodes will explore the application of these strategies to a variety of contexts.  Episode Segments  Intro  Five strategies for using finance for social change Relevant Links: Criterion Institute website and LinkedIn Joy’s LinkedIn Criterion Institute’s online TOOLKIT  Criterion Institute’s series of Blueprints for Using Finance for Social Change Criterion Institute’s report on “Fostering a Feminist Financial Imagination” 

At Criterion, we mostly try to focus on positives: possibilities, solutions, insights for how things could work better. But sometimes we need to call out when things just aren’t working. This episode is comprised of three rants about approaches to impact investing and gender lens investing which Criterion founder Joy Anderson believes are fundamentally limiting the positive impact these remarkable fields could have on the world. The episode will explore:  The role some of the big consulting firms played in building the field of gender lens investing and the lingering effects that’s had on who is able to engage, how expertise is valued, and what solutions are emerging; The idea that impact investing should be entrepreneur centric and sector-agnostic; and  Why Criterion is calling it quits on the business case for gender lens investing   Episode Segments Intro  The field that EY, Deloitte, and McKinsey built  Sector-agnostic impact investing is not working Calling it quits on proving the business case  Relevant Links: Criterion Institute website and LinkedIn Joy’s LinkedIn Disrupting Fields: Addressing Power Dynamics in the Fields of Climate Finance and Gender Lens Investing 

There is a common belief that, when we are creating something, we need to know specifically what to look for and how it will contribute to our end creation. In this episode, our host Joy Anderson flips that assumption on its head and focuses instead on the possibilities that can emerge when we allow ourselves to “wander around looking for nothing in particular.”  The first segment discusses how this concept can benefit the field of innovative finance as we seek to improve the ways in which we identify how a variety of social, racial, and gender issues connect to finance. The second segment illustrate this concept in action, drawing from an anecdote in which a chance meeting with a scholar conducting research in Rwanda surfaced insights on how to solve challenges in the US healthcare system.  Finally, the episode welcomes special guest Herbert Anderson, an influential theologian (and Joy’s father), who will discuss wonder and offer tips on how it can lead to curiosity that can, in turn, help each of us unlock new possibilities in our world.  Episode Segments: Intro  Wandering around looking for nothing in particular  Discovering the Cash Market   Wonder (with Herbert Anderson)   Relevant Links: Criterion Institute website and LinkedIn Joy’s LinkedIn Herbert Anderson’s LinkedIn  

In March of 2023, Silicon Valley Bank suddenly collapsed after its sale of long-term US treasury bonds at a hefty loss triggered investor panic and a run on the bank. The collapse has had widespread and catastrophic effects on start-up companies and the technology sector and has led many to speculate that we may be heading toward a banking crisis like that of 2008.  On this episode, our host Joy Anderson talks with Pablo Freund, Managing Director of Endeavor Ecuador and a long-time friend of Criterion, about the still-unfolding events surrounding the Silicon Valley Bank collapse, how we got here, and how – like any good crisis – we can use this to explore opportunities for change.  The episode will discuss what it would mean for investors to focus on good equity instead of growth at all costs, the power and potential of 0% loans – widely used in the development landscape – to create both impact and shareholder value, and how we can seize the shifting norms underway within finance to fundamentally change the values that underpin the system and reset markers of success.   As we like to say at Criterion, we made up the rules of the financial system, so we can change them. Episode Segments: 0:27 – Intro 2:10 – Silicon Valley Bank Collapse: An Opportunity for Change?  Relevant Links: Criterion Institute website and LinkedIn Joy’s LinkedIn Pablo Freund’s LinkedIn 

This is the first of many episodes around knowledge and power.  In the first segment, Joy reflects on a story when she was fundraising for good capital and a VC put her and her knowledge in its place. In the second segment Joy has a conversation with Dorothy Nyambi, Executive Director of MEDA, an international NGO that works in investing and shifting the north/south power dynamics. They talk about the power dynamics around the “localization” trends. Dorothy names that it’s not just about shifting the location of your headquarters and hiring local teams, but it’s shifting whose knowledge is valued, and who has power in decision-making. In the last segment, Joy tells a story from when she taught high school and what she learned from a student about alienation and the performance of knowledge. It’s called the weight of history and it’s about a history book.  Each of these names the bias and privilege operating day to day in what and, more importantly, whose knowledge counts.  Episode Segments  0:34 – Intro 2:11 – Your experienced, I'm opinionated. 6:11 – True localization is about shifting power. 17:30 – Weight of History   Relevant Links Criterion Institute website and LinkedIn Joy’s  LinkedIn Good Capital  Dorothy Nyambi MEDA 

In this episode, we explore imagining alternative futures and thinking through the contingencies in those futures.  The first segment broadly introduces the importance of imagining alternative futures for gender as investors. As investors, we constantly are imagining what might happen in the future, what might change, but around issues of gender and social structures, in general, most investors assume that constructions of gender and context gender norms are static and she’ll explain why that’s not true. In the second segment, Joy tells a classic story about a moment where she was giving a speech and she was called Pollyanna because she was imagining a future without gender-based violence.  The third segment is a conversation with Joy's father, Herbert Anderson, a theologian. They'll explore how much Joy learned from him. This conversation builds on the theme of alternative futures by digging into why we resist planning for contingencies.   Episode Segments  0:34 – Intro 2:28 – We need a future 9:19 – Pollyanna 10:54 – Contingency   Relevant Links Criterion Institute website and LinkedIn Joy’s  LinkedIn AVPN – Asian Venture Philanthropy Network herbertanderson.org 

In this episode, we’ll revisit a conversation Joy had with two amazing leaders in the field of sustainable finance back in September of 2021. They were simply recording a series of context sessions in advance of a conference on using finance to address gender-based violence with Daniella Jaramillo, who is at the time at HESTA, a superannuation fund or pension fund in Australia and Geeta Aiyer, one of the founders of the field of sustainable finance, the founder of Boston Common. The three have a conversation about why the future matters in finance. It dives into specific investment methodologies for being able to name potential futures that can affect the value of our investments and how we determine their materiality – and why so often we get the future wrong.   Episode Segments  0:34 – Intro 3:25 – Why does future matter so much in finance? 10:06 – Who are the people that are determining confidence? How are their own biases impacting their ability to truly capture a real idea of the future? 21:03 – What’s happening with the way we look at the future? 37:23 – What is the future that we’re creating indicators against?   Relevant Links  Criterion Institute website and LinkedIn Joy’s LinkedIn Daniela Jaramillo HESTA Geeta Aiyer Boston Common Asset Management 

In this episode, we have two segments that we're going to weave together both focused on investment theses. At Criterion, one of the most important levers of change, in our opinion, is to look at shaping, reshaping and creating the investment theses that reflect how investors see the future and therefore how they make investments in the present. The first segment is a broad exploration of an investment thesis and how it works, particularly when investing with a gender lens. In the second segment, we explore and an investment thesis we created for the Pacific Island region, with support of the Australian Government and the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade. This investment thesis has served as a model for how to reframe how investors see value in a region.   Episode Segments  00:34 - Intro 03:40 - What is an investment thesis? 04:27 - How does an investment thesis work? 09:01 – What does it mean to be a gender lens investor? 11:42 – What is the Pacific Rise Program?  18:47 – How do we invest in the informal sector? 22:55 – How can analyzing gender patterns inform diversification?   Relevant Links  Criterion Institute website and LinkedIn Joy’s  LinkedIn Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade Pacific Rise Investopedia  Asian Development Bank Real Impact Scaling Impact - GSG (gsgii.org) (Pacific Rise investment thesis is highlighted in this study) 

In this episode, Joy has a conversation with a colleague, Pablo Freund, who spent several months looking in depth at economic sanctions and investments tied to the realities in Afghanistan at the end of 2021, into the early part of 2022. Human rights were challenged by the shift in power that happened in August of 2021, as the Taliban took control of Afghanistan again. How can we bring a financial imagination to the work of looking at economic sanctions, one of the most complicated parts of our economic system? How can understanding how to use sanctions as a tool to create peace or end conflict to navigate a very complicated terrain. Where is there space for a financial imagination amidst a humanitarian crisis?  Episode Segments   00:34 - Intro 02:20 - What is the point of a sanction and what does it do? 08:26 - How the US is co-opting the struggle for women’s rights as a justification for the use of sanctions. 15:37 - How do we balance the power dynamics in a feminist foreign policy? 22:49 - What’s the tie between the informal economy and taxation? What are the parallels?    Relevant Links Criterion Institute website and LinkedIn Joy’s  LinkedIn Pablo Freund’s LinkedIn Versailles Treaty Haqqani Network The Taliban in Afghanistan 

In this episode, we’re going to look at some of the power dynamics in field building organizations. Think of the sociology, the medical profession or gender lens investing as fields. There are three ways to think about fields: a field of activities, a field of ideas and a field of people and organizations.  The first segment looks at the context around being a field building organization in which it is ridiculously difficult to fundraise because you're not the ones doing, you're the ones connecting. So how do you raise money? The second segment looks at a very important practice in field building, naming. We'll look at a particular case study in Criterion’s history around medical debt and think about the power of names. How do we decide what to call things? As we change how we understand them, how do we rename them? The third segment looks at teaching and how so many of us who are building fields are in a position where we are teachers. We need permission to teach, though. We often confuse the act of teaching with influence. We go out and when we influence people to take up activities like gender lens investing, we ask that people come to training where we're not actually teaching because nobody wants to learn yet. It is expensive to spend time in a teaching mode when folks are not yet ready to learn.   Episode Segments  00:34 - Intro 03:53 - Even pioneers have to check their power 13:46 - Celebrating naming, renaming, and the discoveries that come with it  20:25 - Asking permission to teach    Relevant Links  Criterion Institute website and LinkedIn Joy’s  LinkedIn Brookings Institute 

Show Notes: In this episode, Joy weaves together three segments around one core idea: “how do we design investment vehicles that work for the context in which they're investing?”. In the first segment, we’ll look at a slogan that Criterion has been playing with for a while — “fix the capital, not the company”. This segment expands on the idea that the capital should be designed to meet the needs of the companies rather than fixing the companies to meet the needs of the capital. This leads to the second segment which is focused on normal growth businesses and why we struggle to have enough investment vehicles that meet their needs. In general, women tend to build and grow normal growth businesses, so we’ll analyze the gender dynamics to why we are prioritizing high growth businesses. Finally, in the third segment, we look at how we solve for the ecosystem, not the enterprise. As an example, we’ll discuss the menstrual health market in the Pacific Islands. How can we invest to address the problems in the market that are shared by many enterprises? How can we invest in an ecosystem – in shifting the patterns and power dynamics in a particular market — in such a way that the enterprises are more likely to flourish. Episode Segments  00:35 - Intro 04:04 - Why we need to fix the capital not the company 10:11 - Normal growth businesses matter too  13:50 - Fixing the entire ecosystem not just a single enterprise Relevant Links Criterion Institute website and LinkedInJoy’s LinkedInVillage CapitalAustralian Government Department of Foreign Aid and TradePacificRISE Case Study (MHTFV)

We invite you to join us on a journey—an audio journey, to explore and expand how to use finance and investments as tools for transformative and equitable change in the world. Hosted by Criterion Institute’s founder Joy Anderson, episodes will include a variety of audio segments that can take many forms. Often these segments may comprise conversations with friends and co-workers or interviews with changemakers. At other times Joy may walk listeners through a framework or help us reframe a problem or narrative. And from time to time, they may even take the form of a famous Joy Anderson rant … our favorite!As you tune in, you’ll often hear Joy discussing power dynamics and structural inequities at the intersection of gender, sexual orientation, race, faith, age, and many others. Conversations will also span the gamut of finance whether it’s impact investing, sustainable public equities, or municipal debt. She and her guests might dive into an infrastructure project or dip their toes into sovereign bonds.If that sounds a little overwhelming, don’t worry. As Joy likes to say, systems of finance and investments are complex, often intentionally to exclude outsiders. That’s why Joy will use this podcast to break the systems of finance into their component parts and make them more easily understood, really get underneath the processes, structures, and analysis, so that we can put them back together in new ways to create more equitable outcomes.Consider yourself invited to the Criterion Institute Podcast.