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Gender Lens Investing: Impact Investing ...

Kaufmann, Lauren, ...

Technical Note

Gender Lens Investing: Impact Investing for the Benefit of Women

Kaufmann, Lauren; Kemp, Bianca

E-0517 | Published February 21, 2025 | 10 pages Technical Note

Collection: Darden School of Business

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Impact investing is an investment strategy that aims to generate attractive financial returns while achieving positive social and/or environmental impact. In 2007—with the aim to “rally private investment houses, and the private investment capital they direct, into support for the burgeoning social enterprises emerging in both developed and developing countries around the world”—the Rockefeller Foundation coined "impact investing," and two years later, it launched the Global Impact Investing Network (GIIN), which has since become the primary industry association for impact investors. In recent years, impact investing has experienced a meteoric rise, surpassing $1.5 trillion in assets under management for the first time in 2024. Gender lens investing (GLI), the focus of this technical note, is one strategy within impact investing; it aims to create gendered social impact. According to the GIIN, investors can enact GLI by - investing in women-owned or women-led enterprises; - investing in enterprises that promote workplace equity (e.g., in staffing, management, boardroom representation, or along supply chains); or - investing in enterprises that offer products or services that substantially improve the lives of women and girls. This note offers an in-depth exploration of GLI, its place in both private and public markets and the institutions driving its growth, GLI in emerging economies, and how investors might employ GLI as an investment strategy.