Shifting power through a participatory approach: An interview with Equality Fund’s Adaora Ogbue
Equality Fund launched in 2019, with a $300M anchor from Global Affairs Canada. They recently launched their investment theory of change, which centres historically excluded grassroots feminist movements. We spoke to Director, Investment Strategy Adaora Ogbue about how their model seeks to disrupt systems of finance, and why it’s critical to align their investments - not just grantmaking - with deep gender impact.
What were some of the challenges in getting the Equality Fund off the ground?
We have accountability to so many different groups of people. Primarily and historically, these are the types of people who have been left out of the financial equation. So when we launched our program to invest, using an endowment to help us support our grant making, there were a lot of questions around it. Why did you choose this path? Why isn't it more feasible to just grant out the $300m anchor? So one of the things I think we've had to do is learn to listen to those constituents and bridge the gap between them and the wider investing community. In some cases it means finding different ways to communicate, meeting them where they are in terms of language and understanding around it. The Equality Fund model has three pillars: investment, grant-making and philanthropy. We have the challenge of meshing them together. The only way for us to do this is to engage with our data and diverse stakeholders—listen to their issues and solutions.
What do those communities and gender experts feel the investors are getting wrong?
“One of the ways we’ve [included the voices of feminist activists and feminist economist] is by creating an Investment Advisory Council.”
The thing they feel is missing is a real understanding of the feminist viewpoint around capital and its use. So one of the things that we've been encouraged to do is to really lean into addressing feminist activists and feminist economists, bringing their voices into our world as we bring this investment strategy together. One of the ways we've done this is by creating an Investment Advisory Council. This diverse body of investors, feminist activists, economists, and women’s rights advocates ensures that the perspectives and hard-earned wisdom of their work are incorporated across our investment activities. As a non-voting body, the Council provides advice to our investment team and the Equality Fund’s investment committee on our approach to gender-lens investing (GLI).
Tell us about that theory of change.
Our investment theory of change is really like a north star that informs our investment program. We want to be able to take the tenets of our DNA, as funders of global feminist movements, and use the experience to help us to describe the change that we seek to make through our investment program, with the help of our partners and peers. It is going to help us build a strong focus on what aspects of gender lens decision-making we can apply to re-balance power dynamics in the investment ecosystem to provide better funding for feminist movements.
We’re looking at how we can be an actor and listener. We're very intent on that idea of shifting power. There are areas where we think that we can help move the needle, not just in terms of investing in women-led funds and businesses, but influencing the entire value chain. In some cases, we can play a leading role. In others, we look to our partners and peers to achieve positive impact.
Do you think institutional investors like pension funds are ready to talk about power and social justice?
Definitely. I believe institutional investors are paying attention. It may take decades but they're paying attention to the social commentary, the social norms. I think what is missing is some of them need encouragement, and this happens by really removing some of the barriers they may face. Some of these people want to be movers but are hesitant because of the regulatory landscape. The landscape prevents them from investing in certain deal sizes and in certain stages. Also there's a lot of hesitancy from pension funds to invest in emerging managers, and there has to be a way to help them imagine it’s possible. Part of the problem is the legislation. I've always been a supporter of things like blended finance; having smart partnerships that help people reach their goals as investors, while mitigating risk in a way that works best for them.
Where do you want to be in 12 months?
“We encourage those who would like to get started in GLI to invest in one of our products through our OCIO (Outsourced Chief Investment Officer).”
We're working with our Outsourced Chief Investment Officer (OCIO), Rock Creek, to apply our GLI criteria, which will be published towards the end of the summer. We’ve already developed our theory of change that's helped to inform our intersectional investment guidelines. Combined, these tools serve as our high-level investment thesis. These will all be made available publicly to help other investors consider their investment decisions with gender at the centre. The gender lens investing criteria is actually going to be the metric by which we assess potential investments. Once we've made those investments, we continue to use the criteria to monitor their performance in terms of the impact that we want. So we've developed that and our OCIO will apply the criteria within our public market investments. Our private market strategy is in its early stages of development right now. I'm hoping that by this time next year we'll be able to apply our gender lens criteria to its fullest extent.
In the meantime, we encourage those who would like to get started in GLI to invest in one of our products through our OCIO. We are building GLI products in every asset class, working hard to open up those investments to others. We have one-pagers available on all of our bespoke products and we’re happy to share them and connect interested investors with our OCIO for further due-diligence.
What gender lens investing challenge keeps you up at night?
I think part of it is how intent we are on mobilising $255m CAD in capital from various investments towards our $1B goal for feminist organising and gender equality over the next 15 years. The other thing is that we've strictly said this is absolutely possible, it is absolutely possible to invest in a 100% gender lens-focused strategy. We feel pressure to prove the point that this can be viable. It also means that we have to look at how we allocate our endowment; we're not going to be taking concessionary bets. We put a lot on the shoulders of our OCIO, but that's why it's so important that we're able to work together. We've got a lot of work to do.
